I agree.
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Wasn’t Pelosi being accused of manoeuvring to get him to step down, not the other way around?
The only time he went back on his word was when he decided to drop out, he never said he would only be president for a single term.
I’m not sure you understand how candidates are usually selected… I’m not sure what “grooming” or “positioning” could have been done against a candidate who was so dominant he barely received any credible challenge in the primaries. Like it or not, if he wasn’t pressured to drop his re-election bid, he would have been the legitimate Democratic candidate.
There’s genuinely so much ascribing of more power to “the power behind the throne” when it’s quite clear that… There is none.
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He’s doesn’t get away with negative stuff at all, it’s littered all over the media, some of it fairly some of it unfairly. He ran on border/immigration and economy/inflation.
There is still a centre vote, it’s getting smaller. I have thankfully seen democrats/republicans vote across lines, that encouraging and hopefully become more significant. There will always be extreme portions of each party that will never change. Harris did play for a centre, nobody bought it, and she couldn’t bring herself to actually explain it, a small insignificant ultra liberal example. Q: Allow criminals to have sex change operation in prison, A: I will follow the rule of law. If you want to win an election you need to do significantly better than that, just my opinion.
The country was split in half in 2016, 2020. In 2016 Trump had the opportunity to bring the nation together, he couldn’t and failed to pass legislation as it was blocked even when he had control of the Senate.
In 2020 Biden said he would bring the nation together, he failed and it was made even worse when he took control of the Senate and House, so he doubled down. IMO the USA needs to thank Sinema and Manchin for preventing some dangerous proposals that would have put the USA in a worse predicament that its facing right now.
In 2024 hopefully Trump can do this, its needed, and hopefully the impeachment BS doesn’t start from day 1.
This is would literally be the end of the Democratic party. Everyone in Hollywood and the extreme left would be jerking each other off, and then wonder why they are so out of touch with the moderate democrats and the rest of the nation.
It was one of many stupid things they did in the campaign, along with campaigning with his daughter. Definitely not the two you want if you are trying to court the moderate republicans. I think she was selected due to being anti-Trump and being on the Jan 6 investigation.
Yeah, I think the die was cast in the first two years of the administration. Ultimately there was a negative view of this administration that got hung on Harris and they were unable to shake it. The Biden team was completely absent in the PR battle during that period when they were getting defined. They refused to try to define themselves, did little to present their wins to the public, did almost no push back about the negative characterization and put no time into articulating how their wins represented how they were really the party of the common person. The result was by the time it came time for them to switch into campaign mode they were already firmly seen as a failed administration that had fucked up the economy, done nothing for the common person and was weak national security (the border and Afghanistan). Biden pulled out once it was apparent they could not turn it around and ultimately it was too late for Harris to do so as well.
I am going to be fascinated on what comes to be written about this decision
- did they think that simply doing good things was enough and the benefits would be eventually become self-evident?
- did they think that their time was best spent on doing good stuff and once it came time to campaign (after the midterms) they would be able to turn it around?
- or did they just not identify the problem?
I vaguely recall reading an editorial from 2021 or 2022 I think, where they were talking about this precise problem. That successful left-wing governments would be constantly talking up their achievements, because it’s pointless to just do them if you can’t even point to these as successes.
Furthermore, rightly or wrongly, if you don’t boast about your achievements, it seems to be taken by far too many as you disavowing them, making you look like you’re lacking in conviction.
Probably because the rightwing media twists things to make it look that way.
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With the world’s richest man going far right rogue, solving this problem will be no easy task for the Democrats, given the resources at his disposal.
It may have been a recent Monbiot article where I read it, but he talked about the billionaire class transcending government and politics as usual. Musk has his fingers in a lot of global pies, even as high up as multiple calls with Putin, and doing China a favor with Starlink over Taiwan, etc.
I almost see it as another extension of the disastrous Citizens United ruling, and in the billionaire age (he will probably be the world’s first trillionaire) we are very far removed from the simplicity and power of one person with one vote.
It almost feels as though democracy is on its last legs, and I hate to think how much Trump is going to damage the structures of government in the next four years and take democracy further away from the people.
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The saddest irony is the number of his supporters who believe that he supports democracy.
It beggars belief.
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There was a belief in the Obama admin that became a mantra that you cannot celebrate economic wins when you are still in recovery mode as people are still hurting and wont take a politican telling them they have it good. I think that likely infused some of the Biden’s team thinking…in that they didnt think while people were upset about inflation was a good time to tout that various successes we had.
The irony is that is exactly what Reaganism was based on…morning in america was not about an objectively strong economy, but his leadership to get us there. His blow out win in 84 was on the back of an improving but still not great economy. Republicans understand rhetoric can create reality and Dems dont.
The other irony was, as I am now blue in the face saying, that the economy was objectively good from fairly early in their administration with actions they took they could point to. It was a fight worth having. It was a fight that needed to be had. But I think they were probably too concerned about the prospect of a recession and didnt want to spent too much political capital arguing things were going well only to see them later fall. I wonder if they had more convictions in the sustainability of the improvements if they would have fought harder on this issue? But again, Republicans never worry about what fight they have to have tomorrow. They only ever worry about what fight they need to have to win today. They would have hailed their best in the world economy and would have put aside the arguments they’d need to have should a recession hit as a problem for another day.
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Only in America would these proposals be considered as catering to the extreme left but whatever. This is a country with more firearms than residents with mass killings every couple of months, but cannot pass a law to stop fucking assault rifles being sold.
And yet we wonder why Trump’s hateful rhetoric has taken hold so firmly. I pity those that can see what’s happening and are tormented by it.
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To my mind, what is at stake is whether or not we have the rule of law.
If the legal system is unable to hold Trump to account, lawmakers in government who find that to be unacceptable will have no other avenue to pursue, so it might be be yet another impeachment for him.
Mind you, in the current climate - assuming the Republicans have the House, Senate, Presidency and Supreme Court - it won’t get anywhere.
Trump is very much above the law.
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I don’t think there is any serious argument that we do.
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I’m not convinced. Sure they do play their part, but I think it goes beyond right-wing media and is just a general societal tendency. People, especially politicians, who recognise their mistakes, are vilified and mocked. It is not ideologically pure to learn and to change your mind, and you look unprincipled. It’s just the way our societies are.
People who loudly stick to their guns are favoured compared to the wishy-washy who change their positions.
Or take the Trump 3rd way - just change your position and utterly reject any suggestion it is new as fake news.
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Something a pretty apolitical person said to me this morning sounded like it should have come out of my mouth - American Exceptionalism is a cancer.
To her, so much of this election came down to a large of people just refusing to believe that Trump was the danger he was being presented as being. That is partly due to how badly informed they were. Partly due to the fallacy of “we survived first time, so how bad could it be a second time”. But the main aspect is the foundational belief everything else sits on top of (notably, based on absolutely nothing) that “this is American and that could not happen here.” There is no specific element of what about America is so great that it could prevent any of the things happening that Trump has been promising, just the general sense that those things are what happens “over there” done by “those people” and so would not, could not, happen here.
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It’s the Captain America syndrome. Always on the side of good. Everything bad is ‘Unamerican’. So if something looks and sounds really patriotic and Murican it can’t possibly be evil.
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British folk on this thread in bewilderment at how Americans chose Trump over Harris, when we voted for Boris Johnson over Jeremy Corbyn, the most decent human being in politics and the last chance of a progressive government
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The party is dead. Most of these are very popular policies in all polling.
We can’t come back with just another face promising Obama-era corporate Democrats - but I’m sure that the lesson learned here will be that America is too racist and sexist to vote for a black woman. I think the bigger issue is that the black woman chosen gave a shit message that failed to connect with people.
I have no idea if left politics would win in America, to answer a question I saw from @Limiescouse somewhere, but I’d rather frigging try.
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I was just thinking that I am grateful that Corbyn is not in power today.
All of a sudden Russia and Ukraine is going to dominate Europe. the UK could turn a blind eye during stalemate chipping in as needed.
As US support dries up, Russia will continue the pressure and Ukraine losses will be unsustainable. Russia won’t just be a Ukraine problem it will be a full on European problem as they exert more pressure, threats, interference etc
Whilst Corbyns stance when it comes to war is very noble. In Russian eyes it would only be seen as weak. Trying to defuse rather than stand up to a bully.
That’s not to say Starmer is the right man, but the next year will be defining for the PM of the UK.
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You are probably right. All I can remember is everyone talking for him and saying he was/should be a one term president.
The democrats out funded the republicans by a significant amount. The democrats needed the extra cash as they had a hill to climb. The republicans used the money they had extremely well and took advantage of the type of media exposure that the democrats barely took advantage of.