General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKamala did NOTHING wrong. She was, and we are, up against incredibly powerful anti-Democratic Party / anti-democracy
forces, namely, the billionaire class, whose members include Putin, Musk, the Koch network, the Federalist Society, et al. Their goal is clear: everything autocracy, everywhere, all at once. And they're not going to let anything stand in their way.
Kamala did not lose, they WON, with their trillion-dollar "Democrats are evil!" marketing campaign that played out on Fox News, OAN, News Max, over 1,500 conservative radio stations, radical rightwing internet platforms, and, of course, Trump's Republican enablers in Congress.
The billionaires' campaign has been brainwashing Republican voters for years, and now the transformation is complete, much like the end of the cult classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
The question now is how on God's green Earth are we going to combat these forces?
CrispyQ
(38,176 posts)LaMouffette
(2,250 posts)how the billionaires are teaming up to take over the world. They might want to talk about that, too. (sarcasm thing-ee!)
FalloutShelter
(12,731 posts)She ran a BRILLIANT campaign.
The trash (yes I said it) on the right translated that very effectively to UPPITY.
They hate Woke and DEI because they suffer tragically under the tyranny of merit.
And yet the punditocracy is constantly demanded that the thinking class dumb it down in order to win.
Aspiration is apparently a thing of the past and self improvement is passé.
Their unearned privilege is slipping away and they will destroy democracy in a vain attempt to preserve it.
They have not won anything but more suffering.
Problem for us is we will suffer too.
kerry-is-my-prez
(9,106 posts)To win, the Dems need to become experts on how to combat these tactics. This has been going on for years. They are experts on how to use psychology - which is sort of ironic, considering that most people in that field tend to be liberal.
EarlG
(22,532 posts)Unfortunately I don't think things will change until the majority of Americans realizes what they've just bought into and how it will negatively affect their lives. It looks like voters wanted change -- and that's definitely what they are going to get. Many will end up with buyer's remorse, they will vote for change again when that sentiment reaches a tipping point.
LaMouffette
(2,250 posts)that it was Trump and the Republicans who did it and not be suckered into believing it was somehow the Democrats fault.
groundloop
(12,221 posts)Cosmocat
(14,947 posts)They will blame the libs for things and rationalize things the same way they did to vote for him in the first place.
jimfields33
(18,686 posts)kelly1mm
(5,144 posts)Trump 365M. VP Harris had 3X the 'official' money.
Side note, VP Harris campaign actually has a debt of about 18-20 million. President Trump still has a bit of cash on hand. This is going to be a BIG problem going forward if 3X fundraising is not enough ......
jimfields33
(18,686 posts)bdamomma
(66,283 posts)and see what happens. I only wish that felon would say that.
Do dictator's let their masses have guns???????????
DemonGoddess
(5,112 posts)so many of them STUPIDLY think he's the cat's meow. That he's some kind of "great businessman".
Ugh
Whatthe_Firetruck
(601 posts)Didn't he say something 'about you'll never need to vote again?
La Coliniere
(803 posts)When they and their households are affected financially they will see the reality of what they helped usher in. Buyers remorse will set in.
Quixote1818
(30,363 posts)and find ways to break through to groups we lost like young men. We can't lose these young men for a quarter century. Keep in mind that Trump brings out a lot of creepy people who would not normally vote. Take Trump away and many of those people will go away.
LaMouffette
(2,250 posts)Cosmocat
(14,947 posts)But these people were activated by hatred, bigotry, seismic, etc. We really have nothing that Trumps that.
anglesphere
(197 posts)She could not have campaigned any better.
What we're up against is a cult whipped into a frenzy and it won't dissipate until Trump is either gone or his policies start hurting more of his supporters.
This is not a sign of any lasting resurgence or strength in the Republican party. They won't be able to sustain it.
It's not a sign of any weakness in the Democratic party.
It's an example of voters being distracted from the real issues and debate and independents voting in a tit for tat pattern.
If Trump can be held off from seizing power and fixing elections, I think we'll see a democratic president right back in power in 2028.
kerry-is-my-prez
(9,106 posts)I dont know if its going to happen within the next 4 years.
bdamomma
(66,283 posts)being drilled into people's head for over 10 years, Putin style. Keep on repeating and repeating till they believe it, and they did. And the billionaires are out for the kill.
And they got their useful idiot and their sycophants to cause chaos and steal from us.
It didn't have to be like this.
Cosmocat
(14,947 posts)NM
kerry-is-my-prez
(9,106 posts)There are a lot of crazy conspiracy theories out there. One is that Democrats have something to do with pedophilia.
ificandream
(10,463 posts)LisaM
(28,565 posts)It's just to keep him out of jail.
johnnyfins
(1,355 posts)of dems who sat this one out. Makes ZERO sense.
Jit423
(192 posts)I am not trying to go full conspiracy bore here but I posted elsewhere that three statements by Trump and his close circle that were reported in the media (I will try to find later) made me very nervous and suspect at the time.
The first statement was by Trump himself who said at one of his rallies or somewhere that he didn't need Niki Haley voters. He already had enough votes. (this was said at least two to three weeks before Nov. 5.
The second statement was reported in the media as coming from either Trump or one of his cult. It was something about why should they have security clearance. Maybe this time Trump should not have any vetting or security clearances for his appointees and staff? This was also reported at least a week before Nov. 5
The third statement was from Trump himself about he and the House Speaker having a secret plan already in place.
OK talk me down.
Jit423
(192 posts)I don't know how to link a previous post so I just copied and pasted it.
Something doesn't seem right to me. I thought registration was up on both sides?
Reply to Coexist (Original post)
Thu Nov 7, 2024, 04:29 PM
Also wasn't mail-in and early voting up on both sides? What am I missing? Did that many people ask for mail-in and not send them in? And did that many people register only to not vote? Was it only the Democrats that failed to show up in the numbers expected? Why not?
The final numbers do not match the energy and excitement on the Dem side. It just doesn't feel right that so many did not follow through on voting. And tell me if I read the final data thus far incorrectly. The down turn in was mostly in the heaviest blue wall states of PA, WI, in addition to GA?
I'm just trying to wrap my head around the numbers coming out today. The numbers I find most unbelievable are PA in the Philly and surrounding areas.
Help me out
johnnyfins
(1,355 posts)Something is not sitting well. And every media head is saying millions of democrats just stayed home. BULLSHIT!
No Roe effect? BULLSHIT!
No D ground game? BULLSHIT!
TSF won the popular vote? BULLSHIT!
Something smells rotten(besides the stench of TSF)
LaMouffette
(2,250 posts)and remarks. Believing that "the fix was in" for him to win the election would explain why he said all of those outlandish remarks during the final weeks of the campaign.
Trump is stupid, but he is cunning, and he has a keen sense of survival. He wouldn't have said those batshit crazy remarks and stood swaying to music at that bizarro rally if he had thought he were going to lose the election.
And the idea that he won the popular vote! That makes no sense whatsoever and seems like it was just icing on the cake for Trump, for whom ratings and crowd size are pathetically important for his tender ego and demented psyche.
It doesn't make any sense that he won.
Buckeyeblue
(5,688 posts)Fault doesn't matter. We lost. There was no wiggle room to not win.
If we are going to be honest, Biden should have opted out in the fall of 2023. Then we could have had a robust primary to choose our candidate. And that candidate would have had a full primary to build their popularity and find their voice.
KH got put in a tough spot.
But still it's about winning.
groundloop
(12,221 posts)HOWEVER, we need to get better at countering GQP lies. For instance, John Kerry didn't adequately refute the Swift Boat bullshit, I think if he'd have come out immediately with proof that it was a lie he'd have faired better.
In my opinion the "transgender" TV ads did a great deal of harm to Kamala, and I never saw anything aimed at addressing that.
AND there are groups of people (Black men, Hispanic men, etc.) where we need to get better at including in the Democratic Party.
Skittles
(158,672 posts)seriously
ancianita
(38,397 posts)First = now
Second = 2025
Third = 2026 midterms
Fourth = 2028
Skittles
(158,672 posts)she was held to impossible standards, while Trump was held to no standards at all
Rizen
(801 posts)In a country full of misogynistic heaps of human dog shit.
Skittles
(158,672 posts)she was POC too! HOW DARE she try to be president.
DemonGoddess
(5,112 posts)Skittles
(158,672 posts)DOUBLE HOW DARE SHE!!!!
DemonGoddess
(5,112 posts)What can I say? Morons will be morons just to make themselves feel better at everyone else's expense
bdamomma
(66,283 posts)what's a POC??
Skittles
(158,672 posts)yes indeed
DinahMoeHum
(22,484 posts)I could tell you, unfortunately it's not fit for discussion here.
sky_masterson
(562 posts)Who questioned her every move while giving a pass to the clown.
Any other year this campaign would have been too massive to stop.
But we found out the hard way that masses of angry men can be manipulated to vote for anything.
They can be mass hypnotized.
You know, when Lyndsey Graham said "We arent creating enough angry white guys" we all laughed at how advanced we were.
Turns out, they cracked the code. They created more Angry white guys.
Jk23
(386 posts)I don't think it was an awful campaign. (She did a better job with less than Hillary, for example) but you got to judge it by the score. When given an option, she too often went the safe route.
Algernon Moncrieff
(5,936 posts)But the Republicans have been moving more authoritarian for 25 years. W Bush famously quipped "I am the decider" and there was theorizing about "the unitary executive."
I think part of the attraction to a more authoritarian model of government is the frustration citizens have with nothing getting done and seemingly solvable problems remaining unsolved.
tritsofme
(18,383 posts)When given the opportunity in 2020, Democratic primary voters had very little interest in her campaign.
Unfortunately Democrats had no choice but to run her when Biden exited, she likely performed better than he would have.
Biden never should have run for reelection, the fault lies in his stubbornness.
A real primary earlier this year would have produced a much stronger candidate.
It hard to imagine Whitmer or Shapiro being completely swept out of the Blue Wall. She just wasnt a good candidate.
LudwigPastorius
(10,751 posts)...psychopathic people.
The chickens of Citizens United and unenforced antitrust laws came home to roost.
tornado34jh
(1,285 posts)It's always been against the oligarchs, more specifically, the plutocracy. They ran on this whole plutophobia campaign. By that, when Biden, Harris and a lot of people wanted more taxes for the extremely rich, they saw that hatred as against the rich. Note: the world suffix pluto- comes from Plutus, the god of wealth/riches, so plutocracy means a government governed by the rich. So from the beginning, the rich always had the advantage. But part of that is because we have such weak laws, if you can even call that, against money in politics. They convinced people, even though it was a scam from the beginning, that if you increase taxes for the extremely rich, it will cascade down.
But really this isn't anything new. It's as old as human civilization itself. The reality is, democracy ruled by your average person is not typically the main government. Even though we say it came from the Greeks and Romans, it really wasn't. It still was ruled by the rich and powerful. Even in very religious, theocratic governments, it's always going to be the rich and powerful. I would guarantee you that the ayatollahs running the government in Iran for example are likely very rich. Most governments in the world are ruled by some variation of ruling class with a lot of money and huge amount of inequality. There are not many people in government who started from the ground up, most were wealthy from the start.
But again, the Republicans have always been pro-plutocracy, and the damage started long ago. Assuming best case scenario where she did win and everything went well, her doing two terms would still be nowhere close enough to reverse the long lasting damage. It's not a dig at Kamala Harris, it's the reality. It probably would take at least two Democratic presidents, each for 8 years, two 4-year terms to do so, all while trying to defeat the plutocracy that has been here for a long time. So from the start Obama, Biden, and Harris were basically tied with at least one hand behind their back, and since 2000 it has only gotten worse.
LaMouffette
(2,250 posts)a century, slowly at first, and with a few hiccups along the way, but then resurging with a vengeance, and now proceeding at an ever-accelerating pace. I fear that, like climate change, we have reached a tipping point in democracy.
But maybe, just maybe, this is the darkness before the dawn.
mvd
(65,437 posts)And she was dealt a very tough hand. There are always some things you can look back on. I wish the President would have been one term to begin with. To me, Kamala was an excellent candidate. Unfortunately not though others saw that.
somaticexperiencing
(549 posts)the media, the social media, the foundations and so forth is not present at all times.
LetMyPeopleVote
(154,191 posts)I am a numbers geek. While I do blame part of Kamala's defeat on sexism, I heard today a good explanation as to what one of the major reasons for Tuesday's election results on Deadline White House today. President Biden had an approval rating of around 40% and the wrong track numbers were very high. Historically, an incumbent president tends to get the same percentage of vote as their approval ratings. Here Kamala got 7% or so higher vote compared to Joe Biden's approval rating which is a testament to the fact that she ran a great campaign.
Link to tweet
.
Joe Biden did a great job on the economy and prevented a recession. However the public was still upset at the fact that food and other things cost more and they felt bad about the economy. The high percentage of people who believe that the country was on the wrong track also hurt. In effect, Kamala was facing a very high burden to overcome and was unable to overcome the feelings that the country was on the wrong track and the fact voters were upset about the economy.
doc03
(36,633 posts)one was being a woman the other being not white. In addition to that people are in a sour mood because
of inflation and immigration. The economy is the envy of the world for the money class but the working class
struggles to get by day after day.
Faux pas
(15,352 posts)at hello