Harris was asked what she would have done differently from Biden, and she answered:
Nothing comes to mind.
Trump won against Clinton in large part because of the stories they told:
Trump’s was. “I’m going to make America great again.”
Clinton’s was. “America is already great.”
So people who wanted change voted for Trump, if they could stomach him.
It’s that simple.
Economists will go on and on about how great the Biden economy is, but they’re basing that on statistics no one believes, nor that they should believe, like the inflation numbers, which are complete bullshit.
There’s a point at which people will believe their lying eyes, especially when it comes to grocery prices.
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Kamala’s just another mediocre member of the elite. The system worked for her, so she figures it’s basically a good system. She doesn’t have the empathy or intellectual honesty to see that it isn’t good for many, many other people and that she needs some of those people’s support.
This was her election to lose, just as Clinton should have won in 2016. All she had to do was show some genuine concern, some empathy and offer some significant change, even if she was lying. (This was Obama and Bill Clinton’s strategy, and it worked well. Bill was very empathic as he screwed over the working class and poor.)
She couldn’t even manage that. Polls are now basically dead-even, and battleground states are in the wind. Generally Democrats, because their votes are concentrated in urban and suburban areas need to be a few points ahead.
I won’t predict who’ll win. I don’t know. But I know that Harris is making unforced errors and acting like she doesn’t really want to win.
As for Trump, he’s clearly senile, out to lunch and would make a terrible President, but at least he wants it.
Feral Finster
“Economists will go on and on about how great the Biden economy is, but they’re basing that on statistics no one believes, nor that they should believe, like the inflation numbers, which are complete bullshit.”
I am not sure that the inflation numbers are fabricated, but I will say that the inflation stats are calculated using a self-serving measure, unless you are one of those kind of humans who happens to be a plant, because you don’t use or need energy, food or cat treats or anything.
Did not Goodhart’s Law teach the masses that once a measure becomes a target, then it ceases to be a good measure? Well, that’s not quite what is happening here. Rather, the measure is chosen to ensure that the target is hit, sort of like how corporate executives would choose the strike prices in their stock options packages if allowed to do so.
NR
Oh, it’s actually even worse than what you wrote, Ian. Harris went back to the question of what she would do differently later in that same interview and all she could come up with was “I’ll have a Republican in my cabinet.”
Pretty dismal. If Harris was running against the Trump of 2016, I think she’d probably lose. But Trump today is not the Trump of 2016 or even 2020. He’s declined a lot since then, and even significantly in just the last few months. The media is trying really hard to hide it, but with unedited video of Trump at his rallies all over social media, there’s just no concealing the state he’s in. So that, plus women voting based on entirely valid concerns about their lives under a Republican government, might be enough for Harris to limp across the finish line. But, like you, I don’t know.
Also, what gets me is that if you look at their policies, Harris is significantly different from Trump in some important ways. Her proposal to tax unrealized capital gains on people with a net worth of over $100 million would be the biggest step taken to break the power of the rich in America since Roosevelt if it’s implemented. And yet she’s just out there saying “I’ll be the same as Biden.” I don’t know what’s going on.
Mary Bennet
I agree that Harris is nothing special; I don’t however think she has shown Hilary’s terminal incompetence. She has won three elections, and the jobs she held, City Attorney, (or was it county, IDR), State Attorney General, and U. S. Senator are not ceremonial positions. You can disagree with policies and positions, but she didn’t slack in any position she has held. For women voters, this is important. Most of us don’t get to phone it in, either. Furthermore, her inner circle do appear to be Americans, not foreign born CIA babies.
She is being promoted as, in effect, Nancy Drew. I doubt anyone not American understands the importance of Nancy Drew in American popular culture. Nancy is the wholesome, hard working, attractive but not necessarily gorgeous, girl who can Get Things Done. Kind of what lying Hilary claimed to be. The underlying message is We can fix this. What I notice about her campaign is the lack of grandiosity. I have heard nothing about having to police the world, or make the world safe for “freedom” or anything of the kind. I could wish for a peace plan, but at this point about the best we can hope for is that Israel has to pay for the favors it gets from us.
Trump might be promising, when he strays on message, to end support for Ukraine, but what about the ME? If his ME policy is anything other than more of the same, I have not heard it. For the record, I have no sympathy and no regard for anyone who thinks Trump is some kind of icon of American manhood. J.D. Vance is a sociopath, plain and simple. I think the plan is get Trump elected and then dispose of him, either by assassination or 25th amendment, and have Vance administer project 2025, the final hit on the American economy.
For what it is worth, I think that Trump will win, just barely, and be facing a hostile Congress. I believe the Democrats will retake the House and possibly retain the Senate.
Oakchair
What would you do different?
Nothing
Print that out and put it on campaign signs across the country. Send 10 mailers of it to every address in every county. Make voters swoon with intoxicated euphoria so they walk over shattered glass to vote for…“nothing”
GrimJim
I think she wants to lose.
There is no other explanation for it.
Of course, she could honestly be so incredibly incompetent that she believes her own propaganda about how awesome everything is. That is one of the signs of the decrepitly corrupt and incompetent elite at the end of an empire.
I had such hope when Biden dropped out. The race was, as you say, hers to lose.
She could have won. But she won’t.
Barring something catastrophic happening to Trump, the race is now his to win.
I don’t think he’ll win the popular vote, I think the a abortion issue will galvanized the women’s vote in purple and blue states, but that won’t matter.
It will be an electoral win, and that is all that matters.
StewartM
What NR said. While I am not enthusiastic about Harris in many ways, she’d be far better domestically than Trump.
I don’t think the inflation stats are as manipulated as you think, Ian. I think that “Bidenflation” about is on par with “Reaganflation”, save that the media narrative is vastly different (“Morning in America!!”). I’ve experienced both, and under Reagan I saw the poor lost housing too, but no one seemed to care about it. You seem to downplay the importance of the (mostly rightwing) media-chatter on issues, save when it comes to Corbyn and Palestine. But if you admit that “yes, the media can create a diametrically different perspective than what is true” with those, then why not on economics too?
What I *DO* think, however, is that the economic stats are gamed in other ways—like the “fact” that the US has a higher disposable income than any other nation. That “fact” is also in opposition to the well-cited fact that most Americans can’t afford a $400 unexpected expense and the fact if you go overseas, you’ll see Englishmen, Germans, Australians, Russians, Japanese, and others vacationing but few Americans; apparently all those Americans with the “highest disposable income in the world” can’t afford the luxuries that other supposedly poorer people can.
In short, what I think is most heavily gamed is what is considered”essential” versus “non-essential” expenses. I’m sure that having a phone plan is “non-essential” even though you can’t even apply to be a burger flipper without scanning a barcode. And one such things, yes, Americans are heavily gouged. Also, if you factor in vehicle ownership, something that many in other countries can do without altogether because of excellent mass transit, that’s another huge chunk of money Usians are forced to hand over.
Much of our current economic mess even involves the proposed “solutions”, in that they are incomplete and insufficient. Yes, workers in the US need higher wages, and this was touted by many as the ‘fix’, but without real price competition firms will simply gouge workers for any wage increase that they receive. Likewise, you can’t do what is necessary to crash both overvalued housing prices and the overvalued asset prices without doubling Social Security or more, as seniors have been forced to base their retirement on overvalued assets due to loss of pensions. There is just no single, simple, easy fix.
mago
Many observers would say it doesn’t matter which suit or pant suit wins. Any way you look at it you lose.
Then there’s the question of who’s really running the circus. Biden checked out a long time ago and the show still proceeds from high wire acts to clown cars.
But, wow, do passions run high. My strategy is to ignore the ignorant and uninformed.
I don’t talk politics over the dinner table or anywhere else. Just uh huh, pass the potatoes please. Thanks.
Ian Welsh
Even with the formal stats, the inflation shock was greater than the oil shock, and just slightly less than the Iran shock in 79.
And I am 100% sure I am right about inflation stats. I’ve been following this stuff for decades and used to do serious analysis on BLS stats.
Mark Level
She is an utterly clueless fabrication of the Elite Political-Media class, so (a) completely sociopathic, (b) lacking genuine empathy, & (c) dumb as a post. If it’s hers to win or lose, looks like she will genuinely do so. It’s not that she doesn’t “want” it, but that she has no imagination or street sense.
There’s a lot of interesting data that came out of her inner echelons, like–
I first heard my lefty media clue me to the fact that she treats staff in an extremely shitty manner, & had 91% turnover in her staff every year. That speaks for itself! She’s even worse than Klobuchar, known to throw staplers at the heads of her staff, or make them eat their salad with a comb. Which she justifies by saying– wait for it!– that she expects her staff to show “excellence”! Insider scuttlebutt includes: 1. Her staff are not allowed to look her in the eye or engage with her if their paths cross. (I assume the top 2 or 3 Reptiloid subordinates are excused from this one.) 2. She makes everyone stand up when she enters the room. 3. They are expected to call her “General”!! (This last one was spilled by the father of someone who worked for her & left very quickly.) Also, this one could be mistaken, but many get the sense she is on Prozac. The bizarre way she talks does not come across well to anyone but the most brain-dead PMC Virtue-signaling cadres. (But to be fair, Dem voters trend very high in this group.)
” . . .if it’s implemented”!! That is rich. Just as Joe ran as Bernie-lite on “infrastructure” he made sure to shit on the “progressives” (sic) & pass only the Republican Chamber of Commerce plan once in power. If she does get across the line, “positions” like that will go into Orwell’s memory-hole immediately. She denies even having been “The Border Czar”, & even the MSM couldn’t disappear all those stories.
She reads about as human as a Kerry, a Buttigieg, or an AlGore model 6. Like Kerry, who was for the war before he was against it, she was against fracking before she was for it.
I don’t believe that 2020 was stolen but the Dem pod people who dominate in the Beltway have a lot riding on this, so I wouldn’t count her out. Just as Bush Jr. definitely, openly stole Florida in ’00, & likely Ohio in ’04, the fix might already be in.
Yes, Trump has really degenerated in nearly 8 years. I guess the question would be the same if he wins (& they can’t steal it) as it was with Biden. Who is the real president? Will it be Stephen Miller? His new lover, Laura Loomer? Last I heard, Bannon’s still in jail & he would be the only one who could actually ram through some “populist” economic policies.
The rot at the top is thorough. Whomever runs things, expect an accelerated slide down the cliff.
responseTwo
Bill Clinton’s famous message of caring about voters – “I feel your pain”.
anon
Through a stroke of luck, I was hired for a job that now pays over $30,000 more than what I made at my old job four years ago. In many ways, I feel like my life is still worse even though I make more money. Even a significant raise in pay cannot keep up with inflation and real estate prices. The same house that went for $275,000 in my area three years ago could cost $100,000 more today. That is insane. Gas is more expensive. Food is more expensive.
This will be a very close race but I think Trump is going to eke out a win. I don’t blame nearly half of Arabs now voting for Jill Stein. Neither the Dems nor the Republicans deserve their vote. The Democrats will blame misogyny and racism rather than themselves for anointing the worst candidate besides Biden.
bruce wilder
What I think gets suppressed about the COVID/POST-COVID inflation is that is a phenomenon bred from financialization and monopoly capital creating upward income redistribution combined with downward risk redistribution. The media has us talking tepidly about “inequality”. The ancient economics vocabulary turns minds to “money printing” and MMT. Meanwhile, private equity stripmines everything.
I do not have much patience with supporters of the Democratic Party, whether the candidate is Kamala “Nothing comes to mind” Harris or Joe “Nothing will fundamentally change” Biden. If you reading tea leaves or counting angels on the head of a pin to determine somehow the Democratic figurehead presiding serenely and passively over the predator state will magically presage “a better domestic policy”, you really are not paying attention.
This may well be a consequential election, but not because the person elected President will be consequential, but because that person — the elected President — will NOT be consequential and that is by design. The political system has evolved to a point where politicians have no independence of judgment or action and no responsiveness to those who may vote. Academic studies have quantified the complete unresponsiveness of national politicians to voter preferences and interests, but the implications are only beginning to dawn on Democratic voters.
bruce wilder
inflation driven by massive shifts in income distribution cannot be measured effectively by market basket statistics designed to measure the “real value” of a unit of currency in terms of consumables. even if the statistics were not corrupted, they would not be much use.
NRG
“As for Trump, he’s clearly senile, out to lunch and would make a terrible President, but at least he wants it.”
So you would vote for whom, given a chance? Because keeping him out of office seems to be an existential safety issue for many who comment here.
DMC
Consider Harris’s career in California where she is widely despised. She specialized in keeping poor innocent black men in jail and keeping guilty rich white men out of jail. That’s not to mention her extremely questionable relationship with Willie Brown. And let’s not forget her full throated support for the Zionist entity.
Dan Kelly
‘The political system has evolved to a point where politicians have no independence of judgment or action and no responsiveness to those who may vote’
It just ‘evolved’ that way?:
https://archive.ph/nR94y#selection-239.1461-263.1359
‘phenomenon bred from financialization and monopoly capital creating upward income redistribution combined with downward risk redistribution
This all happened under Hollywood Reagan. The ‘financialization and monopoly capital’ can be directly traced to the Israel-US bilateral ‘Free Trade’ agreement that served as ‘a wedge’ to open the country – and the world – to NAFTA etc:
https://www.irmep.org/05122016_IsraelFTA.asp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y21FiyPoXVc
‘but the implications are only beginning to dawn on Democratic voters’
Thank god the repubs woke up and voted for change:
https://x.com/ClipMercenary/status/1836824532176327105
The clip is real. Donald Trump said the death penalty should be brought back to deal with ‘those seeking their (‘the Jews’) destruction: We will seek THEIR destruction.’
The dems recently made another foolish attempt at mocking Trump by stating incorrectly that he was brain-addled – and so he launched into a dance routine with Kristi Noem on hand. But if you watch the tape Trump – and I bit on this one – he simply did what he does at his donor shindigs all the time.
So, Trump isn’t serious about policy – unless it’s corporate tax cuts or Israel – but he isn’t brain-addled. His brain works fine for his own nefariously ambitious ends.
Just like all of them.
And he, like all of them, knows where the power lies:
‘The Jews have endured terrible persecution. We know that. We’ve all read it. We’ve studied it. They’ve gone through a lot. And those seeking their destruction…we will seek THEIR destruction. And when you have crimes like this…whether it’s this one, or another one, or another group…We have to bring back the death penalty.’
If Trump does decide to wade into the policy arena, he seems most on-point when defending ‘the Jews’ and the Jewish State of Israel. Bar none. He doesn’t even talk about corporate tax cuts – or social security cuts – this forcefully, and wth such ease to boot.
https://xcancel.com/ClipMercenary/status/1843415002696278108#m
I’m an American. I don’t feel in any way, shape or form ‘attacked’ by Hamas.
I call for the immediate arrest of JD Vance, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris for treason. They should then give up the inner circle of largely Jewish Zionists who call the shots. If not, torture them. The Yoo-Bybee-Ashcroft enhanced interrogation techniques should suffice.
I then call on the new administration of power to put all ‘Israeli’ leaders on trial for crimes against humanity – and for the ‘Israeli’ state to be dismantled.