this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2024
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I remember in the weeks following the announcement that Biden would step down and endorse Harris people dug into her voting record and revealed that she was one of the furthest left-leaning members of the Senate, up there with Sanders and Warren.
Now that she's lost the election all of a sudden so-called "progressives" are claiming she lost because she was basically a Republican.
The GOP's strategy was clearly to promote voter apathy and drive down turnout for people more likely to vote Harris, and it worked. Trump finally won the popular vote- and he did so with about 6 million fewer votes than what Biden got in 2020.
Far too many progressive, and maybe even moderate Dems and independents, really believed all the nonsense. "Both sides are the same", "you're vote doesn't matter", "there's no way Trump can win", "Bidenomics is totally what caused the global inflation and we are just going to ignore that post-pandemic inflation in the US was the lowest of any developed economy", "she's a cop", etc. Heck, maybe there is even some misogynist or racism on the left that may have hurt Harris. And now instead of just trying to dig out way out of decades of neoliberalism we're just escalating to fascism.
I blame everyone. The GOP and Trump of course. The billionaires (the loud ones like Musk and Bezos, but also the quieter ones like Thiel and the Walton family). Russia of course. The spineless politicians and government officials who refused to put Trump behind bars. The DNC for the shenanigans they've been pulling with primaries for the past several elections and for planning to run a walking corpse in 2024 instead of setting up a real successor to Biden. All of the people who voted for Trump and the other Republicans. All of the left-leaning folk who didn't turn out for Harris. The decades of the GOP undermining democracy (really starting with pardoning Nixon, the whole Regan administration, the hanging chads in 2000, Mitch McConnell taking over the courts, etc).
The only comfort I have is that I know I did my part and voted.
She leaned hard into preserving the moderate/conservative vote. There is no denieing it.
She was one of the furthest left Senators. Then she ran to the right as hard as possible during her short campaign. She took progressives and leftists for granted and lost.
I keep seeing that claimed everywhere. I'll admit that I make an effort NOT to consume political ads (or ads in general really) but I don't remember anything right-leaning from Harris outside of supporting the status quo for Israel and Palestine.
I did hear ads on the radio in stores supporting making billionaires pay their fair share and lowering taxes for the working class. Ads attacking Trump for giving tax breaks to billionaires and wanting to cut Medicare and social security benefits. Ads supporting pro-choice and attacking Republicans for wanting to ban abortion. It's possible that there were ads for different demographics, but the same radio station was also airing right-wing ads with incredible amounts of transphobia- dead naming and misgendering individuals and claiming they were criminals coming for your children.
It's entirely possible I missed something because there's just way too much election content for one person to read, but I really have no clue where the narrative of the right turn is coming from.
Here's the Daily Show autopsy showing exactly how Harris/the Dems pivoted to the right, including showing the ads they ran.
Are Dems now gonna say Jon Stewart is propaganda?
This "blaming Palestine supporters" narrative seems really weird tbh, because if anyone looks offline, they were NEVER the majority. But politicians blaming them is pretty convenient for keeping their AIPAC funding...
The Democratic party has adopted the majority of detestable border polices from Trump's 2016 campaign.
In 2016 there were appeals to voters to have compassion for the DACA cohort, but now the only discussion is about being tough on the border (and ignore human rights treaties about asylum claims at the same time).
Admittedly, they didn't engage in family separation or forced sterilization like the Trump administration, but they shifted hard right on immigration, like many other developed countries in the last few years.
She also sought endorsements from Republicans who supported George Bush lying to the US to get 4,000 Americans killed. She tied the party line on a victorious economy while people are still struggling. And no a tax break isn't going to make my rent go down or groceries cost less.
I haven't seen any data on it yet. But I also would not be surprised to find out people believe she doesn't matter for abortion because of state protections being enacted.
At the end of the day the message was she wouldn't do more than inconvenience the wealthy, she wouldn't work on the cost of living crisis, she likes the Republicans, wants to go hard-line on immigration, and is staunchly pro Israel.
4000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Kurds and Syrians.
Yup but the average American really doesn't care about that.
I dunno about that. A million people marched against the Iraq war and it was the defining issue for democrats until Obama doubled down on extralegal drone strikes and small scale troop deployments across Africa and the Gulf.
She literally lost the election over Gaza. 30+% of Pennsylvania and Arizona voters said they would be likely to vote Dem if the ceasefire happened (source linked elsehwere in this thread) and Michigan has 240k Muslims and Biden won it by like 20k votes in 2020. This could have gone very differently if she had listened to the base instead of appealing to some hypothetical "average" american.
Oh no, I didn't mean it that way. If they thought about it then they would care. But most Americans are years past thinking about the Iraq wars, until you mention Cheney. Then it's all memories of service member memorials on prime time news. If they sat down and thought about it more I'm sure they'd get to thinking about the Iraqis again, it's just normal human stuff to think about the stuff closer to you first.
Oh. yeah. It's impossible to keep up with US sponsored atrocities or internalize them as personal failures.
Anyone who was alive in 2003 had good reason to be disgusted by the Liz Cheney endorsement though.
Cheney is one of those names that will always leave a bitter taste to me.
Shit apple, shit tree
🌳💩🍎
You know inflation is happening world wide. America compared to other countries is rather doing well. I know doesn’t help you but also don’t think there is much a pesident can do. And there is research they the standing president doesn’t have much effect on the economy.
As Trump is about to remind us a second time, the presidency actually has a fuckton of power behind it.
Why is it when Democrats are in office they claim no power, and Republicans are in office we find out the rules are made up and the points don't matter?
Some things Biden could have done.
Inflation is a piss poor excuse to do nothing.
I would blame any Democratic candidate if they DIDN'T try to pry whatever "moderate" Republicans are left from the party. As long as they don't compromise on policy in order to do so. Once again in asking: where did Harris do that?
Also if you're trying to use the >4,000 US Soldiers who died in the Iraq war to make some sort of emotional appeal it's not working. The fact that you're going with the 4,000 number and not bringing up the 200,000 Iraqi civilians who died is a pretty strong indicator that you don't actually care about human lives.
The economy recovered from Covid better than any other industrialized country. And you're absolutely correct that tax breaks don't lower prices.... I have no idea what compelled you to say that. Tax breaks for the working class would grant them more income to purchase goods and services- the policies aimed at reducing inflation and in particular lowering the prices would be different policies. Things like having a strong FTC that rejects the mergers between the handful of grocery stores chains. Increasing the minimum wage. I could go on and on but really anyone informed knows that Harris's policies would be better for the working class while Trump's policies are going to be benefit the elitely wealthy and crush everyone else.
The thing on abortion is pretty wild speculation, and is really crazy when you consider that women have already started dying in states that have banned abortions. Like you in waiting for data, but unless we see a bunch of ballots voting for Dems in state and local elections and and either abstaining or voting for Trump, this isn't a valid explanation.
"At the end of the day the message was... (A bunch of Republican talking points)" Isn't answering my initial question of what the Harris campaign did to turn right. Seems like you're just continuing to parrot Republican talking points on what they want people to think about the Harris campaign rather than living in reality.
She compromised on border policy, bragged about having a Glock, told Palestinian protesters to shut up, was a prosecutor with a spotty progressive record, and insisted that CPI and stock prices are good economic indicators for working people when the average house price is far outside the range of anyone without an advanced degree.
She also changed her stance on fracking in an attempt yo appeal to voters in Pennsylvania.
She didn't campaign on marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform, compassionate border policies, climate justice, increasing Union membership, student debt relief, or offer a concrete path towards enshrining Roe into law. Most of these have overwhelmingly support on both sides, but she didn't advocate for them at all.
She campaigned on "Liz Cheney likes me" and "the other guy is worse", which is far from motivating (source: broadly gestures at everything).
Hell, the singular progressive policy I saw from her (massive housing program to subsidize sub-prime lendees) is the exact bullshit that led to the 2009 crisis. There isn't a shortage of housing in the United States, but an issue of corporate consolidation and generational wealth gaps exacerbated by the huge demographic shifts towards a high tech economy based in a very small number of hyper dense cities. Using tax money to shore up the statistical risk of billion dollar lending institutions is worlds apart from something like Section 8 housing or the mixed income policies that have been recently adopted in places like SF and NYC that place the burden on the profit seeking developers rather than the (disproportionately poor) taxpayers.
Both Biden and Harris did capitulate to right-wing framing on immigration and moved to the right on immigration policy. Right Wing Framing on immigration, the idea that immigrants are bringing in crime and drugs are straight up lies. The Pro-immigration messaging in 2016 was popular, shifting to the right was bad politics and bad policy.
The lies that are hat Immigrants are bringing crime & drugs across the border, that they negatively impact the economy, and that they take away jobs from & lower wages of US Citizens. These are fabrications not based on any evidence and what the Republican party has run for for years. This is a nativist sentiment.
There is plenty of evidence that disprove those sentiments.
Economic Impact
Myth : Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. Economy and Reducing Immigration would make our economy stronger.
Fact : The United States needs immigrants to stay competitive and drive economic growth, Particularly as our economy starts to reopen, individuals who create jobs are absolutely critical to our recovery. Immigrants are innovators, job creators, and consumers with an enormous spending power that drives our economy, and creates employment opportunities for all Americans. Immigrants added $2 trillion to the U.S. GDP in 2016 and $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. In 2018, after immigrants spent billions of dollars on state and local, and federal taxes, they were left with $1.2 trillion in spending power, which they used to purchase goods and services, stimulating local business activity. Proposed cuts to our legal immigration system would have devastating effects on our economy, decreasing GDP by 2% over twenty years, shrinking growth by 12.5%, and cutting 4.6 million jobs. Rust Belt states would be hit particularly hard, as they rely on immigration to stabilize their populations and revive their economies.
Taxes and Essential Services
Myth : Immigrants are a burden to essential services like schools, hospitals, and highways.
Fact: Immigrants make significant contributions to our economy on virtually every front - including on tax revenue, where they contribute $458.7 billion to state, local, and federal taxes in 2018. This includes undocumented immigrants, who contribute roughly $11.74 billion a year in state and local taxes, including more than $7 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and $1.1 billion in personal income taxes. These billions of tax dollars fund our schools, hospitals, emergency response services, highways, and other essential services. These revenues would increase by $2.18 billion annually if undocumented immigrants were given legal status as part of an immigration reform package. Additionally, immigrants make enormous contributions to Social Security. If current legal immigration levels were cut by 50%, the Social Security fund would lose $1.5 trillion in revenue over the next 75 years.
IRI
Other sources:
Facts About Immigration and the U.S. Economy - EPI
How migration affects housing affordability - The Conversation
A dozen facts about immigration - Brookings
They didn't do this due to public opinion either. Legalizing illegal immigrants is far more popular than deportation, despite the Democratic Party not doing any counter messaging against the right-wing narrative
https://news.gallup.com/poll/647123/sharply-americans-curb-immigration.aspx
We actually have AOC asking her constituents why they voted for her and then also voted for Trump. So yeah that happened. Harris underperformed down ballot races all over the country. And yes that's my current speculation as to at least part of why. We know why Michigan went red, but the other states are still being dissected.
I care about the 4,000 dead Americans because they are Americans. People Bush was responsible for and he lied to send them into harm's way and then used them as a sacrifice to win re-election. The dead Iraqis sucks but are largely irrelevant in this context.
You've been given evidence she took a hard right.
Somebody should ask AOC why she supported a corporation over the rail union workers.
You still have yet to provide one single example of Harris or her campaign changing on a single issue. You're spouting GOP propaganda.
Fracking. Immigration. fucking read, my dude
Oh, I think you know where the narrative of the right turn is coming from.
The truth was never part of the issue. They often had contradictory messaging depending on the audience.
Most of it was actually engineered for Biden and based on what he did in office, to the extent that it was even based on anything, and then they just did a search-and-replace to change it to Kamala. It makes no sense, but the effectiveness is not really based on it making sense, just on insistent constant repetition and on it lining up with the reader's general vulnerabilities in terms of what tends to resonate with them. Lemmy gets the second half of each of my examples, but the first half also got plenty of play and had plenty of effectiveness with other audiences.
I did see recently some ads from right-wing PAC's that were shown in different swing states- some portraying Harris as an enemy of Israel in predominantly Jewish areas (I know Judaism =/= Zionism but if you were trying to direct ads to Zionists that's probably the closest you can get) and others portraying Harris as a genocidal supporter of Israel in areas with higher Palestinian populations.
Something that always surprises me is just how effective such dumb advertising is to the average person. I'm not even claiming to be some superhuman immune to propaganda, but political ads always seem particularly low-effort yet seem to control the outcomes of elections.