None of These People Should Ever Work in Politics Again
None of These People Should Ever Work in Politics Again
The Harris-Walz Campaign team’s recent appearance on ‘Pod Save America’ shows how operatives who have spent their entire careers cycling through campaigns, corporate boardrooms, and consulting firms produced a campaign that failed to inspire or connect with voters.
From the Article:
For weeks following Joe Biden’s disastrous performance, his campaign publicly maintained the illusion that he was still well-positioned to defeat Donald Trump. Privately, they knew otherwise. As Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau revealed days after the election:
After the debate, the Biden people told us that the polls were fine, and Biden was still the strongest candidate. They were privately telling reporters, at the time, that Kamala Harris couldn’t win. […] Then we find out, when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign, that the Biden campaign’s own internal polling, at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate, showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes.
The implications of this are staggering, and it should be treated as a massive scandal.
It definitely seems like the real problem wasn't that Harris didn't make a good or compelling case that her opponent was unfit, it's that they didn't spend any time building up their own case for what they would do differently and instead tried to court the vanishingly small number of undecided moderates and, for some reason, Republicans who will still hate them no matter what they say.
There was plenty of time to run a good campaign after Biden got replaced, they just chose not to for some reason. Can't agree more that these guys should not be involved in politics anymore if they tried to prop up Biden for an entire month after the debate and bury their heads in the sand when he was polling in the toilet the entire time.
Harris was asked multiple times what she would do differently than Biden and she had no answer.
Harris was asked multiple times what she would do differently than Biden and she had no answer.
No, she came out saying that she'd do the same. Specifically, she wouldn't change the approach on Israel / Gaza.
I was worried about the election results due to alienation of young people when protesters were getting brutalized last spring. They did this to themselves and we're all going to suffer because of it. Dems fucked us.
they didn’t spend any time building up their own case for what they would do differently
She came straight out on TV and said she wouldn't do anything differently. That was her case. "You know Biden? The President 60% of the country hates? Great guy! Did nothing wrong."
There was plenty of time to run a good campaign after Biden got replaced, they just chose not to for some reason.
She was the VP for four years and if you pull up her highlight reel it all sucked. Going south of the border and telling war refugees "Do Not Come" like some kind of reverse Statue of Liberty. Calling student protesters opposed to the Gaza Genocide anti-Semitic while she hides from Netanyahu during his psychotic Congressional address. Letting Manchin and Sinema walk all over her in the Senate.
What kind of campaign was she going to build on top of that legacy?
Dems told their dud QB to hand the ball off to a lame running back and watched her crash face first into a Joe Rogan's Audience full of dorks crying about a dead squirrel. I don't think it is possible for these people to run a campaign better than "We're not Trump", which is what they ultimately choose to do.
Why would Harris do anything different? The Biden policies were working. He literally prevented us from a goddamn recession, and because a handful of companies (nearly all of which donated considerable sums to Trump) jacked up prices for consumers, people act like it was Bidens fault. If you think the miracle Biden pulled off is bad, you're not gonna like whats in store for us under Trump
I'll admit they probably have lots of practical knowledge about campaigning. That's not the issue. The issue is they have no imagination and they don't now how to evaluate risk and reward. They were using a 40 year old play book against a populist candidate that America has yet to face, or at least anyone who's still alive.
Are the implications really that staggering? Are you unable to believe the DNC would lie? They do it all the time, this is hardly news. It just confirms what we already knew at the time, which is that Biden had no chance and all polling supported that conclusion.
Yep, the DNC is a private organization and can mostly operate however they want. The real problem is the duopoly between the 2 parties that prevents any real progress. As long as each party control roughly half of the government they will keep fighting to maintain the status quo.
I've kept voting for the left most party with a chance, for my own conscience and for harm reduction, not for hope, for 20 years.
There's been no hope because our left most party has met their opposition so far up their ass, they only look left to a full blown fascist, and both parties openly take the same corporate bribe money to keep this exploitative economy and it's inhuman priorities exactly as it is while they war over how to, or if to, address some of the social issue symptoms it causes or exacurbates, so long as it doesn't meaningfully effect quarterly earnings results.
I could at this point be easily be convinced to vote third party for an explicitly anti-corporatist party even if it didn't have a chance.
The public, surprisingly bipartisan reaction (voters, not reps, obviously) to what happened a few days ago in New York has given me more hope for positive change in our cesspool of greed enablement than I have felt in my entire life. At some level, it seems many of our people do understand, despite all the corpo propaganda, that their enemy causing most of our ills aren't to their left or right, but economically above, encouraging us to fight about the symptoms of their dictates to THEIR captured government.
I would rather a left-wing populist steal the corpo DNC's base right out from under them as Trump did in 2016 to the RNC so it could have one of the only two banners that matter helping, but I sadly also think the DNC would rather do everything possible to lose than be dragged along like that and lose the corporate bribe gravy train that left-wing populism, unlike right-wing populism, would need to fight against.
Yeah, absolutely. Dems would rather lose than change. It just gives them more "pick us or you'll be sorry" ammunition.
Edit: You don't have to look any further than the bs soft-washing of the news media:
https://www.popehat.com/p/some-other-america-one-i-do-not-know
Blah, blah, blah... and more blah.
Blah, blah, blah... and more blah.
Maybe you prefer more visual replies.
You're part of the problem.
they'll try to run the exact same plan in 2028 if we let them. Its all they know how to do.
democratic candidates after Carter don't know politics... al they know is AIPAC, punch the left, twerk, be bipartisan, kill Arabs and lie
It's all they want to do
Fascism Lite and Fascism Max, into Blue Fascism and Red Fascism!
Nancy Pelosi 2028, let's gooooo!!!
good call, but firstwe all need to refocus on relecting Tom Perez as the head of the DNC.
/s
It's her turn! USA will understand that.
I think the big media companies probably knew this too but needed to create a false horse race for ratings and clicks
I mean, either every single pollster in every major news organization was just terribly off on their prediction or there was a push from the ownership to make this election 'more interesting'. (This is my own conspiracy theory and I have no sources to back this bullshit up with)
Not sure what you mean about pollsters. They said it would be a tight race, and it was. Trump did not have a landslide by any means.
Agreed. Trump won by 140k in PA, 80k in MI, 30k in WI. That's less than 0.16% of the total vote. (source)
That's the thinking with the elctoral college. Since most states are winner-take-all, a narrow victory can make an electoral landslide.
In 1984, Reagan won 58% of the popular vote - which is impressive, but nowhere near unanimous.
But due to how the system works, he won 98 percent of the electoral vote. Mundane only won in Minnesota and DC.
It was super close in Minnesota (only about 4000 votes).
DC was a crazy landslide, though. They HATED Reagan, who only took 13% of the vote in DC.
you're right. I have to admit after the election I shut out lots of political media and really missed that it was closer than I thought.
Well, they couldn't tell the truth and risk a more liberal candidate.
I honestly have a hard time believing it was ideology and not the good, old fashioned inability of boomers to let go of power.
Edit: Not talking about the Democratic establishment. Speaking specifically about Biden refusing to step down until it was too late.
Nah the article makes it clear the Democratic leadership has been captured by corporate executives who have a vested interest in not giving the working class an inch.
It’s hard to truly know what went on behind the scenes, but there was a large amount of common disdain for Biden staying in the race after “we beat Medicare” - anyone who hadn’t already been clued into his cognitive decline was suddenly confronted with that reality, and people knew he was a clear loser at that point.
For Biden the floor only fell out beneath him after Nancy Pelosi and the donor class publicly announced they wanted Joe out NOW that the DNC/Biden camp realized the gig was up.
I don't think these people could get any more liberal.
But they could certainly choose a leftist candidate in theory at least.
Yet, under his leadership, Minnesota passed some of the most ambitious progressive legislation in the country, including a child tax credit, universal free school meals, and free tuition at public colleges for families earning under $80,000 per year. Walz also delivered major labor victories, including paid family and medical leave and worker protections like banning non-compete clauses and anti-union captive audience meetings.
Nooooo Democrats ignore working peoplllllle! They’re terrible for the underserved!! Everyone knows that that’s why they looooossst!!
Walz then disappeared for a month. The campaign sent him into the background while Harris made appearances with Liz Cheney.
They threw progressives a bone, and then forgot about it.
Waltz did a good job in the VP debate, and then the DNC told him to stop calling JD weird.
And then he played games on Twitch. Such a win for progressives! "Shut up and play games on Twitch!"
No, they're clearly capable of it when they want. That's the frustrating part. This republican lite theme is an active choice national democrats keep making.
Why do things you promised and ran on when you can say "My hands are tied, I need to get Republican voters come November!" for 4 years?
How many of these were put onto Harris' platform, and then how many had a chance of getting passed in Congress?
For the Congress, I would say mill, but that's because of the Republican party.
So why did they actually ignore working people? Because while you're right that Harris' platform was very progressive, and Walz would have been the most left-wing VP in recent history, the Harris/Walz campaign didn't care about any of that. They campaigned on being tough on immigration, protecting Israel, being pro-billionaire, and reaching across the isle to Republicans. When asked about the economy, they deflected or talked down. When asked about change, they promised there would be none. You can't be surprised that working class folks would feel left out in the cold when they were explicitly ignored.
Turns out when economy bad stupid people vote out the incumbent.
Also white and Latino men have masculinity issues that prevent them from voting for women.
Ain't that the truth. Fuck.
And the weed.
But he's an evil capitalist. If you aren't fighting for violent communist revolution, you're part of the problem!! /s
The Democratic party is an enemy of the American people, as much now as the Republican party always has been.
They don't fight for you to stop fascism. They enable it, step aside and let it walk past and say "well, we did all we can do".
Well, if all they can do is die, good riddance.
--
PARDONS HIS DRUG ADDICT SON, WHILE YOU CAN'T AFFORD GROCERIES 🤣
^ remember that
What do those two things have to do with each other?
The Democratic party is an enemy of the American people, as much now as the Republican party always has been.
There is no reason any politician should ever listen to what you want or pay attention to you in any way. By treating politicians who raise taxes on the rich the same as politicians who lower taxes on the rich, you are literally encouraging politicians to lower taxes on the rich and increase wealth inequality.
By treating politicians who raise taxes on the rich the same as politicians who lower taxes on the rich, you are literally encouraging politicians to lower taxes on the rich and increase wealth inequality.
By holding people accountable to their bad behaviour were driving them to be worse?
Sounds like they're shitty people and should be replaced
Democrats used my money to buy weapons for genocide(which it is), shoot rubber bullets at college students(plural), and save their own skin rather than ours.
Take your taxes and eat shit, and maybe get some goddamn reading comprehension. No one said a thing about taxes.
I'm talking about the 1% cowards with blue ties on that ignore their voter base. Who knows, maybe I'll get to visit one in prison after Trump's done and voice my grievances.
All VP Harris had to do was choose a running mate that wasn't Kaine-esque.
They needed a hard left firebrand to support Harris, and they chose a dude from an ABC Dad sitcom. He is a great governor. But that is not a world leader running mate.
Do polls show voting swings based on VP activity? I find it hard to believe most Americans could even name our VPs, let alone give enough fucks about what they're saying to be persuaded by them.
These people could easily have crushed Trump by recruiting Michelle Obama. They chose hegemony and genocide instead.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/only-michelle-obama-bests-trump-alternative-biden-2024
electing a former presidents wife isn't fighting hegemony
That wouldn't have been easy because Michelle Obama didn't want to run.
The campaign was fine. Americans are the problem. They're too ignorant.
If we're going to blame this ignorance on anyone we might consider blaming the media. Odd how we aren't seeing a lot of articles from the media saying the media failing to give information to people about how bad Trump is. But linked above is something from the media blaming a political campaign for not doing their jobs for them.
Still not doing any introspection about waiting until after the election to explain why Trump's "economic plan" will be a disaster, huh? Didn't bother to explain anything about what causes inflation. Wouldn't want people to think it's something to do with it being a free market, and not caused by the government. Nope, it's up to the campaigns to explain economics to people in 30 second TV spots.
So the media will continue blame the Democrats for all the problems, while wondering "why couldn't the democrats win the election"? Must be the democrats fault! It's like we've always been saying, it's always their fault! We should never think about what the effect of us blaming one party for everything might be.
But mostly it was just Americans taking democracy for granted. Don't know what you got until you've lost it I guess.
It was a great campaign if the cheneys were the only voters.
The alternative was Trump. Harris posing for some photo ops to try to pick up some GOP moderate votes doesn't change the fact her opponent was Trump.
If some people wouldn't vote for Harris because of some photo ops with Cheney, those would be people in the ignorant group I'm talking about.
The campaign was complete garbage, though. In a Rolling Stone article, it details on how many advisors and Democratic party operatives were begging her campaign to not bring in Liz Cheney because any gains would essentially be eclipsed by other Democratic voters that otherwise stayed home.
A Democratic strategist says they warned key Harris surrogates and top-level officials at the Democratic National Committee that campaigning with Liz Cheney [...] was highly unlikely to motivate any new swing voters, and risked dissuading already-despondent, infrequent Democratic voters who had supported Biden in 2020
I also understand that your main points are on how political commentators and news anchors on TV chose not to encourage Harris to tackle issues on the economy, but an Atlantic article essentially tells us that Harris torpedoed her anti-big business rhetoric when she brought in her brother-in-law into the campaign itself.
While Harris was stuck defending the Biden economy, and hobbled by lingering anger over inflation, attacking Big Business allowed her to go on the offense. Then, quite suddenly, this strain of populism disappeared. One Biden aide told me that Harris steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer
Honestly, how big of a role does media have in swaying her campaign into talking about important issues (such as the economy, like you pointed out) if she willingly chose to ignore the easiest slam dunks her campaign had?
The democrats that stayed home are most certainly in the group I called ignorant Americans. People couldn't see the difference between Harris and Trump, "ignorant" is being generous.
If people understood how the economy worked at all, then it would have been a strength and she wouldn't have been on the defensive about it. And do you think the majority of Americans who voted for Trump would have changed their mind if she was running on an "anti-business" platform? Trump who was proposing tariffs would solve inflation?
We literally had a candidate for President telling people to watch her opponents rallies. Why was that? Because the media only wanted to show pundits arguing over something because ratings. Everyone seeing him as the bat-shit lunatic he is doesn't give them anything to debate. So they had to sane wash what he was saying to give the pundits something to talk about. Harris has to have an economic plan. Trump, well his plan is batshit so don't talk about it. Why isn't Harris doing more interviews? Trump... well he's not doing interviews because he's too batshit, nothing to discuss there.
But sure believe the media when they blame the democrats for not doing the media's job. If I were more conspiracy minded I might say they didn't want to explain anything so the dems would have to explain things via ad spots the media made money from. But never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
The media is failing to explain anything because they've been too distracted by Trump for a fucking decade. But as long as they can blame their failures on the democrats (which does have an impact on the dems getting elected ya know) they aren't going to change.
This ain't new either. I had to learn about how vaccines from a youtuber that plays Mario Maker. Despite the covid vaccine being one of the biggest stories of the decade, they didn't bother to cover anything about it's development and testing. It was just Trump Trump Trump Vaccine Trump Trump Trump... Why don't people trust the vaccine? Why oh why don't people know that the vaccine is safe?
Same fucking thing this year. Trump Trump Trump TRUMP ELECTED! Trump Trump... why don't people understand that inflation has been handled and tariffs will only bring it back?
I have a hard time believing that anyone was engaged enough to actually understand who Cheney was (to the point that they have an opinion of her) AND they were so upset by the gesture of welcoming her on on the Jan 6th Committee as a bridge that they completely refused their civic duty to vote? Something doesn't square there...
That said, Cheney is human garbage who was still spewing that ridiculous "dems want to abort babies after they are already born" bullshit, as of very recently.
The campaign was fine. Americans are the problem.
Hi, Principal Skinner.