What a time to be alive. As it seems now, I was entirely wrong, as was 'conventional' political wisdom. May I continue to be wrong. It's a welcome failure, as far as I'm concerned.
I figured there was a 1% chance of Biden dropping out, but also thought that Kamala would be a better candidate than him, but was also skeptical that Kamala would be able to beat Trump.
So....basically wrong on the first, correct on the second... yet to be determined on the third.
I did not expect the Democrats to actually do anything that would actually help themselves, figuring that they are far too ossified and out of touch.
Currently the Trump and the Republicans seem to stun locked by the 'they're just weird' angle... which is amazing to me in two ways:
One, that after basically 3 decades of spewing lies and hate and insults against their opponents in the form of coordinated talking points to respond to basically every political development, they cannot handle the mildest possible form of this being used against them.
Two, that the Democrats finally actually collectively did something 'aggressive' rhetorically. Years and years of 'taking the high road' and acting morally superior to their opponents... they finally actually did something (collectively) that makes them not seem like hoity toity cloistered intellectual snobs.
That, and
MikeTim Walz is actually surprisingly relatable and charismatic.Yep, I was wearing that clown makeup too. Dems have not impressed me much lately with being able to deliver a coherent and effective message, so I was fully prepared for a shitshow of disarray if/when Biden dropped out.
It was very surprising to me how effectively they were able to leave Trump stumbling just as he seemed to be on the upswing. The utter lack of disorder around it almost feels like Biden was planning to drop out of the race all along, just waiting for the right moment... but that's probably giving him too much credit.
Right there with you
exact same
Not a failure. These are strange times
Did you learn anything?
What's to be learned? What is weak logic about the mainline, presumptive nominee, who is a sitting president, who one way or another was the only human being to beat trump in an election, would become the actual nominee and democratic candidate?
That is not a bad bet, or bad logic, if we are sitting in March or April.
May we continue righting more of PugJesus' wrongs
Agreed. I really didn’t expect the quick rally. I’m even more impressed with citizens than Kamala’s campaign. It’s restorative.
Honestly, I had forgotten about Kamala when arguing that Biden was the best bet. My argument always lay in, "Needs to be familiar because Trump has this uncanny ability to swamp somebody without a track record", and I completely forgot Kamala fit that exactly in the same way Biden did - By being a VP
SO glad I was wrong, too - It was a lot of me groaning, "Oh god Biden is our best bet dear fuck no..."
I think I let myself be misled about the urgency of having a candidate ready and the time for campaigning. Meanwhile, other countries gear up their elections in less than a month.
Many of us misled ourselves about the "obligation" or "strategic advantage" of there always having to be a two-term attempt. The fact that Joe chose Kamala as VP, and decided to retire after one term, speaks VOLUMES about why I trusted and trust him as president and as a fellow human, and how it pissed me off to hear people saying that both parties are the same.
Anyway... Joe Biden's legacy will now most certainly be a positive one. As I knew it would be.
It was that plus the "if Biden drops out it will be a whole ordeal establishing a new candidate." It wasn't. It was quick, painless, and even the VP choosing was relatively quick and made people happy.
I wasn't on board with Kamala until she picked Walz as her running mate. I was honestly going to vote for Vermin Supreme until then.
Imagine if all the undecideds went to Vermin Supreme and he actually won... better than Trump of course, but wow
You're still completely missing the point.
It could have been Tim Walz and no one knew his name before Biden dropped.
The "name recognition" is just bullshit.
99.99% of what neoliberals say they dont even believe, they just say whatever gets them what they want
They wanted Biden, so they just spewed diarrhea onto keyboards throwing everything at the wall hoping something will stick.
But they knew all along that Biden was the worst option, they were just willing to risk trump again than anything a smidge to the left more than Bidens 82 year ass.
Please learn the lesson this time, they've been doing it for decades, and show no signs of stopping
The most conservative wings of a political party almost never are on the same side of the rest of the party. Please, for the love of God stop fucking falling for it.
Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. The election isn't over. This nations racism, sexism, and sheer stupidity might be too much to overcome.
And just because she wins doesn't mean it goes away either.
And just because she wins doesn't mean she wins either.
There are election deniers all over the country in important places and they're going to act up after the election refusing to certify their election results. SCOTUS could end up rubber stamping a Trump win in a scenario where it's up to them to solve a legal dispute...
They didn't know about Walz. Seriously, wtf Democrats? It seems you have a treasure trove of untapped talent but you still wheel out barely alive corpses like it is the Imperium in WH40K. Let the next generation take over. The Old Ones should step back and turn into advisors and elder statesmen.
Dems can't dig too much into their talented and passionate base. They have to find waffling liberals more interested in keeping the status quo.
Still so much better than anything the Republicans could muster but don't be fooled.
They have to find waffling liberals more interested in keeping the status quo.
Bingo.
Doing an "I told you so" on people who are happy to be wrong is pretty silly.
that's why i gave kudos to those people instead last month https://lemmy.world/comment/11376547
the fears were wrong but understandable. if AOC wasn't sure there was enough support behind Harris you're allowed to be wrong too.
now there's great and unified energy behind the democratic party for the first time since Obama. just enjoy it and try your best to keep it up. going for an "i told you so" right now is petty.
It needs to be said. If we can't acknowledge how contradicting narratives were fed to us within the same month, then it shows an alarming lack of cognitive dissonance on our part.
There are people on Lemmy who argued that Biden is not our best bet against Trump; they were told that Biden was the best that the party can do and that there was not enough time to replace Biden. Now, we're all supposed to move on like that didn't just happen.
That said, I am pleasantly surprised to see the community admitting the mistake. I assumed this post would be downvoted heavily but the post felt necessary for the reasons above.
Yep, I was one of those people, but I'm happy that I was wrong about it.
I didn't know what to think about Biden dropping out but I'm glad it's taken a turn for the best. It was a bold move and it paid off.
Bold, yeah... In the same way that jumping out of a moving vehicle headed towards a cliff is bold.
Don't get cocky, vote!
Get other people to vote.
I won't pretend to know how it would have gone either way. Had it actually not happened in the timeline that it did happen, it could have easily been different. The momentum, the media narratives, the quickness with which the Democrats united behind Harris, all of these things caught most everyone by surprise. I could see any of those things being wildly different had Biden chose to step down much earlier. We don't like to admit it, but irrational, unknowable elements like "vibe" and "timing" have always played a huge role in elections.
Yeah though I’ll say two things in our defense: 1) it was a reasonable stance given the information we had, and 2) we’ve been some of the most proud to accept and admit that we were wrong people I’ve ever seen talking politics on the internet.
I disagree on #1, it only seemed like a reasonable stance because you were not exposed to information that would contradict it and were never trained to analyze political bias so you wouldn't realize that the avoidance of the topic was significant.
I double-minored in Futures Studies and Political Science during postgrad, and predicted that the Democrat incumbent would have to drop out of the race to give their party a chance all the way back in 2016 when the DNC conspired against Bernie's campaign. For those of us who know how to read between a propagandist's lines, this has been an inevitability for a long time.
So you’re saying that if we have a phd in this we would be expected to know better? Pardon me, I only got a bs in something unrelated to political science so when I look at the political situation I attempt to see what is most realistically close to what I want. Seeing as I didn’t see experts coming out of the woodwork on this, and instead saw a party with a tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory considering throwing away an incumbent advantage on a president I’d been surprised on how much I approved of his actions after I’d held my nose for him in 2020, I guess I just think that for yokel voters like me it was a reasonable perspective because the only arguments I saw were basically “he’s too old and he’s fucked”. Also it sure seemed unlikely to happen and a bit late to demand it.
All the people who said I was helping the orange man by asking for a better candidate can tell me they’re sorry. Yeah right. They’re the same ones telling us to shut up about Gaza.
I had no confidence that the Democrats could coalesce around another candidate, in time for the convention.
I'm honestly flabbergasted
I don't know if I ever talked to YOU about it, but I definitely said a few times that it was too risky to change candidates, even though Biden was polling terribly. I'm very happy to eat my hat now!
Yeah, in the same boat. I thought they needed to stick with him because of advantage incumbents have, and I didn't think we had time to promote a new candidate. Very happy to be wrong about that! I don't care about the change, I'm just happy to go with whoever has the best chance at winning
I genuinely didn't think someone else was positioned to take on the campaigning. I'm glad I was wrong.
Yo I don't think we spoke but I was someone saying Biden would be the nominee. I even said things like it's unlikely or impossible there will be another D candidate.
I acknowledge I was wrong on that part. I also acknowledge as the season wore on Biden clearly displayed himself as not fit to run, and a replacement was a good idea.
In general I focused and continue to focus on those who say "stay home or vote 3rd party" as that is an issue in the face of project 2025 and other obvious trump stuff.
So my argument wasn't "omg vote for grandpa Biden he's the best" it was "let's keep trump out of the Whitehouse, a Democratic candidate is the only option, and Biden is currently the likely nominee."
Also, keep talking about Gaza, it's important.
"We need a better candidate" is a different cry altogether.
I still feel they're taking a huge risk and they could still fail miserably like every other time before, but we have no comparative data for a differential anyway.
I still worry they made the wrong choice but they did so the best way possible, and I hope it works out for them. I still have my fears but I sure hope they're just that.
Feels a wee bit early for the "I told you so" stuff. She's currently losing in the betting odds.
Edit: it's good to be wrong
For one thing, it's an even worse metric than polls. For another:
Around the time this article was posted, I largely agreed with AOC, even though I was very worried about Biden's stubbornness leading to his loss in November despite his capability of being an excellent leader.
But the fact that the party was able to resist chaos, keep steady on a Biden-lite agenda through Harris means that the Dems have vastly outperformed my expectations in the last month.
I will let Lemmy decide if I need to hold myself to account for my comment pledging money to charity if a "spry and progressive" candidate succeeded him. Does Harris count as spry and progressive?
And Done! Lemmy has spoken!
Does Harris count as spry and progressive?
Surprisingly, yes!
I expected the Dems to support the same tired high road taking boring candidate so I wanted Biden to be kept around for brand recognition because that seemed to be the only thing the Dems would accept. I absolutely did not expect Kamala to come out guns blazing on memes, engaging the GOP on their level instead of taking the high road, and then picking the absolute best example of a human being possible as VP. I expected the Dems to discourage all of those things in favor of some stoic white guy safe choice.
I am extremely happy to have been wrong and it is great to see the Dems catch on that this kind of campaign will be successful.
Still, I imagine they're pretty happy about being wrong.
You realize they're the same people who tried to start a national movement for Dems to vote R because Obama beat Hillary, right?
Like. Biden supporters did t just appear overnight. They're the people who voted R till Bill Clinton in the 90s, and they're very used to getting what they want, can't accept when they dont and constantly project
There's not.many of them, they just never shut up and are the ones currently running the DNC.
Nope, I had no idea. I'm not American. In fact, I don't even know who you're referring to as "R."
But I thought about how I would feel if it was me and I through, yeah, I'd feel pretty silly but I'd also be happy about being wrong.
I just thought it would be fair to them to mention it.
It sounds bad though, whatever it is. That definitely came across.
That's what they looked like at the time they were made too. Was so wildly disconnected from actual day-to-day opinions. Best argument at the time could have been "Biden won't drop out and the DNC won't do anything about that, so we should try to make the corpse look as appealing as possible."
Basically accepting inauthenticity from the get go and acting like no one can tell, all the while criticizing anyone that asks them to defend their position
guilty
I’m happy to be in the “i told you so” crowd, and I’m surprised that I predicted it would be kamala just being crowned president elect after biden drops after the speech.
What I never imagined was how much support Kamala would get. I thought a change like this, while it would have been better, would be controversial. While I’m upset with some things, like the wishy-washy “hope” platform and the promised things having a poor track record of being achieved by the dems, I’d much rather prefer this to biden, even with her terrible views on genocide and LGBTQ rights (especially trans rights)
Granted, this hope narrative is working wonders for a lot of democrats, and I even felt a little bit of it in my jaded, cold, black anarchist heart. Just the change of candidate alone feels similar to the times when I’d go home after spending a month eating the horrid cafeteria food in college to have a home-cooked meal. But i’m worried that after that brief weekend of good shit, it will go back to the same old bullshit once she’s in office
Yeah I’m deeply worried she’s going to throw queer and especially trans people under the bus, especially since she’s already compromising on things I don’t want her to compromise on, but she’s not worse than the alternative and I think she understands that single issue voters on lgbt issues can’t be pulled from the republicans but can be lost by the democrats.
Even though I am more on the militant side with LGBTQ+ rights, I’m still pretty worried about what’s to come. I don’t expect the government to help me, and I’m building connections of solidarity and support that will keep myself and others safe, regardless of what happens.
But I’m scared of what’s going to happen to trans kids cursed to grow up in a state like Florida or Oklahoma. Left to rot by a party that’s abandoned them once they’ve voted. I’m worried that queers aren’t realizing that we can’t expect reciprocal support from the Dems, especially at the federal level, and they’re not using their energy to build support networks instead of spending time and energy campaigning for them.
This just makes me want to play Balatro
100%
It was so obvious that Biden dropping out would be beneficial and so many of you had your head up your ass about it. Same people that call anyone who brings up the genocide in Palestine Tankies. Gross people.
.ml.......sus
Buffalo bagels
Go fuck yourself. You act like you knew this was gunna be the case all along. Most of us were fighting the "let's just have a vote at the DNC" people. And that's not how it went.
We didn't want chaos. Choas is far from what we got.
Get off your high horse there, mate.
You act like you knew this was gunna be the case all along.
Since 2016, actually.
In fact, the only thing that surprised me was that Biden actually dropped out. Never would have thought Pelosi would have been able to convince him.
Go fuck yourself.
Right back at ya, bub~
Surely you can link some of those comments on Lemmy?
I don't feel like digging through my own comment history for examples, but I can assure you I made MANY such comments, and I was not alone in making them.
I as well friend
Happy to be wrong!
To be fair this was kind of a new phenomenon, and nobody knew what would happen if Biden dropped out like that. I'm sure you were hoping to avoid a power struggle that just didn't materialize. Plus a lot of the suggestions were kind of out there and not well known, so I can see why it would make sense to stick with Biden.
Though I'm really glad you were wrong.
I'll also own that I was wrong on this subject
I did as well, and am very happy to be wrong.
And it seems like Harris' campaign saw those kinds of comments and chose to address them with energy and humor.
They've done a great job so far. Hoping they can keep this amazing momentum and prove me thoroughly wrong on election day.
I can't find specific comments I've made in the past, but I know I made them. I admit I believed there was no way there could be such a rapid acceptance of Kamala as the candidate with how late in the election cycle we were.
My main priority then (as it is now) was just keeping Trump out of the white house, and I thought dropping the incumbent from the ticket after primaries were already done would jeopardize that. Happy to be wrong.
For what purpose? Lots of folks in here happily admitting they were wrong in who the nominee would be. I was one of them. Though I never said anything negative about Harris.
LMAO 🤡
So you don’t have any examples either?
