'No daylight’: Biden refused to let Harris break with him on policy issues during campaign, new book alleges
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-harris-policy-walz-trump-b2714431.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world402
Comments218
Let's blame Joe so Kamala can run again.
Not fooling me, DNC. I smell what you're cooking.
I want to tell myself that there's no way in hell they would let this happen, let alone make it happen.
Then I remember it's the DNC.
It’s not like they colluded to kneecap Bernie’s campaign. Wait…
Twice.
Kamala or Buttigeig, you can bet on it.
Seriously, go to Vegas. At least you'll make money on the end of the world.
Buttigeig is likely going to run given that he is giving up his chance at a Senate seat.
I feel like Walz is going to run as well. He's been showing up in national media a lot and seems to be becoming the face of the opposition.
Newsom seems like he's going to run as well, but he's been making terrible choices recently.
Yeah, he's trying to become the preordained nominee by making choices party leadership likes.
This guy gets it. Speaking as a Californian, this is exactly, precisely what's happening. I don't use this term a lot because it resurfaces trauma of not realizing I was posting in a thread on Hexbear, but Newsom is straight up the textbook definition of a shitlib. He's always kinda been a shitlib, with a ratio of one kinda okay decision to like four disappointing, mediocre, and shitty decisions that make the wealthy and corporate donors happy. Now that he sees a path to the presidency laid bare, he's fully embracing his shitlib instincts. Please, for the love of Buddha, don't vote for him in the primary.
As though primary votes matter. The party successfully argued in court that they don't.
You can always count on Ensign_Crab to twist the knife one last time. Gotta make sure they're demoralized.
Yup. If we don't de-throne establishment leaders in 2026 I'm afraid that this is the way we are going to go. And as a CA I've mostly been alright with Newsom's government, but he is absolutely not the guy for this moment in time in terms of the presidency.
Insert shameless plug for Saikat Chakrabarti, former AOC campaign manager and Chief of Staff who is running against Nancy Pelosi in the 2026 election. For those looking for a way to make a difference, supporting this guy's bid and making him famous is a good, tangible way to do it.
We need more AOCs and fewer Pelosis.
Yeah, Walz refuses to announce (like they always do) but you don't make the amount of noise he is without gearing up for something. I don't think there's any way he doesn't run, and currently he might even be my favorite of those that I'm confident will run. We've got a while before the next presidential election though, so anything could happen and I can't really be bothered thinking about.
Buttigieg has made it clear that he is not running for office and is looking forward to playing support over the next four years.
I'd bet they'll try to run Blinken or Shapiro. Harris cant bring in campaign donations, and donations are all the DNC cares about.
I feel like they have really poor name recognition. And while Shapiro looks great and presidential, Blinkin has a real "off" kind of look to him.
They're also both in a murder and land left theft cult, and you can be sure that they will use any influence they get to further entangle the US in that, at astronomical cost to the US.
I'm betting Mark Cuban. They (I believe, based on the sudden interest in him as a "Progressive billionaire" on various social media platforms, and in person talks) that the solution to a Reich Wing Oligarch is a different Reich Wing Oligarch, but Blue this time.
I don't think this is even close to possible. She has removed herself from public view for a reason. On a personal level, she's done. If she had any intentions to run for any kind of office, she would have emerged by now as an opposition leader.
She's free to run again, but this time she has to win the primary. And that's unlikely. It's rare in modern times for someone to lose a Presidential election and get another shot at it, Nixon and Trump are the only two in over a hundred years.
You seem to forget what they did to sanders. If they want a specific candidate they will make sure they win.
Also Adlai Stevenson in the 50s although he lost both times.
Same reaction here, and the DNC is just dumb enough to do it.
Well, there probably won't be any more elections, so there's that.
Yeah, I bet we won't even have mid terms in 2 years
Nah, I think we should run Biden one more time. Surely, it'll be different this time! /s
To be honest, this is just a signal that she probably wouldn't have been a good leader. Better than Trump, sure, but that bar is so low it's a tripping hazard.
She should have told Biden to pound sand after locking up the nomination.
But we should verify the claim before passing judgement.
Honestly, her campaign already signaled that. This, if true, just reinforces it. It also reinforces that Biden was a bad leader, which he was.
Obligatory: I voted for Harris and Biden and dems down ticket every election since I've been old enough to vote.
Man I am getting sick of needing to say this ahead of time/to anyone who goes "well if you criticized our candidates of their serious and actual issues, you must be a Republican!"
Definitely. And as soon as you say something leftist you're accused of not voting or "throwing away your vote" so you can't complain. Like, I get it. "Have the day you voted for" etc, but libs are pointing fingers at the wrong people. I've said it like a million times before, but sooo many of my leftist friends reluctantly voted Kamala when they were vehemently opposed to her stance on Palestine and now feel like they sold out for nothing. Like, at least if they hadn't voted they could say they stood for something. Now they don't even have a high horse to ride into the apocalypse on. The way libs will break your spirit is wild. They have more energy to fight leftists than republicans.
It's refreshingly less common here than reddit. I am so happy to find comrades in "i voted for dems but it was under duress" here.
That's basically how it was for me. Harris was going to win my state no matter what, I did it just to ensure numbers.
I'm still content that I left my vote for president blank. No to all genociders regardless of party-- no exceptions. Maybe the DNC will learn not to ever try that nonsense in an election again if they know they can't possibly win doing it. Or maybe this country will tear itself apart, but if the price of keeping it together is engaging in the mass murder of innocents, then this system of government will have to end and restart in some different form.
That's what it's been running on the entire time if we stop now it'll surely collapse!
Based.Blaming Biden makes sense. Blame the problems on the actual person in charge. Harris wasn’t in charge, she should’ve let Biden take all of the failures of the term, regardless of her position at the time
No democrat president has been "in charge" in 50+ years.
The owners of the DNC have been in charge.
As far as I'm aware, Biden controlled most of the campaign money at least initially. either way it's still a pretty weak excuse for Harris.
Biden really fucked us in so many ways though, I'm happy to blame him for losing the election as well. I mean he was the one who thought gaslighting us about the economy was a winning move, he put Harris in a terrible position to begin with. Not to mention deciding to run again in the first place, appointing a Trump collaborator as AF, refusing to exercise his power, etc etc
If I was kamala I would have slammed joe. For the good of the country, of course.
I think the best move would have been a substantial but firm and respectful break was the way to go forward.
If Kamala pushes back too hard against Joe, the establishment will question whether she grateful for his support and the opportunity he provided.
It's ridiculous to think that Harris couldn't have done what she wanted. Once you're named the nominee, that's it. They're not going to back out.
If she was unwilling to break from him because of his wishes, even if she was theoretically able, that speaks volumes about her as a leader.
If she runs again, we lose again.
IF there is another election, HitlerPig will get 98% of the vote, and he'll use his "popularity" with the American voters to justify defying the Constitutional prohibition against a 3rd term.
Elections are run at the state level, so they won't be that interfered with.
Not that it will matter; rigging the states with Republican state governments is more than enough
There are plenty of treasonous Republicans at the state level, managing elections. They were very active over the last four years getting MAGATraitors into influential election positions. Rolling Stone had a landmark article last year identifying hundreds of MAGATraitors in important election positions around the country.
Besides, between Muskrat, Russia, and China, and probably more, they have the best hackers on the planet to manipulate the process.
Oh I'm with you on the big IF. Hell, I'll be surprised if we even have legitimate mid-terms.
He will do anything to preserve his slim Congressional majorities. They give him credibility, even though he is legislating through Executive Orders anyway.
I expect that he will find an excuse to impose Martial Law and suspend elections until peace is restored.
OTOH, if he allows elections to happen, it's because he is confident that their cheating strategies will win, and we'll even see strong blue districts flip.
They will use polls reflecting current voter anger at weakling Democrats to justify the obviously fraudulent results.
Yep. It says she lacks critical leadership qualities.
I mean, that was the line from centrists anytime someone wanted any hope from harris that she might be less of a lapdog for netanyahu than biden was.
The problem was her campaign was largely run by Biden's people. He clearly was interfering with her campaign and she kept trying to make the most of it.
"We've also means tested the flashlights, so those who recall the time before the great darkness get less of the flashlights, and anyone who has flashlights that explode will be required to have a daily check of their pupils to ensure they've been good at not looking at the daylight."
Honestly this behavior is going to keep getting highlighted from Biden because he was an absolute stubborn idiot. He had polling showing him losing to Trump with over 400 electoral votes for MONTHS before dropping out. He blamed his family for staying in as long as he did, obviously it was him or what was left of him.
History will not look kindly on Biden for fucking over his one job of stopping Trump. Didn't arrest him, didn't defeat him, didn't stop most of the Jan 6 protestors, didn't go after the enablers of his actions, didn't really stop anything Trump did to avoid debt and jail and we ended up with him for Round 2, Even Worse This Time.
100% agreement. He should have arrested Agent Krasnov and his henchmen on the first day of his presidency, and detained them in isolation without bail or access to the media, until their trials were resolved. If he had done that, Krasnov and his Gang would be in prison right now, instead of the White House.
Instead Biden appointed a weakass Republican as his AG who gave him a 2 year head start to run out the clock.
The Dems had the perfect chance to defend our country from the MAGA scourge, but they totally abdicated their responsibility. It will be 100 times harder to take it back now, and I don't see it happening without violence.
i felt while he did introduce some good policies, hes much more conservative than obama. dint replace dejoy, and added his supporters in the BOG? allowed to have trump have all the air-time for 4 years straight? im guessing they needed biden to draw the conservative leaning voters that wernt entirely maga? not to mention garland who is a gop SHILL TOO.
his decision to not fire humpty dumpty dejoy was one of the first red flags I noticed months into his presidency.
he was supposed to replace it with DEM BOGs, but why gop ones, maybe the megadonors were threatening the DNC, like they probably did with SCHUMER recently. and also dint return the corp taxes to obama-era level.
he was too focused on pushing bipartisanship with piranhas
Look at democrats now. Still doing absolutely nothing. Even if they won they still wouldn’t have stopped Trump or Musk. They’d probably just stand aside if there was another Jan 6.
Real ted cruz moment, that.
more like the megadonors were starting to steer away from biden and harris.
Sounds like an excuse. She could've had a different stance but didn't. Because she's the same thing. She was asked point blank how she's any different than Biden and she couldn't answer.
she's setting up for 2028. assuming we have elections
After an L like this, I don't think Harris makes it to the 2nd primary debate
Harris always sucked. She's a former cop that hurt minorities.
The democrats have not held a fair (or one at all) primary in years, and this is assuming the us will even have elections again as the republicans would like to do the democrat method of primary but for elections.
Harris couldn't answer basic policy questions when she was running for president in 2020 either.
Nonsense. In 2020, she was one of the few that was supporting universal health care, for one thing. Unfortunately, she somehow decided, or was pressured, to stick with Biden's platform in 2024 instead of her own, more progressive, platform.
She raised her hand to that question in the debates and then mere days later walked it back and said she'd misunderstood the question.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/kamala-harris-walks-back-her-hand-moment-health-insurance-democratic-n1024756
She was one of the least popular candidates in the 2020 primary.
Dude, that's just not true. Did you even try to look into her policy positions?
sure did. Ever heard her speak?
I can believe this. She seemed frustrated when she spoke about the Palestine situation, and I picked up a strong subject that she wanted to say more about her objections over Israel's actions than she did.
Yeah, but that didnt bode well for her as a president...
She was the candidate, crowned with zero primary weeks before the election, with zero threat of being replaced.
But she stuck line by line to what Bidens team said
Buden's team that was Hillary's team, and before that Bill's team.
Kamala would have been an empty suit for the same neoliberal machine and she would have appointed the DNC chair back to that faction so they could influence the primary in four years.
If Kamala literally had to say exactly what her advisors said when she was literally irreplaceable, she would have been a president in name only.
Don't get me wrong, I held my nose and voted D like always, but I knew she was fucking it up, and long term that might have been for the best.
Tim Walz came out swinging, and they instantly sidelined him.
That alone was enough to say that the campaign was fucked.
-Neoliberals apparently
I still want Ken Martin to publicly commit to ending the Victory Fund bullshit tho.
And the state who literally has a law that they go first had their delegates stripped for not violating their own state law...
That's how the "primary" started.
I don't think I need to give any other examples after that.
It's different because DNC leaders, Bidens campaign team, his current admin, and various media organizations (owned by billionaire conservatives) colluded to hide Biden's mental decline literally since he assumed office and all the way up to the last possible second
The neoliberals really did a weekend at Bernie's and no one with the power to stop it gave a fuck because he had a D by his name.
That is how Republicans became president.
Quick edit:
Seriously, the same people we know lied about Biden and used an elderly mentally unwell person as their puppet were still going to be calling the same shit
How is that any different than what Reagan was?
I can almost accept some people don't want them to face criminal charges, but you think giving them the country again would be better?
Kamala was somewhat of a Zionist, but not enough to justify Israel's bombings. Because she wants a two-state solution, and if she had been president, she would probably criticize Netanyahu for his actions damaging Israel.
A strategy to avoid AIPAC considering you a threat.
I don't know if I can buy that when the DNC refused to let anyone with even a hint of background from the middle east get a platform, and when a protest at a speech happened, she said "I am speaking." Not listening, speaking.
“Didn’t allow her” what does that even mean, in the context of the campaign? What the actual fuck was she doing listening to ANYTHING from Biden at that point? He was a clear looser. He stepped back from the campaign (after he was forced to, but he did nonetheless). That was an incredibly obvious opportunity for Harris to openly and cleanly split from policies she thought were wrongheaded - but nope, can’t have that. Jesus tapdancing christ.
Biden’s hubris put us here, I guess. What an unmitigated fucking tool. He sold us down the river and expects to be remembered fondly by history? Fuck that. The title of his subsection in history books will be “The President who Couldn’t Keep the Republic” (a pointed reference to Ben Franklin’s quip at the original constitutional convention).
The pressure the DNC seems to exert over it's canidates is insane. There was probably a lot of pressure on her to toe the line. I heard they reigned in Walz quite a bit too.
Maybe one day the DNC will learn
I don’t expect the DNC to learn, because I don’t expect the DNC to exist when the next presidential election comes around.
It's fucking bizarre that Trump "randomly" ran as a Republican in 2016, and I can recall the fact that the RNC was trying to keep Jeb and Ted Cruz because they thought they would be a better/saner choice, until he had enough votes from the primaries.
He just kinda came from under their noses until they realized "Wait we like this, he is a dipshit we can buy and he does shit on camera for free press! Free advertising for fascism, score!"
I wish I had a portal to look at another timeline to see if someone in the DNC just didn't bother kneecaping Bernie in 2016 and had the general magnetizing force of him looking for all working class people, including those swindled by Republican brainfuckery. Might have been in a better place for America, even for one term.
^, I am both interested and terrified to see what the next few years bring. It's only the beginning, and the ride continues to get even more wild in all the worst ways.
I am living the next 6-12 months with a very sharp eye on the answer to the question “how quickly can I permanently get the fuck out of the country”.
The last time that happened was 2000 with Bush v Gore. The longstanding notion was that the VP of the current administration should not really "break ranks" with the current administration. It was seen as undermining their boss essentially.
This was in less fucked up times, mind you. But that at one time was how it was "supposed" to work. Personally I'm a firm believer that "that's how it's always been done" is fucking stupid.
It's good to understand why things have been done that way. Sometimes there's wisdom in the way things have been done, and lessons learned by people who paid real costs to learn them. Sometimes the reasoning is so bad that doing things differently for its own sake is a reasonable decision. You don't know unless you dig deeper, and not digging deeper on things that matter seems pretty dumb
It's good to understand, but if the only answer you get is "it's always been done this way" odds are it's bad. If there was a good reason, that's the reason you'd get.
Yeah absolutely, not providing a good reason is really easy to do when there isn't one
Exactly
Cut off funding, maybe. They would have guaranteed a loss with that maneuver thoug.
Even this seems far fetched. Why would they risk something like that in an election that had so much hanging on it.
I'm convinced that the DNC isn't worried about winning any more races than they have to do that they survive as a political entity. Just going off the push the minority leaders have been making and the stream of emails and phone calls I get, as someone registered independent.
I see and hear nothing about actual policy change or progressivism from the names in the critical positions, and a lot about donations to "help us win next time, guys, for real this time!"
My senators (both women, both dems), haven't actually responded to any of my calls, emails, or letters asking for their stances or plans for change. I have got several form responses that end with a call for donations, though. 🤷
Yes. As much as the Dems insist "This is a critical juncture, and we need to unite", they mean "You need to unite behind whatever we say you need to do".
See post-election: The only thing the Dems want to do is wear matching outfits, rather than vote "No".
You know how in chess notation, questionable moves are marked with a question mark. That would have been a double question mark move. But dems have been making one questionable move after another.
They were already hanging the future of the country on an old man who struggled to stay awake through press conferences.
It worked for Trump.
Oh? Pulling a “Republican”? My wife made me do it? Wasn’t my fault? Attempting to distance herself so she can make a run for office again.
As a liberal male from CA; she's just not likeable. She gives off the energy of that high strung person everyone's trying to avoid talking to at the cookout.
Then again Donald Trump gives off that creepy conspiracy theorist pedo vibe that you'd also avoid and the right loves him.
I’m less concerned with likability than I am with the reports of her being a bully to staff.
She is her own person and has to live with the consequences of her choices like everybody else. It's all in the past now and just a footnote in history.
She's planning a run for Gov of California. So her recent history is still very relevant.
Honestly, I kinda don't buy the idea Biden controlled Harris. Biden could have in 2008, but not in 2024. We all saw his term. He could be great, but when he slowed and floundered, it hampered his goals.
I'm torn between:
But either way, I'm kind of glad that parts of the DNC is admitting fault after royally fucking up a second time and giving us Trump again. But I was also told they learned mistakes from 2016, and clearly they didn't, and must have fired everyone who did.
I wish Harris won merely as a stop-gap who is younger and more coherent, maybe could have gotten someone better next primary. Would have been messy and I would prefer anyone else, but not as bad. But it wouldn't have stopped the fascist uprising we're having, just keeping the cyst growing until it popped. If Biden didn't get Trump arrested, I doubt Harris would have, despite her history.
I wish she had won too. Didn't really like her but she was miles ahead of trump. I don't think you should be torn between the two, I think it was both. She listened to some very bad advice and believed the information she had at hand.
we're never going to see an end to the risk of fascism until we end capitalism, and it's as simple as that.
money is power, and if corporations and individuals can hoard wealth infinitely, it's only a matter of time until enough of that wealth is accumulated in few enough hands for those few to use their wealth to take control of the state
She was elected, not appointed. She could say and do what she wanted and theres not much Biden could have done about it.
Who elected her?
I did, when I voted for Joe Biden, as did the rest of us.
You voted for Joe Biden, not for Kamala Harris
She was not elected to the the presidential candidate for 2024, she was anointed by the party without an open primary.
If you can’t have a conversation without resorting to character attacks, that says a lot about your (lack of) character.
By the time Biden dropped out, it was one month to the DNC which would select a candidate. There was no time to run a primary, and they were actively attempting to prevent what happened at the last brokered convention which resulted in utter chaos:
https://youtu.be/sDwKyoSmhow
We needed "utter chaos" at the convention, and didn't get it. That convention needed to drown out the spectacle of the donvict, and draw in bored and disillusioned voters to participate.
It didn't. They were trying to avoid a "Bernie Bros" scenario that couldn't have occurred because we didn't have months to fall in love with a particular candidate.
It sucked out what little life remained in the campaign, and gave us the most boring presidential race of my lifetime.
Yes there was still time to run a primary.
Besides, Biden should have dropped from the race many months prior, or better yet not run again at all as he promised during his 2020 campaign.
Harris and other DNC members shouldn’t have tried to gaslight us about Biden’s health during all that time; they really took us for a bunch of idiots, which most certainly didn’t help their case.
In my state, there are two ballot lines. One for POTUS, and one for VP.
WDYM "let"? What was he gonna do? Sniff her?
He probably said something vague about decorum.
If you run into Biden can you let him know I decorumed his mom last night?
Suddenly her campaign choices make a lot more sense...
His legacy is in the toilet so congratulations advisors.
I feel like blaming her loss on others takes away her agency. Seems sexist to me. We dont reassign blame like this with male failed candidates, but with Hillary and Harris everyone wants to paint them as purely victims.
I blame her loss on her being a bad candidate who wouldn't push popular positions. Harris was a week candidate from the start. She dropped out of the primary in 2020 with only 3% support and then got the VP nom.
They were both extremely bad candidates who should not have been in a position to run. If the party had been allowed to speak they would not have been allowed to run.
They weren't really candidates that failed on their own merits, they were set up to fail by being put into a position they should never have been in.
Neither Hillary nor Kamala could have won a primary that wasn't rigged in their favor. Since they didn't get to their position as candidate based on their own merits, it's reasonable to describe their failure in similar terms.
That said, there is such a thing as more than 100% blame, and this is a situation where A lot of people have a lot of blame. Those two women are 100% responsible for the stupid decisions they made. No one can take that failure away from them, but because of the nature of the mistake, there were a lot more people who should also be blamed and similarly excommunicated from politics.
There are elements of sexism here, but that's just endemic to politics. They didn't fail because of sexism, they got to where they were because of it and were set up to fail by it, but there are a lot of problems here beyond and before sexism.
If anyone wants some good rage material, watch the Pod Save America interview with Harris staffers
Omg, only 15 mins in and I can't listen this anymore. When she said "finally turn the page", maaaaan. Did she wrote all Kamala's speeches or smth? And again, instead of talking what was wrong, they just say that during a race their point is was to remind how bad it 3as during Trumps first presidency. Not what people are complaining about RIGHT NOW, but rather about how bad the orange man is. He is, we know. But that is not a solid and the only base to run on. There are much more serious issues in US than orange man bad which went undressed. And I am not even form US.
They could win by running Healthcare revamp, education revamp and tax revamp. But all these things are going against their sponsors interests. Us now is a fail state. Let us hope 2028 will be an actual page turn with fresh minds in the race.
I am wondering if the mods of [email protected] and [email protected] regret censoring the people who rightfully said these things and it would cost us the election. Like there's mods in here who go "yeah that sucks, I knew it." but also just defended Biden/Harris and removed good faith users who posted citations that even their beloved Media Bias Bot said was a good source.
They did it, banned the people who said it, and then people went "where are all those critics now? i guess putin turned them off! hurr hurr haw haw!"
Genuinely wonder if they question their choices of just doing this for free with literally zero benefit to their website and the country as a whole.
No, they dig their head in the sand and continue to play stupid. If they ever actually acknowledged reality they'd feel bad, so that's not gonna happen
Just posting to remind/inform new users there's been repeated drama with .world policies and mod/admin team in that past. It caused a lot of people to spread to smaller, more varied instances. Which is actually a good thing.
I just started and still don't understand this lemmy. I thought one of the perks was being able to interact on any server despite which one holds your account.
The way it works is communities are hosted on the instances and when moderators do things in communities that makes people mad those people can only go to that community's instance administrators.
And then people get really angry at instance operators and admins with differing policies and rules about content and moderation.
So those conflicts can and do drive some culture wars. (Ex: Blahaj has little tolerance for gatekeepers, .ml has no patience for american liberal politics, .world is particular about zionism, and so on.)
But otherwise except for instances that defederate from each other the perk is absolutely that instances don't really matter for registering and posting as a user.
At most just check the instance rules before posting and you'll probably be just fine on Lemmy.
You can, as long as the hosting server welcomes your interaction. They also have the freedom to NOT allow you (Or anyone else) submit content.
Yeah that's true more or less. Some instances block others for ideological or technical reasons. Sometimes posts/comments take time to propagate across the network. But in general yeah you can see everything on all the other instances regardless where your home account is. You could even spin up your own instance and see everything, all the back-end traffic and raw data, if you wanted.
That's really interesting. Are the people/entities who own individual servers (or even certain servers) known to the general public? I love the idea of social media not being centralized in the hands of billionaires, but I worry about trusting all of the same information to someone whose identity I don't know at all. Flip a coin, they're probably Russian or Chinese.
Basically I'm just asking about how/why we trust the owners of these servers. I still have a lot to learn about this technology.
Most of them are pretty visible and interact in their communities and I'm sure their contact info would be relatively easy to find.
But yeah I don't think there are any rules demanding they be public and you definitely should not trust them by default. They're people just like anyone else and can have their own agendas and ulterior motives.
Probably still thinking "This is just a Russian disinfo campaign to smeer the libs!"
I assume so, as that's the motto of any criticism.
A mod recently got mad a @[email protected] for "going back to his roots" by posting actual criticism of the Democrats.
And I asked him "So is Obama just barred from commenting on them, despite being right the entire time?"
Mod responded "he spammed it". I asked "Microwave posts about 20 posts a day about the same topics, why do they get a pass?" And I never got an answer.
I think flat.world is basically .ml for liberals.
This is hilarious, because of Biden's "I'd have won if I was the candidate" bullshit. More like "Harris might have won if I wasn't hamstringing her", but okay, sure, Joe. Let's get you to bed, now.
I'm calling bullshit on this.
There's no possible way that Biden or any of his people could let or not let Harris do anything. They had no actual control over her campaign.
The only outsiders who had any control over her campaign were the DNC and the party establishment - the same pieces of shit who torpedoed Sanders in 2016 and 2020,.
I'm 100% certain that this narrative is coming from them, trying to dodge the blame they so richly deserve by pinning it on the senile guy.
Bruh ...
You realize at the time the Venn diagram of people you're complaining about was basically a solar eclipse, right?
And that after that we got a new DNC chair which completely changes the organization?
You're literally doing what the neoliberals want and letting them off the hook and blaming our new chair who is more progressive than any other DNC chair in the past 30 years since neoliberalism took over.
Like, the fight over the party is over, we won...
Now we have to back the new progressive version of the party or neoliberals will claw it back when no one's paying attention.
It's like hating the Patriots because Bellicheck was an asshole, you're right, but he's fucking gone and there's a new coach.
I'm calling bullshit on that too.
The time for leadership is right now, when the US is facing the greatest threat in modern history and the Democratic party is at the forefront of organizations that can and should step up.
And they very much have NOT. That, all by itself, amply proves that while the names may have changed, the organization hasn't. Even in this extreme hour of need, they've painfully obviously chosen to do fuck-all.
I'm entirely comfortable presuming that the neoliberals have never let go, and they're already astroturfing their counter to the inevitable criticisms that are going to come when they yet again run on a platform of being not the Republicans, and of being just barely to their left. Just as they've done in the past, they're going to blame their inevitable failure on us. Just as in the past, it's not going to be that they're corrupt sacks of shit wholly owned by moneyed interests and willing to lose an election rather than risk reducing the flow of soft money - it's going to be that we didn't go ahead and support them anyway.
I have zero reason to believe that this whole song and dance about a supposedly new and progressive DNC is anything other than just a new spin on the same old con job.
Just another example of how the Democratic party is only slightly less fucked than the Republicans.
Wow, so if true this implies that in the Democratic party even the women running for president has to do what the big man says. Hope this is false.
It's definitely not false, it's the playbook all of the political giants have been running for very many years now.
Harris was the candidate, not Biden. Being his VP should have been a boon to her, but instead she turned it into her own biggest obstacle. It was ultimately her decision to follow Biden’s directions on this.
It’s not like the sitting president can order a party’s candidate to take certain policy positions, even if that candidate is the sitting VP. Biden deserves a ton of the blame for our current situation, but Harris was the candidate and she decided to follow Biden’s terrible advice. He’s just the stubborn geriatric who cared more about his legacy than the peoples’ future.
horseshit
she had multiple chances like at the DNC convention
"they puppeted me poorly"
Color me surprised that the Democrats have as much blame for our current situation as the Republicans. Nobody, NOBODY, wanted to return to normal; they wanted real change and the best they got was state-sponsored financing for tech companies and unequal economic policies
Her position regarding Palestine and Israel cost her the election. Many Dems could not vote for her, so they didn't vote.
I'd really love for that to be the case (enough people caring about genocide to decide an election), but it just isn't. The data shows that people on the left still came out to vote and she lost a bunch of centrist votes or people who are seen as "low information"/unmotivated voters. Those people don't care about Palestine. They thought she was weird, or a DEI candidate, or just weren't inspired to get up and vote for her. I'm not saying she needs to go more centrist, but people like populism and she just didn't do it.
I can't remember the source, but the number 1 issue in every swing state other than Michigan (which had Palestine as its #1) among democrat nonvoters and centrists who voted republican was grocery prices. Most of those states had inflation as their number 2 issue and Palestine as the third. Palestine alone wouldn't have been enough to swing any state other than Michigan.
I think its pretty clear that the primary reason Kamala lost because she didn't present a vision for the economy. She literally just said that the economy is fine. Inflation and grocery prices? Ignore those!
Inflation maybe shouldn't have been as big of an issue since it was below 3% and on its way down but it was still a concern for a large number of voters.
I agree for the most part, but she did have some milquetoast neolib proposals that would have helped. Mostly things already seen in one form or another in Bidens build back better plan, but honestly it didn't matter. Her rhetoric was weak and her campaign was poorly managed. I saw SOOOO many ads requesting donations (lady, I don't have money to buy eggs and you're buying ad space, the optics are bad) and not one of them said anything of substance. I say time and again that Bernie got people to donate time and money they didn't have because they believed in his message. Kamala had no message. She had some plans, sure, but did not effectively communicate them. They were too little too late regardless, but it felt like her ads were lazy cash grabs that couldn't even be bothered to give out empty promises.
That used to be my belief until I saw reports to the contrary. I believe you can see in my comment history right after the election saying that Gaza was a big contributor, but basically all the analysis I've seen since points to that not being true, so I've changed my tune. Would love to see what you're looking at for numbers/polls.
If you believe that you are a moron. It is much more likely that people couldn’t find “Kamala” on the ballot instead of “Harris” rather than making an in-depth analysis of foreign policy of a war taking place somewhere 99% of the us populace couldn’t pinpoint on a globe.
If a person was so very pearl-clutching to think of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians to decide their US presidential vote, and then to vote for Trump or not vote at all, frankly that cohort deserves to be first against the wall.
The woman who refused to against what a Man said would have made a STRONG Leader!
As usual the democratic party fails because it's trying to be both progressive AND cater to wealthy donors. Those two things just don't go together. Either abandon the upper class, or resign yourself to diametrically opposed rhetoric that will NEVER win an election for the Dems.
It's not remotely trying to be progressive. It's cosplaying as caring while raking in them donor dollars.
I am pretty sick of the Democrats bullshit, but I’m even more sick of the Republicans bullshit.
I hate it here.
Libs be libbing
My god! You mean they attached a bomb collar around her neck and said if she didn't comply they would detonate it?
Wait, they didn't do anything of the sort? Well, sounds like they didn't force her to do anything and the only thing stopping her from speaking out was her own spineless cowardice.
"Leadership"
Smells like bullshit to me
Huh? He couldn't have stopped her. This is nonsense.
Yikes! This is a shit argument IMO. Biden wouldn't have broken from her if she stood strong on her own stances. This is a terrible look for her. More feckless establishment Dems acting like the controlled opposition they are.
I won't be voting for people like this in the future. I know many others that think like me too. That's going to be a huge problem for the Dem establishment. They're pushing progressive folks out and replacing them with no one.
Like they were ever going to.
If she was going to do something different to what the party wants, she'd never have been their nominee to start with.
So if Biden had allowed Kamala Harris to have her own narrative, would she have won the presidency?
I don’t buy that. Harris has made her choice.
Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve
I doubt this. Harris had some controversial policy issues such as taxing uncapitalized gains which were breaks with the Biden administration.
When do I get to collect my payment for being right the entire time?
The day they admit they've been wrong the entire time. I hope you get interest on that bet because it'll be a while.
Your payment was the year of abuse from centrists you've already received, plus the next 4 years of blame for the loss they earned.
Same as anyone else who wasn't 100% on board with the genocide centrists preferred to keeping democracy.
Hillary was going to continue Obamas policies, more or less. its purely sexism why both female candidates never won, sprinkled a little racism.
Or, only people with certain beliefs have the backing/money to get to the top of a US political party.
They didn't win because their policies don't reflect the worker base.
Sounds like she’s a bitch. You’re campaign already started who gives a fuck what Joe Biden wants. Imo it’s good she didn’t win because if she could be that easily controlled then it’s better she stay on the sidelines.
A vice president isn't going to publicly break with the sitting president
Been saying this before the election. These comments are wild.
Why not?
I mean, I know she wouldn't. But seriously, think about it, why not? People wanted her to, so why not? People don't want milquetoast policy changes that improve such and such by 2%, they want a hero, so why not? People don't want palestinians to die, so why not?
She was either: an awful candidate because she wouldn't promise anything, or, an awful candidate because she couldn't promise anything.
And yeah, I wanted her to win, but the problems that fucked the last election up still plague the party. If they don't learn, we're all going straight to Trump's gulag.
Every answer they have for "Why not?" will be "the status quo that is completely made up by the politcal establishment and lobbyists say so."
Biden was unpopular, him dropping out and apointing Harris was a massive spike in the polls. I was personally excited for the shake up. Mad at the fact it was after the primaries so we didn't have time to democratically pick someone for the democrat party when democracy is at stake, but she was a new face, with probably new ideas.
It took her a while to get a policy on her website. Weeks, even. While Project 2025 had been workshopped for god knows how long and then made part of Trump's promises since day one of his run. And she just said "I stand with him on everything. Every issue, I agree with." And some small changes like "I will give $100K to new homeowners" like that meant something for the majority of people who can never ever own a home in America.
And then Tim Waltz was picked. Progressive, had a good run as governor. Not perfect from his treatment of BLM protestors, but overall a solid pick. Waltz got the Republicans bothered with the weird comments. It worked. And then they just... stopped using the one trick that worked.
And then instead of going for their usual base of working class folks, the minorities who have voted for him because the other side is "We Will Deport and Kill All Of You", they went "Let's try to win the unicorn voters of disenfranchised Republicans who will vote for a Democrat!" The fucking Chaneys, the family who organized the largest, longest, deadliest, costliest wars America has had in the 21st century were chosen as sane and reasonable people.
Harris said "We'll have the most powerful military if I'm elected! I will not underfund it! I will have strong border polices on the Mexican border! I will follow the law of red states on the polices of trans students!" Just copying republican talking points like it was a shoe-in.
All it did was alienate the voter base of the people who vote Democrat because they aren't Republican, and the brainwashed Trump supporters would never vote for a Democrat simply because of nearly 30 years of brainwashing by Fox News, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, followed by Tim Pool, Charlie Kirk, Joe Rogan, and whatever conservative of the year has a podcast/youtube show.
And we were called crazy and insane for noticing any of this. Comments removed on Reddit and Lemmy. Called Russian bots on Twitter and Mastodon. Called single issue voters who hate the idea of compromise. And we were right! And they still laugh at us for being right, thinking that because Trump sucks, it means we were wrong for pointing out the flaws of a bad canidate.
Joe Biden publicly broke with Obama when Obama drew a line in the sand on Israel using American weapons in a genocide
Biden publicly and repeatedly told anyone who would listen that Obama was wrong and the only way to work with Israel is giving them everything they ask for...
Are you saying that hurt his chances later when he was handed the presidential nomination after a literal 40 years of losing primaries?
It seems like it's not about going against the president, it's about going against neoli eral policy...
And he was a white man talking about a black man.
I don't think that had anything to do with it.
But it completely blows out the neoliberal defense of
Anyone that honestly knows about our recent political history knows what Biden did back then, but they're like Republicans. They don't think logically and come to a conclusion.
They say whatever needs said in the moment to make their "team" sound the best.
They're fucking shady cars salesmen essentially.
A VP can differ from the president, but only to the right. Thus sayeth holy decorum.
The pro-genocide centrists who made this excuse were silent when she moved to his right.
It's because of the frustration surrounding the elections, and it will take a while for everything to calm down, although Kamala could run for president again if she doesn't opt for the California governorship.
I wouldn't put it past leadership to consider this a good idea and forego primaries again.
I would welcome that. It would make it easier for an AOC/Walz ticket to steal Kamala's thunder. Walz can speak plainly about Kamala, and it wouldn't be flattering.
Won't help if there's no primaries.