But when you say "The right-wing media ecosystem was able to control the dialogue" that seems to be a rationalization. When you screw up, blame the media. This is the same media that gave us victories in 2008, 2012, and 2020. If you are expecting to wait until FOX starts giving a balanced viewpo…
But when you say "The right-wing media ecosystem was able to control the dialogue" that seems to be a rationalization. When you screw up, blame the media. This is the same media that gave us victories in 2008, 2012, and 2020. If you are expecting to wait until FOX starts giving a balanced viewpoint, you will be waiting a long time.
I think the reality is that inflation will always be more important an issue than any other economic arguments. Half the voters don't know what GDP is and few care. Unemployment is more a concern for the minority of unemployed The price of eggs stares 100% of us in the face daily. and it is harder on lower wage earners.
The argument that "well the economy is great" that I heard over and over from Dem activists, and indeed from you here, will not soothe a public upset over $4 gas and $4 bread. In fact it wasn't that Dems didn't make their arguments which is an odd point - there is no single Dem, you are talking about 1000s of leaders and media outlet, it is that the point was not believed by a public who are pissed off at bread prices, and indeed the "but the economy is good" argument only rubbed, salt in the wounds. It was the same myopia in regards to Covid that caused Trump's loss - minimizing serious problems. And most economists do feel that we overstimulated the economy with the various rescues that was not the cause of inflation but added 1-2%. Releasing lots of money into a system weak on supply only worsens inflation.
I am with you 100% on the we weren't given a choice. I was an early supporter of Dean Phillips after having seen my Roy Cooper for President go nowhere, but I found in Dem circles that was seen as apostacy. There was this circle the wagons mood among Dems even as we were getting ready to be McGoverned when Biden was riding approvals in the high 30s that no incumbent ever was elected with. Yet, Dean was considered a heretic, and two days before Pelosi tasered Biden enough to get him to quit, Bernie Sanders had an op ed in the NYTimes about why we should stick with Biden.
Harris was never a popular candidate. She had the albatross of being from CA where saying that you supported taxpayer funded gender surgery on prisoners is just normal, but it is not a popular position in Peoria, and if we had a Cooper or Bashear we might have improved our odds. An open primary would have been ideal, but Biden waiting until the last minute made that very difficult. Harris was never a good candidate, for what would have been an uphill battle for any, given the publics mood on immigration and inflation, but to me what demonstrated her weakness in a nutshell was when in the FOX interview she was asked in reference to the Biden administration "would you have done anything differently?" and her answer was "I cant think of anything". She was unwilling to distance herself from her unpopular administration. She was clearly running against Trump, but she also had to run against Biden. As one example- if in June 2024 the Biden administration implemented 'remain in Mexico' and no longer accepted record numbers of immigrants who only needed to say "I want asylum" thus reducing illegal entrants to 2020 levels, which is where it stands now, why not admit that the prior policy was a mistake. It was certainly unpopular with polls that asked voters which party they favored on various issues, consistently showing that the GOP was most favored on immigration. Harris could not play defense. She could play offense on abortion and healthcare where Dems are favored, but she lost on those issues where Dems are disliked - immigration, crime, inflation, and woke.
I agree with a lot of your assessment, but I think Harris was a fantastic candidate. When you’re running against a skillful liar and demagogue, you already start out 3 laps behind.
If she had been the same person but male, I bet the store that your impressions would have been much more positive. (Sorry, I’m assuming you’re not sexist, but that man versus woman thing is so ingrained you don’t even see it).
Same skilled liar and demagogue that Biden beat four years earlier and that Hillary at least won the popular vote against.
Now that may have just been the mood of the electorate, the tide of inflation, the record illegal immigration. I don't know. It wouldn't have been easy for any Democrat. And she was invariably running against Biden who was very unpopular and did nothing to distance herself from him.
Her approvals were not great. Sure, next to Biden, anything was an improvement, but she has never been popular. She was one of the first to scrub out in 2020.
As to my being a sexist, I would say you are using it like a loose canon without even knowing me, and if you really believe that everybody is sexist, I think you reflect that part of the Dem party that is its problem, judgmental. I supported Amy Klobuchar in 2016 and think she would have been better. And I think Gretchen Whitmer or Tammy Duckworth would have been better.
My take on Harris is that she just goes with the flow. She was a progressive when it suited her in CA, she never really defined herself in 2020. She didn't campaign progressive, but neither did she run center. It would have helped her to admit that record numbers of border crossers were a mistake. The country was not happy with the Democratic party and she didn't distinguish herself in any way from that.
Excellent generally but this misses the point that Dems lost all up and down the ballot. They have become the party of drag queen story hour and nothing that Harris could have done overrides that.
Second the main argument that everyone had for Harris was that she was a woman of color. Had they talked about policy positions instead of something that people either didn't care about or loathed about her they would have been better off.
Harris was a terrible choice for VP. (Would have been ideal for the Supreme Court.). Had Tammy Duckworth been the VP choice the outcome would have been different.
I agree with you Sharon. The Dem brand has been hurt by the Identarian moralists that are about telling people how racist they are. Get back to being the party of working people. Even Sanders has said as much.
Agree on the bad choice. There was a reason that she lost so badly and we need candidates who know how to win a swing state and that is generally not people from NY, CA, or MA at least since JFK.
The Dems lost the congressional vote by 2.7% worse than the presidency which was lost by 1.5%, It is exactly those positions - crime, immigration, woke culture that are associated with Democrats that hurt us. . It was not that Harris campaigned on the fact that they had record border crossings, but ignoring it as opposed to opposing it, you buy it.
Biden's limiting himself to only picking a black women, in a nutshell, was a lot of what is wrong with the Dems. If there was a strong black women, no problem, but it is this feeling that they have to constantly prove their virtue by being the most woke, that has lead them to be disliked.
The lesser half of the Council of State are Republicans. Those Democrats did not get the kind of money that the upper half got and they lost. It's a shame that they weren't supported the same as Jackson, Hunt, Marshall, and Green were. But we did break the supermajority and kept Allison Riggs on the Supreme Court. The Democrats did something right for sure, although Robinson really helped Josh Stein. Thomas wrote about this recently.
I think you hit a lot of nails on the head.
But when you say "The right-wing media ecosystem was able to control the dialogue" that seems to be a rationalization. When you screw up, blame the media. This is the same media that gave us victories in 2008, 2012, and 2020. If you are expecting to wait until FOX starts giving a balanced viewpoint, you will be waiting a long time.
I think the reality is that inflation will always be more important an issue than any other economic arguments. Half the voters don't know what GDP is and few care. Unemployment is more a concern for the minority of unemployed The price of eggs stares 100% of us in the face daily. and it is harder on lower wage earners.
The argument that "well the economy is great" that I heard over and over from Dem activists, and indeed from you here, will not soothe a public upset over $4 gas and $4 bread. In fact it wasn't that Dems didn't make their arguments which is an odd point - there is no single Dem, you are talking about 1000s of leaders and media outlet, it is that the point was not believed by a public who are pissed off at bread prices, and indeed the "but the economy is good" argument only rubbed, salt in the wounds. It was the same myopia in regards to Covid that caused Trump's loss - minimizing serious problems. And most economists do feel that we overstimulated the economy with the various rescues that was not the cause of inflation but added 1-2%. Releasing lots of money into a system weak on supply only worsens inflation.
I am with you 100% on the we weren't given a choice. I was an early supporter of Dean Phillips after having seen my Roy Cooper for President go nowhere, but I found in Dem circles that was seen as apostacy. There was this circle the wagons mood among Dems even as we were getting ready to be McGoverned when Biden was riding approvals in the high 30s that no incumbent ever was elected with. Yet, Dean was considered a heretic, and two days before Pelosi tasered Biden enough to get him to quit, Bernie Sanders had an op ed in the NYTimes about why we should stick with Biden.
Harris was never a popular candidate. She had the albatross of being from CA where saying that you supported taxpayer funded gender surgery on prisoners is just normal, but it is not a popular position in Peoria, and if we had a Cooper or Bashear we might have improved our odds. An open primary would have been ideal, but Biden waiting until the last minute made that very difficult. Harris was never a good candidate, for what would have been an uphill battle for any, given the publics mood on immigration and inflation, but to me what demonstrated her weakness in a nutshell was when in the FOX interview she was asked in reference to the Biden administration "would you have done anything differently?" and her answer was "I cant think of anything". She was unwilling to distance herself from her unpopular administration. She was clearly running against Trump, but she also had to run against Biden. As one example- if in June 2024 the Biden administration implemented 'remain in Mexico' and no longer accepted record numbers of immigrants who only needed to say "I want asylum" thus reducing illegal entrants to 2020 levels, which is where it stands now, why not admit that the prior policy was a mistake. It was certainly unpopular with polls that asked voters which party they favored on various issues, consistently showing that the GOP was most favored on immigration. Harris could not play defense. She could play offense on abortion and healthcare where Dems are favored, but she lost on those issues where Dems are disliked - immigration, crime, inflation, and woke.
I agree with a lot of your assessment, but I think Harris was a fantastic candidate. When you’re running against a skillful liar and demagogue, you already start out 3 laps behind.
If she had been the same person but male, I bet the store that your impressions would have been much more positive. (Sorry, I’m assuming you’re not sexist, but that man versus woman thing is so ingrained you don’t even see it).
Same skilled liar and demagogue that Biden beat four years earlier and that Hillary at least won the popular vote against.
Now that may have just been the mood of the electorate, the tide of inflation, the record illegal immigration. I don't know. It wouldn't have been easy for any Democrat. And she was invariably running against Biden who was very unpopular and did nothing to distance herself from him.
Her approvals were not great. Sure, next to Biden, anything was an improvement, but she has never been popular. She was one of the first to scrub out in 2020.
As to my being a sexist, I would say you are using it like a loose canon without even knowing me, and if you really believe that everybody is sexist, I think you reflect that part of the Dem party that is its problem, judgmental. I supported Amy Klobuchar in 2016 and think she would have been better. And I think Gretchen Whitmer or Tammy Duckworth would have been better.
My take on Harris is that she just goes with the flow. She was a progressive when it suited her in CA, she never really defined herself in 2020. She didn't campaign progressive, but neither did she run center. It would have helped her to admit that record numbers of border crossers were a mistake. The country was not happy with the Democratic party and she didn't distinguish herself in any way from that.
And btw Trump increased his vote relative to the Dems more among women than men. The margins moved to Trump 5% among women and 2% among men.
Excellent generally but this misses the point that Dems lost all up and down the ballot. They have become the party of drag queen story hour and nothing that Harris could have done overrides that.
Second the main argument that everyone had for Harris was that she was a woman of color. Had they talked about policy positions instead of something that people either didn't care about or loathed about her they would have been better off.
Harris was a terrible choice for VP. (Would have been ideal for the Supreme Court.). Had Tammy Duckworth been the VP choice the outcome would have been different.
I agree with you Sharon. The Dem brand has been hurt by the Identarian moralists that are about telling people how racist they are. Get back to being the party of working people. Even Sanders has said as much.
Agree on the bad choice. There was a reason that she lost so badly and we need candidates who know how to win a swing state and that is generally not people from NY, CA, or MA at least since JFK.
The Dems lost the congressional vote by 2.7% worse than the presidency which was lost by 1.5%, It is exactly those positions - crime, immigration, woke culture that are associated with Democrats that hurt us. . It was not that Harris campaigned on the fact that they had record border crossings, but ignoring it as opposed to opposing it, you buy it.
Biden's limiting himself to only picking a black women, in a nutshell, was a lot of what is wrong with the Dems. If there was a strong black women, no problem, but it is this feeling that they have to constantly prove their virtue by being the most woke, that has lead them to be disliked.
Not in NC. The only “Republican” that won NC is trump and maybe a state auditor or something. Very weird.
The lesser half of the Council of State are Republicans. Those Democrats did not get the kind of money that the upper half got and they lost. It's a shame that they weren't supported the same as Jackson, Hunt, Marshall, and Green were. But we did break the supermajority and kept Allison Riggs on the Supreme Court. The Democrats did something right for sure, although Robinson really helped Josh Stein. Thomas wrote about this recently.