Summary

Kamala Harris’s political skills have transformed a potentially disastrous 2024 presidential election into a competitive race.

Despite initial skepticism and a challenging campaign, Harris has improved her public image and closed the gap with Trump on key issues. Since Biden stepped aside in July and endorsed her, she has shifted from an unpopular vice president to a viable candidate, even matching Trump in polls on economic issues.

Her leadership has given Democrats a chance to prevent a Trump landslide and halt the rise of American authoritarianism.

  • BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    The fact that you thought I would vote for a WOMAN over a Rapist Felon who Promised to create HUGE Financial Hardships while killing my Daughter is LAUGHABLE!

  • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Are you fucking kidding? This campaign has been a fucking train wreck. There was genuine excitement behind her candidacy when Biden stepped down, and Walz actually generated even more enthusiasm. Since then, she has spent every moment of the campaign killing that energy. She alienated Muslim and Arab voters by refusing to allow a Palestinian speaker at the DNC. She’s alienated her progressive base by campaigning with Liz Cheney and Laura Bush to court moderate Republicans. They’re literally rerunning the 2016 playbook and saying, “Yeah, but this time I’ve got a good feeling about it!”

    I hope she wins, and if you’re reading this and you haven’t voted yet, please just vote for her, especially if you live in a swing state. But Jesus Fucking Christ, let’s not pretend she’d even have a shot of winning if she wasn’t up against a facist rapist.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      She’s alienated her progressive base by campaigning with Liz Cheney and Laura Bush to court moderate Republicans. They’re literally rerunning the 2016 playbook and saying, “Yeah, but this time I’ve got a good feeling about it!”

      You missed the point of those actions. She’s campaigning with Cheney and Bush to court women Republicans. Its a good strategy. My guess, if Harris wins it will be largely thanks to women stepping up in the voting booth.

      • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        No, I get the strategy. It’s just bad. If abortion is your deciding issue, you’re going to vote for Harris. Suburban women may very well be the key to this election, I just don’t think that they were waiting for someone to give them permission to vote for Harris. I especially don’t think that any of them who might have gone for Trump would be swayed by anyone with the last name Cheney or Bush.

        Also, the assumption had to have been that they could court these conservative women safely because progressive groups would turn out to defeat Trump. I think that’s a very dangerous gamble, especially without doing something to energize progressives. Breaking with Biden on Gaza, even just a little, would have done a lot, but they decided against that. I’m afraid that they’ve demoralized a large number of their core voting groups to court a small number of conservatives.

        • draneceusrex@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Likely voters is the key. The Never Trump crowd is part of the “likely voters” crowd. If the far-left voted, then Bernie would probably won the primary in '16 or '20. Let’s get through today, and I am right beside you to push to the left!

          • pjwestin@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Well, I don’t want to re-hash the rat-fucking the Dems gave Bernie in '16 and '20, but yeah, vote Harris on '24, for lack of literally any other viable alternative to facism. This year, I’ve voted for the Democratic ticket for the first time in over a decade (My state is incredibly blue, but I wanted to show solidarity with some swing state friends who were reluctant to vote for Harris).

      • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        If that’s what they wanted they really should have been pointing out all the white women dying or going to prison in right wing states. White conservative women are 10x as racist as the men, you need to make it clear the gun is pointed at them if you want them to care at all.

    • Fosheze@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Exactly, Harris has been mag dumping into her own feet on the final stretch to make this as close of a race as it is. It’s like she’s desperate to not win by too much. My inner conspiracy theorist is wondering if that’s not actually the case. If harris won by a landslide then that would neuter trump and the far right as a threat. That would mean the DNC couldn’t keep using them to push corporate moderates through by just saying “vote us or get the fash again”. But if the DNC just barely wins then they can keep using trump and those like him as a threat.

      • Blackbeard@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Y’all are really giving off “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” vibes with this nonsense.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah trying to appeal to conservatives didn’t work for Hillary and I have no idea why they think it would have worked now. You aren’t convincing the cult to un-cult, this should have been a referendum on Roe v. Wade and a litigation of Trump’s failures in every decision he made, dancing on every issue to see if not offending christo-fascists would pull them to the center is insane.

    • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Thank you for bringing attention to the incompetence of Kamala’s campaign. She and her campaign at one point even had to silence Tim Walz for his believes because they went against the platform.

      Then the race after Republicans by uniting with the Cheneys just cucked them so hard.

      Tim Walz was the key to this campaign’s victory. And Kamala dropped the ball.

    • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      You could start by reading the article and actually responding to their arguments, as they explicitly address what you are stating here right at the beginning.

  • paddirn@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    It is a much better situation than we were in just a few short months ago, so we’ve got that going for us, BUT we’re living in the age of huge organizations not being able to stick the landing and epic faceplants that are screwing up countries/empires virtually overnight, so… yeah.

  • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    No it’s not, liberals tried the age old tactic of getting minorities and the working class to vote for neoliberals that have devastated their well being for 50 years because the GOP is racist, and for some reason it didn’t work this time.

    Y’all took the wrong lesson from COVID and 2020. It wasn’t that voters were going to continue to put up with Democrat’s fealty to the right and corporate donors. It was that COVID was so unprecedented that they held their nose one last time. ,

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    The fact that the election is a toss up shows to me just how dumb America is.

    The choice is an average politician or an orange wannabe fascist … and a good percentage of the country can’t decide? Or they choose the fascist?

    The fact that it is even a close race just displays in big giant signs just generally how stupid the country has become.

    I normally don’t like being that blunt or unkind but these people are literally holding the future of the world in their hands and they have no freaking clue what they are doing.

    I’m not American and it is completely frustrating to sit outside as we watch a bunch of idiots being indecisive about either choosing normalcy or insanity. It’s such a hard question for America that they need to have a never ending debate about it.

    • chakan2@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      need to have a never ending debate about it.

      It’s not a debate at this point. The Trump supporters stopped living in reality a long time ago. I’m still friends with a couple on FB, and the shit they post is complete lunacy. They won’t look at anything that comes from NBC, ABC, or even CBS. Fox is hit and miss…if it’s remotely critical of anything conservative it’s an MSM conspiracy.

      The Russian / Chinese social ops did their job to perfection. These people only watch X, Newsmax, Britbart, and OANN these days.

      They’re regular people outside of the internet, but they’ve walled themselves off from anything that might put a dent in their world view.

    • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The problem is those of us who want a better life for all. For people to be able to live and not just exist, who strive for kindness. Our problem is always that we are too willing to turn our collective cheek. We are too willing to be kind for too long, be too tolerant, too understanding. Meanwhile, the angry and intolerable, and the malicious and evil, stand high atop shaky foundations yelling loudly serious threats.

      This election cycle is a representation of where our own anger has gone. I just fear it has come too late.

    • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s sad how uninformed people have become. They get their news from Facebook or TV. Literally zero research done so everything they base their vote on is anecdotal or just assumptions based on their own life experiences.

      We need to do better about getting information to the people. The government shouldn’t have to jumó through hoops to educate the public on basic shit

    • lorty@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I mean if she really wanted to guarantee victory all she had to do was to stop sending weapons to Israel. Great job by her to keep the genocide and her chances of election going.

      • frostysauce@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        You’re very uninformed if you think that Harris coming out against Israel (which is how EVERY news network would spin it) would lead to anything but a Trump victory.

      • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Guarantee a Trump victory, that is.

        I agree it’s horrible that Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians for every person killed in the Hamas attack, and Harris needs to find a way to rein in Netanyahu if she becomes President. And that may be by withholding all weapons. But if and when Trump takes power, he’s going to help his buddy Bibi nuke Gaza into a wasteland as a Final Solution to the Palestinian problem. Harris needs every last vote, even from those who support Zionism, but have other reasons for voting against Trump.

    • blattrules@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Imagine how bad it feels to have those idiots as neighbors. I moved to this neighborhood around two years ago and I was really happy that there were no visible trump flags/signs around. It’s nice that everyone can keep their politics to themselves. In the last year, somehow that changed and there were a few signs put up here and there, but in the last month, they’ve multiplied and now they’re on multiple houses on every block. I don’t understand how anyone can see what’s going on and still feel compelled to go get a sign and put it up…unless they’re just trying to put up the scariest Halloween decorations. Now the nice neighborhood I moved to two years ago looks like election headquarters for someone who tried to overthrow the government four years ago.

    • Zombie-Mantis@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Being susceptible to fascism isn’t exactly an American invention. It’s a failure of liberalism that leads to this, as democracy is eroded by capitalists.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Dude the right is full on talking about anyone they disagree with being a demon. Literally a thing that’s never existed, and they at on top. If you’re not in a state that’s entirely unwilling to put you in a concentration camp, you might consider moving.

    • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      how dumb America is.

      Not to mention how dumb the UK, France, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Croatia, and the Czech Republic are…

      By the way, what country do you live in?

  • jaybone@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I’ve seen some people argue that had Biden stayed in, we would be seeing the same numbers. Not sure if I agree with that. But it’s an interesting thought.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      My guess is he’d be doing worse, that the advantage of being a white male wouldn’t be enough to overcome how his age is affecting him.

    • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      No. Biden wasnt getting WORSE numbers out of Republicans or centrist non party members, he lost all confidance from Dems. Flat out. You can’t show up sick to debate at 2am in the morning, at some point he should have said no, it’s going to make sense or we won’t, He had everything to lose in that debate, only his side gave a shit about it, the trumpers give zero fucks if Trump is deranged and unintelligible.

  • DancingBear@midwest.social
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    2 months ago

    Here’s a list of progressive policies both foreign and domestic that supermajorities of both democrats and republicans support.

    What’s that? You’d rather support genocide and brag about being endorsed by Dick Cheney?

    You do you, I guess……. You’ll still get your weird blue maga votes i suppose.

    • SeattleRain@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I know, Harris couldn’t have bent over more for reactionary conservatives that weren’t raving mad Trump supporters if she had tried.

      Then acting entitled to minority voters’ support even going so far as to scold some of them like black men.

  • Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    I would have said this aged like milk after Trump’s landslide-even-the-popular-vote victory, but even milk doesn’t sour this fast. This aged like unrefrigerated shellfish.