The US election will come down to the results in a handful of key states - and polling indicates it will be very close.
  • Moss [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    106·
    1 month ago

    Honestly I thought this would be a slam dunk for Trump after the assassination photo, then he completely failed to capitalize on that, then I thought it would be a slam dunk for Harris, then she did absolutely nothing to make her likeable and got an endorsement from Cheney. How are both presidential candidates so bad at running for president

    • WhatDoYouMeanPodcast [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      53·
      1 month ago

      From what I understand, Trump actually got chilled by the attempt, right? Like he actually had to stop and think about the world and his place in it for the first time in his life. I don’t know, I’m sorry to anthropomorphize a republican. I haven’t really been following. But he’s supposedly talented at reading the room, right?

  • Barabas [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    83·
    1 month ago

    All Harris had to do was to even pretend to be progressive, but she had to jump on the ghoul train in order to impress 7 columnists. Why do they think that Negraponte and Cheney are good endorsements?

    The dems were on a slight roll when they chose to do what the ‘left’ told them by replacing Biden and choosing Waltz for VP, but then decided to double down to pander to the right.

    • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      42·
      1 month ago

      Capturing the donor class is far more important than getting votes. That’s why Citizens United exists - to make sure that politicians will always prioritize the donor class.

      This is the one chance the Democrats have to become the new Republican party thanks to Trump burning bridges with all its traditional bourgeois base. It would be stupid not for them to take the opportunity.

        • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          27·
          1 month ago

          Why closed doors when the voters don’t even matter to them? It’s a rebranding phase - the Democrats have to make it explicit to their new donors. You know, make them feel welcomed.

          There is also no need for a “secret conspiracy” here because when politicians make their public statements, they are just talking to the donor class. This has always been the case. No need to hide behind anything when the voters don’t matter to you.

          I don’t understand why people still keep trying to twist reality into fitting what they want to see, when everyone here knows deep down, the Democrats and the Republicans have always blatantly make statements without taking the voters into account. If this hadn’t been the case, public pressure and protests would have worked. But we all know they haven’t.

          You are not that important. Only the top 1% matters.

          • anarcho_blinkenist [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            1 month ago

            Voters matter for the mandate, not for the policy. You’re conflating the two. Votes don’t change policy but the reason Dems are freaking out over 3rd parties and sending lawyers to purge from ballots and doing such a media blitz for Kamala against Trump is because they need the mandate from voters, especially in the swing states. There is always an aspect of doublespeak in public statements for both the donors and the voterbase, as well as backdoor and personal meetings to court donors. Saying they don’t need voters makes no sense; they only need a certain margin of voters but they still need them in order to be given the mandate for their wing of the political establishment to take power.

    • HamManBad [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      33·
      1 month ago

      Her sister is married to an Uber executive. Her inner circle is a buch of people deeply involved with McKinsey, major banks, the Ford Foundation, etc. She is personally deeply embedded in the donor class, it’s not even about appeasing them, it’s the fact that she IS them

        • SadArtemis [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          10·
          1 month ago

          Are we talking about the same guy? The dude claimed to have been at Tinyman square for the “massacre” (later redacted) and intentionally married on the 5th anniversary for political brownie points. He’s not completely deranged (ie. constantly spewing blood libel and marching to WW3) but it’s a low bar.

  • WorkingClassCorpse [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    76·
    1 month ago

    Anyone notice their polling numbers started tanking as soon as it came out that planet-hillary was consulting their campaign?

    Or maybe it was the Cheney announcement? Or Walz’s comments on Iran and Israel?

    Boy I’m so excited for another 2016, I can already hear the quiet panicking and finger pointing on election night.

    • macabrett[they/them]@lemmy.mlEnglish
      78·
      1 month ago

      They switched from calling Republicans “weird” to being like “Okay, but we love Republicans, we’re adopting a bunch of their policies, and we’ll have Republicans in our administration” and the numbers dropped. Wow who could have seen this coming!?

      And yes, all of this sounds like HRC’s strategists.

    • Des [she/her, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      46·
      1 month ago

      oh those fingers are already pointed at us and have been since the beginning.

      you know those wacky oversized foam fingers? they just went ahead and taped them to us a decade ago and relieved themselves of the need to ever self-crit

    • hypercracker@hexbear.netEnglish
      15·
      1 month ago

      it timed pretty well with the VP debate (didn’t watch) but I would be surprised if that resulted in much difference given the large gap in favorability for the VPs

      • WorkingClassCorpse [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        10·
        1 month ago

        At least with Biden there was a gesture to the left, even if simply because he had to solidify his support after the primary with Bernie and Warren

        Now they’ve just completely dropped all pretext of being a left-friendly party and have doubled down on being center-right. The only thing not present from 2016’s run is the open derision of left-leaning “bernie-bro” dems - but even then, there is a pretty deafening silence that’s hard not to interpret as contempt.

        To me this feels way more like 2016 than 2020, but my memory might not be serving me that well.

        • culpritus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          9·
          1 month ago

          anakin-padme-1 Bernie Bros

          anakin-padme-3 Genocide Snowflakes, Terrorist Left, Hamas Left, Anti-Semite Left, Russian trolls, CCP trolls

          Not sure if they have settled on a name yet for who to blame.

          • WorkingClassCorpse [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
            7·
            1 month ago

            Eh, those are perennial anti-communist slurs used by terminally online libs

            IIRC Hilary actually used the term ‘bernie bros’. I haven’t heard Harris say anything directly accusational about the left yet, but they’ve been keeping a tight lid on her public comments so who knows if she would, given the chance. I keep waiting for her to call anti-war protestors ‘antisemitic’ - she’s gotten close but I don’t think she’s been direct about it yet.

          • WorkingClassCorpse [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
            2·
            1 month ago

            Some of his campaign positions were lesser homages to Sanders’ positions, like the student loan relief and universal child care. I think Bernie dragged the entire 2020 Democratic field to the left, at least aesthetically.

            Obviously those promises fell through (or were never real to begin with), but I don’t think he ever would have campaigned on them if not for the fact he was campaigning against them in the primaries.

    • eldavi@lemmy.mlEnglish
      6·
      1 month ago

      i wish i didn’t have look forward to the threads from the diet reddit instances of the lemmyverse; but it’s clear that .worlders are no different than redditors (aka your typical uninformed liberals) and i suspect that those threads will be the only source of joy out of this entire election.

      i wish i wasn’t childish told-you-so pleasure that will be definitely fleeting since liberals can only convince themselves to learn about their situations and usually don’t bother.

  • macabrett[they/them]@lemmy.mlEnglish
    52·
    1 month ago

    Weird that their strategy of courting Republicans isn’t working, given there’s already a Republican candidate that appeals more broadly to Republicans (on account of saying out loud, “I’m a Republican”).

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      24·
      1 month ago

      Are democrats that clueless about politics? Americans love love LOVE the GOP. They’re more loyal to it than their wives.

      If they actually cared about progressivism, it would be much easier to recruit a bunch of white men allies, register as republicans, hide your power level and claim you’re fash and when you get elected do all the progressive stuff behind everyone’s backs.

      • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        21·
        1 month ago

        There are a bunch of “moderate” Republicans that don’t like Trump because he’s an incompetent clown, they would rather have a competent fascist in power, I suppose that’s who Kamala is trying to appeal to. But if you ask me, the moderate Republicans will still vote Trump for the party behind him. The Dems have people like Warren and Bernie in their party who might do something pro-labor once in 4 years, so just vote NSDAP no matter who.

    • FortifiedAttack [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      1 month ago

      Nobody could have predicted that Republicans weren’t going to vote for a Black woman in the presidential elections.

      After all, Republicans are famous for their acceptance of Black people and how well they treat women.

  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    49·
    1 month ago

    I remember when a poll showed “Generic unnamed Democrat” polling 8% better than Biden in some places. It was clear as day that voters wanted literally anything but Biden. When Biden dropped out people thought they’d be getting their wish, but every day since then, Kamala just keeps telling us that she’s gonna continue exactly what Biden did.

    • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      1 month ago

      How is it not obvious to everyone that dems are controlled opposition?

      Sure, they can reduce the imperial boomerang in reasonable amounts (but not too much) in their local places. But on a federal level they better lock in with the democrats to happily serve the American people all the exploitation they keep enthusiastically asking for.

      • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        24·
        1 month ago

        I think a lot of it is people wanting to believe otherwise. I noticed this in myself when the Walz picked was announced and there was this initial surge of enthusiasm. Democrats were doing this “Republicans are weird” bit that worked hilariously well and Walz had a record of progressive policies in his state.

        I live in Germany so US politics doesn’t affect me as directly as it does Americans, but the tiny part in me that still holds on to naive, liberal ideas saw that and was like “Hey, maybe the West’s descent into fascism will finally stop now and we can all go back to brunch! Wouldn’t that be lovely? Wouldn’t it be just lovely if the good guys took charge and you wouldn’t have to worry about all the horrible things in the world anymore? Wouldn’t it be nice to feel hope again after a year of unprecedented despair?”

        Personally I was way too jaded and disillusioned to truly buy into that, but I could tell that I wanted to believe.

      • SadArtemis [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        1 month ago

        I don’t even see them as controlled opposition anymore. They’re competing (and generally friendly) fascist tendencies, nothing more- even the “reduce the imperial boomerang” is an overstatement, considering what we’re actually talking about is them simply “not engaging in internal colonialism/oppression as much (in certain specific places).” Klanmala’s history as a prosecutor is basically the textbook example of this.

  • Goblinmancer [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    49·
    1 month ago

    Turns out the “Im basically a republican in all but name” strategy didnt work out work so well when please-save-me will always prefers the big wet boi.

  • BodyBySisyphus [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    48·
    1 month ago

    Axios has an article out about infighting between Biden’s and Harris’s staff. I didn’t post it because it was a nothingburger of a read, but I guess it’s a sign they might be gearing up to pin a loss on Joe.

    • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      45·
      1 month ago

      I mean it is at least partially his fault, but also it’s a fault that Harris can and should completely eliminate if she wanted to win

      Why is he still president??? Fucking 25th amendment the man and you don’t have to worry about that anymore. And continuing to allow him to rule is an incredible failure of her basic responsibilities in her current job.

      But she won’t do that because she supports all of his worst policies and opposes only his best, so if she got rid of him the ability to blame someone else goes away and it becomes obvious how bad she sucks.

        • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          30·
          1 month ago

          Yeah she can, term limit doesn’t apply for people who took the position more than 2 years into a term. LBJ, for example, was allowed to run for a thirs time, but opted not to because of how unpopular Vietnam war made him.

          Edit: exact text:

          No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

        • TheLepidopterists [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          15·
          1 month ago

          I think the real reason, originally at least, was plausible deniability.

          There was a ton of “look she’s only the vice president, you can’t blame her for Biden’s unwavering support for genocide,” early on.

          At this point she’s made it clear that Biden is governing exactly how she would anyways, so I don’t know why they still keep up the charade, maybe inertia? Election is less than a month out anyways.

    • WorkingClassCorpse [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      23·
      1 month ago

      I get the distinct feeling that either Joe is checked out completely and not helping consult her campaign at all (other than because he’s toxic to her image), or Harris’ team has decided to take the direction of Clinton against the Biden-team’s objections.

      They really have committed to a distinctly different strategy from Biden, so it isn’t surprising at all that there’d be a lot of in-fighting.

      • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        1 month ago

        I keep forgetting that shambling corpse is still technically president. When was the last time he even appeared in public? Or had an interaction with someone that wasn’t scripted and stage managed?

        I think the only reason they haven’t 25th amendment’d his ass is because then Kamala would have to be president and take on all the baggage of the office right before the election. Not that it would make that much of a difference at this point…

        • WorkingClassCorpse [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
          7·
          1 month ago

          Yea, 100% it’s a political calculation.

          Not only would Harris be saddled with all the shortfalls of Biden’s administration, but republicans would probably paint her as a power-hungry tyrant for pushing out her predecessor (they already are).