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.
(I’m running my annual fundraiser. If you value my writing and want more of it, please consider donating. Your donations really do keep this place running.)
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.
Dermot O Connor
@ Mark Level, very interesting about KH, thanks. Since first hearing her speak I assumed she was hitting the vino hard, but prozac would also explain, perhaps. Something about her is very off.
Regarding the ‘argument’ that people must for Harris because of the existential threat of Trump, that hound won’t hunt. Four years of Biden / Harris and we’ve got two theatres (UKRAINE & GAZA/IRAN) threatening WW3, with a third (CHINA / TAIWAN) in the offing. But sure, Trump’s the danger, in comparison with such wise and stable leadership. Save the “we must vote Dem” for the DailyKOS midwits.
Revelo
The only measure of inflation that really means anything is median wage for full time workers. This number is also very easy to accurately measure, with no arguments about exact meaning, even in economies with a huge underground labor market. Median wage doesn’t measure purchasing power of that wage, of course, so you could have rising median wages but prices rising even faster. Fed policy should target steady median wage inflation (probably at 3 or 4% versus 2% for CPI, to account for possible wages rising faster than prices due to productivity increases) and BLS should additionally publish a variety of price inflation measures to give some idea of whether wages are keeping up with prices or not . Fed cannot do anything about wages that do not keep up with prices: that is up to Congress.
Richard Holsworth
Trump may be Vance’s advance man. It’s a story whose outcome is being written in real time.
“Integralists are very intellectually sophisticated. Christian nationalism, frankly, I think it began as a way for the right to troll the left four or five years ago. It was kind of to scare Democrats.” -Kevin Vallier, professor at philosophy at the University of Toledo’s Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/j-d-vance-and-the-rise-of-the-postliberal-catholics.html
We need to understand who Leonard Leo is, his ties to Opus Dei, his ties to Peter Thiel and JD Vance, and to Project 2025. They want a “Catholic Integralist” society.
“Decades ago, he’d realized it was not enough to have a majority of Supreme Court justices. To undo landmark rulings like Roe, his movement would need to make sure the court heard the right cases brought by the right people and heard by the right lower court judges.”
Leo began building a machine to do just that.
We Don’t Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right’s Supreme Court Supermajority
The inside story of how Leonard Leo built a machine that remade the American legal system — and what he plans to do next.
https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/opus-dei-leonard-leo-supreme-court-moneybags-kid-1235115538/
Integralists think church and state should be integrated for the entire common good of the people,
Mary Bennet
Mr. Kelly, and other American voters, I ask all of you to join me in voting against any Congressperson who attended the Netanyahoo speech to Congress this last summer.
Even if the alternative is Donald Duck. Duckie will be up again in 2 years and can be voted out then. For Senate, one may have to be somewhat more strategic.
I hope Tester loses and President Harris appoints him, an organic farmer, Secretary of Agriculture. If she really wants to discombobulate the Trumpist crazies, that would do it. The Republican senators would either have to vote to confirm him or be exposed for all the world to see as lackeys for extractive finance and the chemical industry.
Feral Finster
“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.”
I am sure that the statistics are correct, and the measures underlying those statistics are as well. What I am saying is that the way those measures are chosen is self-serving.
someofparts
Well I obviously came to the right party, because comments are on fire up in here.
There is a bedroom suburb of my city where town meetings are such fights that the friend who told me about it stopped going. The fights are between elders who need taxes to stay low so they can afford to stay in their homes, and young families who want the property taxes to go up so they can afford better schools for their kids.
I agree completely with Bruce W’s view of the politicians – they are not the ones with the power at all. Reminds me of a couple of lines from a Joni Mitchell song – “Hostage smiles on Presidents. Freedom scribbled on the subway.” One of the reasons that I don’t even try to talk to people out in the community as I do here, is the blank look I get if I mention ‘private equity’. It genuinely scares me to see that level of ignorance on a matter so crucial.
‘innocent black men in jail and guilty white men go free’ is a good, pithy summary of Kamala’s practices. Also, her husband is a big time Zionist. Access doesn’t get closer than that. I should make a poster of the picture of that Palestinian woman with her child in her arms burning like a human torch in that tent next to the hospital. Then the caption could be – Bonfire of the Uni-Party … or something.
Tallifer
I think Harris could lose simply because she is a black woman and half of Americans wish Robert E. Lee had beaten U. S. Grant or wish that women hadn’t been given the vote a hundred years ago.
different clue
Harris is not visibly nasty and repellent in the way the Clinton went out of her way to be.
So even though she will fail to attract a lot of people who could be attracted to something good, she at least will not actively repel people by calling them a basket of deplorables, or promising to close a lot of coal mining jobs,
I am one of those people weighing the danger to survival attendant on getting one or the other President. I would certainly vote for Harris to lower the chance of Trump unleashing his MAGAnazi proud-boy wolf packs all over the country. Except for the fact that Harris may offer a real risk of achieving Biden’s nuclear Democrat war with Russia.
So I will end up voting for whichever one I think is the lesser threat to my physical survival over the 4 years of their Administration, once I can decide which one that is.
Mark Level
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.– Anon.
I’ll disagree, Anon, & you yourself point the way– They will blame Jill Stein & “the Left” generally, that is the Dems’ eternal punching-bag & fall guy. It’s not that THEY don’t do shit for the majority of their voters (beyond the top 5% of the PMC & Elites), it enrages them that any of the saps DARES not to support Neoliberalism, Genocide, and falling in line.
Remember the classic $Hrillary line– “I don’t know who created Pokemon Go, but I wish we’d have Pokemon Go to the Polls!” Well, that would require the Dems to make some tiny improvement to their voters’ lives– think Obamacare. But those days are over!!
They hate Trump but they hate dirty fucking hippies who aren’t down with the unending wars, economic immiseration & environmental destruction far more. Their TINA doctrine cannot fail, it can only be failed, & it’s always the “Left” (spat upon, shat upon, forced to sell out or be kicked out once they do get elected, see AOC etc.) that has had literally zero influence in US politics, pretty much since Bill Clinton’s days, that is to blame.
Oakchair
I don’t think the inflation stats are as manipulated as you think
—-
According to the inflation stats cost of “food at home” increased by 1.3% in the last year. How accurate does that jive with everyone?
—
The bizarre way she (Harris) talks but many get the sense she is on Prozac.
—
I have not seen many videos of her, but in a few recent ones it appears she has a crooked smile (literally), and her facial expressions seem stiff and jolty. This might be nothing, but those are common symptoms of cranial nerve damage and/or systemic neurological damage. Biden exhibited these symptoms long before the debate performance that everyone remembers.
Likewise, neurological disorders, dementia etc are all effects of SSRI drugs as these drugs kill brain cells as well as harm the cardiovascular system.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28029715/
https://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/S0006-3223(00)00721-6/fulltext
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006295202008821?via%3Dihub
Other effects of SSRI drugs like Prozac is increased aggression, mania and similar symptoms.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/10/results-confirm-antidepressants-increase-risk-violent-crime-26/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11078046/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15289250/
KT Chong
Trump’s liability is that we already had four years of Trump presidency, and it ended in a pandemic that was a disaster.
Also, I personally do not care about the abortion issue, However, I know a lot of women still want to punish Trump for the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Like, A LOT. I do not think those women care a much about the economy, which is kinda like how the Religious Right only cared about banning abortion and did not care about economy when they were energized and voted in the past. Now that the table has flipped, it is the opposing side that has become energized. I do not think Republican or Trump really has an answer to that new woman problem that they had created. Their only answer is to not talk about it, demand other people (women) to stop talking about it, and tell women that they should care about other issue like economy.
Some links:
Abortion has passed inflation as the top election issue for women under 30, survey finds (2024-Oct-11):
https://apnews.com/article/younger-women-abortion-survey-c8c504a7b9b5a92b4c101a57a3e3a4dc
Abortion and the 2024 election: There is no easy way out for Republicans (2024-Apr-17):
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/abortion-and-the-2024-election-there-is-no-easy-way-out-for-republicans/
“… abortion was the number one issue—by far—for suburban women voters in swing states.”
If abortion has become the single most important issue for young women AND older married women, (i.e., suburban women in swing states,) and women DO vote, (more than men in America,) I think that may be enough to tilt the election in Kamala’s favor.
I think most of you do not understand how important the abortion issue is because most of you are guys. Republicans are currently in denial over this issue as well, mostly because they really do not know how to deal with this issue without pissing off the Religious Right. They just want to put their heads into a hole in the ground and pretend it does not exist, and they want people to shut up about it. Fox News is obviously not talking about it. What has been surprising is that CNN and MSNBC have not talked about it nearly enough, (IMO.)
IMO, it will take two more election cycle of losing for Republicans to start to panic and accept that abortion is an issue that they will have to deal with… and I suspect their way of dealing with it is to try to ban any discussions of it (Elon Musk is banning Kamala supporters like
“White Dudes for Harris” on Twitter/X now… so much for his “free speech”) and label anti-abortion/pro-choice activists as terrorists and makes laws to put them in jails and prisons.
Purple Library Guy
What nobody seems to be paying attention to when it comes to how Harris, and Biden for that matter, is that there are TWO audiences that they are thinking about. We tend to think that of course, the way to win is to present a message that the people want to hear, so they’ll vote for you. But to somebody like a Democratic politician, it’s a balancing act. You have two groups to satisfy; if you start saying too much stuff the people like, then the plutocrats will pull your funding and the people won’t hear anything else you ever say and the CNNs and MSNBCs will say horrible things about you. The question for Democrats is always, how much hopey-changey stuff can I fit in there before those thin-skinned rich guys throw a fit?
I think the Democrats somewhat overestimate this effect, in part because they have some loyalties to the donor camp for various reasons. But it’s certainly there, or Bernie would be president of the United States. Harris’ message has been pitched soft to keep the backing of the rich donors.
I think there has been a shift there, though. There was a time when it seems like it was fairly workable for politicians to promise tons of stuff to the public and talk about how they’d be soaking the rich and all, and the donors would understand that once elected they’d just break the promises. But the ultra-rich now are an odd mix between more entitled and more paranoid. They don’t completely trust the politicos to be lying, and they don’t think they should have to sit still for anyone saying anything they disagree with or that paints them in a bad light even if it’s for tactical reasons, and they fear that people’s discontent is so deep that even letting it have any kind of voice risks sparking some kind of rebellion against them. So they get shirty if the Dems even TALK a good game.
At a time like this, I think a solid tactical analysis would say Harris has enough dough already to run her campaign and a solid populist message would do more to boost her over the top than plutocratic anger would hobble her, and she can always mend some fences after she wins if it’s necessary. The Dems are too stuck in their habits to make that analysis.
Dermot O Connor
On Harris’s speech patterns, hard enough to find any decent clips of her on YT from the early 00s, there are a couple of passages here where she speaks. Maybe someone can find a longer form. The cackle is there already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcyNgXTDU5E
Of course, GWB’s speech in the Texas Gubernatorial race in the mid 90s and his 2004 debate against Kerry were like listening to two different people. I recall speculation that he was suffering from symptoms relating to his alco/drug abuse then.
different clue
@Dermot O Connor,
Good catch. That Hillarrhoid cackle is very Clintonian.
mago
Vacuous vindictive not a vixen.
A down on her knees tease
and Willie please
Ambitious vicious not victorious
That’s our joyful Kamala bala
Go girl go going down
Bringing us all straight to hell girl
Shake your shuck and jive booty
Your crooked smile
Cozy on up to your Zion masters
Take us all straight to hell girl
Jerking off your masters all the way
Have a good day/doing it your way
Swimming in sunshine/joy sticks for everyone except for, you know, those Other people.
Have a smiley face kind of day.
And vote for me me me me doe ray me