Kamala vs the Orange Felon - Presidential Race 2024 - Polls, News, Etc...

[IronWing]

Or they could just have implemented good policy like Medicare For All to get rid of the worst rent seeking middlemen in our healthcare system.

Oh, I agree completely. Obama squandered a once in a generation opportunity to get a single payer system. The Dems could have had another New Deal era type lock on Congress had they delivered. Instead, we got ACA and the Dems got their asses handed to them in 2010.

 

[jdubs03]

Oh, I agree completely. Obama squandered a once in a generation opportunity to get a single payer system. The Dems could have had another New Deal era type lock on Congress had they delivered. Instead, we got ACA and the Dems got their asses handed to them in 2010.

I’m not so sure of that. There were Democrats at the time who had to be vigorously persuaded to come onboard in order for the passage of the ACA to come to fruition. A full on single-payer system at the time looked to be out of reach. Now, if you had a Democratic Senate made up with the number of members then with the ideology of now then yes it would’ve been possible. I just don’t think they had the votes back then for such a wholesale structural change. I mean, they couldn’t even get cap-and-trade passed.

 

[akugami]

The GOP is great at lying. Do you want Democrats to follow suit? No, you want the Democrats to get really good at portraying and proving the GOP as liars. It's really obvious to me.

I don't want the Democrats to lie, but there has to be some better method of countering the bullshit from the GQP. I refuse to call them the GOP at this point. The GOP is dead. Any attempt at civility and working together is long gone. They don't want to drag us back to 1776 AD, they want to drag us back to 1776 BC.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Why do you keep carrying water for the Republicans? That is what they want you think is there will be no mid-term elections and elections in 2028. You keep yelling fascism is just going to help the Republicans. Yelling fascism didn't help win the 2024 and it will not help in future elections. Yes there will be future elections.

So Trump isn't a threat to democracy you're saying? It was just some BS to scare people out of voting for him you're saying?

 

[jdubs03]

I don't want the Democrats to lie, but there has to be some better method of countering the bullshit from the GQP. I refuse to call them the GOP at this point. The GOP is dead. Any attempt at civility and working together is long gone. They don't want to drag us back to 1776 AD, they want to drag us back to 1776 BC.

For sure messaging needs to be overhauled. But it won’t be an easy task. Everything needs to be simplified down to a few words because the attention span of most people these days is less than a squirrel.
The Democrats have better policies than the MAGA crowd and their periphery, I have no doubt of that, but that shit is over for the next 4+ years. They’re the ones who need to explain their policies, and that in this day and age of information illiteracy is not sufficient. Their opposition just makes shit up most of the time, and has short sound-bites that repeat these deceptive talking points.

One thing I’ve heard over and over this past 4 days was that voters were upset at the economy/inflation and that since inflation occurred during the Biden administration, these voters ascribed blame to him. So they wanted change. But no one when interviewing these people saying this and voted for Trump asked for them to explain what Trump policies would lower prices. It angers me to such a high degree I yell at the TV or my tablet. No one points out that Trumps’ two main economic policies would in effect do the exact opposite of what they were just voted into office to do. That’s why I mentioned
Phillip the other day (I needed a couple days off of posting). Phillip thinks that Trump is going to get prices down. But no explanation of why he thinks that. And no consideration of the global inflation causes (Covid and previous stimulus from the last decade), our quicker growth and recovery. It’s an automatic facepalm and smh.

It’s a messaging war. Clearly the Dems lost this time around. And tbh idk if they could’ve won it with the ascription of blame for higher prices to Biden. It was just too much to explain quickly and succinctly to these low information voters.
It’s impossible to tell what the situation will be like in 2028. But I’m at least optimistic that there will be plenty of opportunities for a better story to be told by then. Particularly if Trump does try and boot out 10 million people and do more tax cuts for rich people.

 

[pmv]

It’s not just one man though, it’s thousands of people who are willing to protect Trump who are in various positions in politics and institutions. Hell, do you not remember that a Trump appointed judge basically threw a case for Trump? Hitler gained power because those in power didn’t think he would be as bad as he was if they placated him. We are in an almost identical situation and it’s crazy to see people completely unaware of history repeating itself.

What's that phrase? "History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme".

Just looked it up and that was Mark Twain...as opposed to Marx's rather more verbose "Hegel remarks somewhere that great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"

I don't think Trump will follow the same template as Hitler, but it's quite bad enough that he (and his tame plutocrat-bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court) will almost certainly continue to erode democracy bit-by-bit, in a way that is clearly self-sustaining and self-perpetuating.

The slide to authoritarianism will thus probably be comparatively gradual, but inexorable, all the same, in the absence of any radical attempt at reversing it.

 

[pmv]

A "listener email" on the BBC's Americast podcast just suggested that Biden should step down and make Kamala (briefly) the 47th president. For no other reason than to oblige the Trump campaign to have to reprint/remake all their merchandise to change his number to 48.

(Strikes me it would also save the US the embarrassment of still not having had a woman President, 45 years after Thatcher was elected).

 

[ondma]

This myth that democrats play identity politics or push woke agendas is f-ing annoying. It’s straight Republican propaganda.

And in other news, water isn't wet and the sun rises in the east. And please note that I never used the word "woke". That was your projection of what I was saying.

 

[Jaskalas]

Republicans used to be smart enough to actually debate the merits of an idea and offer an alternative. Murdoch made them all dumber, and only asked that they say the opposite of what Democrats said.

I do suspect the founders never imagined people would just get so damned stupid. It's like designing a system of government that Pakleds can upkeep.

To add much needed context.

The founder's system was designed for ONLY Wealthy. White. Men. to vote.
And if you move past the face value of it. You will find a meaning. Birds of a feather flock together.
Our nation was meant for people of a common purpose, a common identity. By our very creed. E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one. Become one.

We have utterly failed to upkeep and maintain the foundation of Democracy in the United States.
No, not because we added a voice and a right to vote for the Poor, or POC, or Women.
We failed to keep the peace through shared assimilation. Our great melting pot. Shattered by divisions.

Human nature will ALWAYS seek out noise from the signal. To misplace faith and move it from Enlightenment and towards the darkness of our inner selves. To abandon reason for madness and to forsake all bonds of fellowship. Without a guiding light to propel us forward we will find ourselves lost in the darkness. To repeat ALL the crimes and Genocides of humanity's past, present, and future. Forever echoing and reverberating as part of our nature.

American politics has crossed the Rubicon. Whatever we become in the future, we need to decide. Because there will be no going back. We can never be what we once were. We can only decide the path we take moving forward. For that I call upon our founder's creed, along with the strength to build a bigger, stronger, melting pot.

It must be the purpose of our society to recognize human nature and protect us from it. To protect us from ourselves. That IS the point of the Bill of Rights, is it not? American Democracy, if it is to survive, cannot be allowed to shrink from this task. Our Democratic institutions must be the light that guides us. One that will take a diverse people and assimilate them. To form that common bond with respect for Truth, Science, and Reason. If we do not hold fast to the signal of Enlightenment, then ere long we will have nothing but blood and ash. And ourselves to blame.

 

[cytg111]

No we dont seek it out.... But se do have primal programming that stereotypes shit, why, cause it tends to keep us alive.

The issue however is that there is always those people around that dont care what he has to burn down to gain even a little for himself.

If you understand the above programming and you have access to methods of information dispersal... and you dont give a shit about anyone but yourself... Then there is profit to be made.

You gotta get rid of the fuck you people. And educate yourself on their weapons of choice.

 

[ivwshane]

And in other news, water isn't wet and the sun rises in the east. And please note that I never used the word "woke". That was your projection of what I was saying.

Whether you said it or not doesn’t change the point.

 

[zinfamous]

No, I'll stay pissed at the dipshit DNC for picking a trash candidate who couldn't drive turnout when it was crystal clear a year ago Biden was dead in the water and the party needed to go in a whole new direction.

Uh, they did drive turnout. It's just D's voted for Trump. That seems the story right now.

The point is there is no D candidate out there that would have made much of a difference. No matter how you inform the people on the facts: inflation isn't really a thing now and this is simple price gauging from corporate profiteers, you're voting to tax yourself out of your house if you vote for Trump, etc, they don't listen. They aren't going to listen to anyone that wants to inform them that they are wrong. They don't care.

What candidate is going to sway people that are determined to shoot themselves in the face? This is happening everywhere, btw. Not just the US.

 

[zinfamous]

There is an uncomfortable talk we have not had yet.

If all it takes is a momentary dip in living standards for democracy to kill itself off... Then this was always going to happen. Be it war volcano meteor or climate change. My logic circuits pretty much all line up that democracy is an unstable local minimum. How can it not be.

This was always the risk and the founders knew this, as it was known in the ancient experiments with Democracy as well.

existential fear and terror leads the lizard brain to go with strong leaders that make bold promises to end the terror for everyone. The risk, always, was selecting a scoundrel that would simply "create that very fear in the delusional brains of the uninformed, and easily-convinced minds of the general rabble."

This has always existed with democracy. Those that "love it and feel lucky to live in this time" are the easiest exploited, and the most dangerous to democracy because they will never understand that they are mere tools for such bad actors.

 

[zinfamous]

IMHO she ran a good campaign. That doesn't change the fact that she's just not a good candidate because Muricans won't vote for a Black woman. It sucks, but that's the reality. It's no mere coincidence that Trump defeated two women in general elections, and lost to a white man.**

Heck when a lot of people who actually voted for her say she isn't great, just imagine all the unwashed masses who didn't vote for her. I have no beef with Harris, but would I have supported her in an open primary? No. After she took over for Joe Biden in July, you had a member here who swears he's always voted (D) for President and then proceeded to say he didn't know whether Harris or Trump is worse. Like really?

I'm sorry but it's lunacy for some people here to claim she was a really good candidate when she straight up lost the national PV. I was happy to vote for Harris because I know what she stands for, but that doesn't mean she was the right person to win.* I understand she was the logical choice in mid July, and she was dealt a very difficult hand. As others here have alluded to, you could argue Joe Biden's legacy was the biggest loser in this election (besides the American people).

* Recall that Joe Biden's essential argument in 2020 is that he could recapture swing voters to beat DJT. Hindsight is 20/20 but Harris cannot make that argument.
** Knowing this, would you want Whitmer at the top of the ticket in 2028? Sounds dicey, no?

The one real advantage Biden would have had is the Union vote, especially PA and probably MI. A lot of lifelong Biden/D voters quickly flipped with Kamala, and they weren't going to come back. Partly racism/misogyny, but also Biden = Scranton = looks and sounds like them, whereas Kamal is west coast liberal prosecutor big-talking lady. But even so, the young union people in these areas have been switching to Trump, anyway, fully knowing that they are shooting themselves in the dick, simply because Trump = sounds like me and DGAF. It's weird when they admit that they don't actually care about having a job in the near future and that all of their struggles are only ever going to get worse when they support him, but tribalism seems such a powerful force for certain classes of people.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Uh, they did drive turnout. It's just D's voted for Trump. That seems the story right now.

The point is there is no D candidate out there that would have made much of a difference. No matter how you inform the people on the facts: inflation isn't really a thing now and this is simple price gauging from corporate profiteers, you're voting to tax yourself out of your house if you vote for Trump, etc, they don't listen. They aren't going to listen to anyone that wants to inform them that they are wrong. They don't care.

What candidate is going to sway people that are determined to shoot themselves in the face? This is happening everywhere, btw. Not just the US.

Amazing how quickly this forum flip flopped from Harris will win for sure the polls are overestimating Trump this time to but this election was unwinnable and Kamala did as well as anyone could have. The DNC has now cleared the field and lost twice to a felon the majority of the country hates but half the forum still wants to carry water for them, it's no surprise the DNC never learns anything from their losses.

 

[zinfamous]

The USA is not Hitler Germany. You're saying any one man can take over a country. It doesn't happen often.

The USA is currently ~1933 Germany, yes. This is not, in any way, hyperbole.

 

[zinfamous]

Amazing how quickly this forum flip flopped from Harris will win for sure the polls are overestimating Trump this time to but this election was unwinnable and Kamala did as well as anyone could have. The DNC has now cleared the field and lost twice to a felon the majority of the country hates but half the forum still wants to carry water for them, it's no surprise the DNC never learns anything from their losses.

OK, then.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Amazing how quickly this forum flip flopped from Harris will win for sure the polls are overestimating Trump this time to but this election was unwinnable and Kamala did as well as anyone could have. The DNC has now cleared the field and lost twice to a felon the majority of the country hates but half the forum still wants to carry water for them, it's no surprise the DNC never learns anything from their losses.

The Democratic opinion of the situation wasn't uninformed. It's universally known that Trump has a core base that's incapable of being eroded, but that base has objectively shrunk from 2016 due to time passing and COVID. It was universally understood that he polled poorly with younger audiences, and his base did indeed shrink by 2020. It was understood that it would continue to do so for 2024.

Polling as well has become very fuzzy since the rather catastrophic misses in 2018-2022 so they were watched but not taken as gospel. Given that, it wasn't unreasonable to assuming that they had a very high probability of winning as of a couple weeks ago.

Regardless of that, Democrats did not slack. They didn't hold course with what was subjectively a poor candidate, they pivoted when they needed to. They took the run seriously, pulled out the big names, including a bunch of former republicans.

Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, that's really okay. I do think effort should be put into the various reasons why exactly non-core voters went for Trump. Like, you're not going to win the incels who think Trump is going to make women ownership legal, but find those weirdos who got confused because Biden wasn't on the ticket and talk to them. Find the ones that voted on inflation despite having no idea what it was and talk to them, figure out what they actually want. Hit the streets, get some data points, spend 2 years crafting a message, test it on midterms, and refine it for another 2.

... Assuming we get another chance in 2/4 of course.

 

[K1052]

Arabs who punched for Trump cannot say they were not warned.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1855978104428060879

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Regardless of that, Democrats did not slack. They didn't hold course with what was subjectively a poor candidate, they pivoted when they needed to. They took the run seriously, pulled out the big names, including a bunch of former republicans.

Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, that's really okay. I do think effort should be put into the various reasons why exactly non-core voters went for Trump. Like, you're not going to win the incels who think Trump is going to make women ownership legal, but find those weirdos who got confused because Biden wasn't on the ticket and talk to them. Find the ones that voted on inflation despite having no idea what it was and talk to them, figure out what they actually want. Hit the streets, get some data points, spend 2 years crafting a message, test it on midterms, and refine it for another 2.

... Assuming we get another chance in 2/4 of course.

Bolded statements are in direct opposition. Campaigning with Liz Cheney is as moronic as moronic gets but of course the dipshit Harris and the DNC thought it was a great move. And pulled out big names? Who gives a shit about celebrity endorsements?

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Bolded statements are in direct opposition. Campaigning with Liz Cheney is as moronic as moronic gets but of course the dipshit Harris and the DNC thought it was a great move. And pulled out big names? Who gives a shit about celebrity endorsements?

Was talking about big Republicans, as well as Obama/Michelle, they poll extremely well.

You can call campaigning with Cheney to be a fail, but would you willingly eat crow if things had gone different and huge swathes of R's had actually flipped based on that?

 

[gothuevos]

Our shadow president.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1855943054693204110

 

[jdubs03]

Bolded statements are in direct opposition. Campaigning with Liz Cheney is as moronic as moronic gets but of course the dipshit Harris and the DNC thought it was a great move. And pulled out big names? Who gives a shit about celebrity endorsements?

Maybe calling Harris a dipshit is a tad much? It’s not her fault Biden tanked the debate. At that juncture, she was the only realistic candidate, especially when Biden endorsed her right after tanking.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Maybe calling Harris a dipshit is a tad much? It’s not her fault Biden tanked the debate. At that juncture, she was the only realistic candidate, especially when Biden endorsed her right after tanking.

Harris was clearly the better candidate and extremely qualified to lead our nation. Nobody is perfect, and yet I haven’t seen a single reason provided not to vote for her that didn’t include ignorance or misogyny.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Maybe calling Harris a dipshit is a tad much? It’s not her fault Biden tanked the debate. At that juncture, she was the only realistic candidate, especially when Biden endorsed her right after tanking.

She's a dipshit for campaigning with Cheney.