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On June 23 2025 06:43 LightSpectra wrote:
When the data doesn't fit your narrative, simply reject the data. Bold move.
The data didnt fit reality, lmao. Harris was polling ahead, she lost, seems like a lot of polling is wrong and isnt something that can really be strictly relied on, I dont know if its because polling methodology isnt able to adequately reflect the American populous and its voting habits and beliefs, I dont know if its just the nature of polls not being literally completely reflective of everyone by nature of not polling literally everyone, but clearly polling data isn't an airtight predictor of whats going to happen in elections.
Biden literally fixed the Trump inflation crisis and made lives significantly better for Americans and the voters didn’t ducking care. The idea that all Democrats have to do is govern responsibly and competently and the voters will recognize that is a fantasy.
I would argue that the Democrats dont govern competently, nor responsibly (why is Trump outside of a jail cell for fucks sake,) I would also argue that most people didnt actually feel their lives as any better, cost of housing has been extremely expensive, we had high food prices, things were very expensive and people felt bad about it. Did Biden mishandle inflation? No, I would say he did a fine job, but that doesnt mean he brought prices back down. Just because you stopped inflation from soaring doesnt mean that all of that inflation goes away, and people are acutely aware of things like prices on things they buy regularly, when people see their housing costs double in a decade they feel that a lot more than a chart saying, "it could have been so much worse, trust me."
Which is why I regularly, regularly, regularly emphasize that running on popular policy is not enough, you have to actually implement it and affect the lives of the average American in a way that they can feel.
I know this thread has lots of people horny for data, but data is not humanity and any decent politician should understand that the way something feels is more important than whatever happens on some chart. The Republicans are very good about weaponizing feelings into political power, and Democrats basically reject the concept and try to point at charts and scold everyone whose rent went up by 30% on their lease renewal.
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On June 23 2025 06:43 KwarK wrote:
Biden literally fixed the Trump inflation crisis and made lives significantly better for Americans and the voters didn’t ducking care. The idea that all Democrats have to do is govern responsibly and competently and the voters will recognize that is a fantasy.
Hasn't that been proven by most republican presidents ruining the economy during their terms. Democrats turn it around to get voted out as they switch person. As an outsider that is how I have seen it including Bill Clinton to now. Might be further back but can't be bothered to check.
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On June 23 2025 06:46 Zambrah wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 06:43 LightSpectra wrote:
When the data doesn't fit your narrative, simply reject the data. Bold move. The data didnt fit reality, lmao. Harris was polling ahead, she lost, seems like a lot of polling is wrong and isnt something that can really be strictly relied on, I dont know if its because polling methodology isnt able to adequately reflect the American populous and its voting habits and beliefs, I dont know if its just the nature of polls not being literally completely reflective of everyone by nature of not polling literally everyone, but clearly polling data isn't an airtight predictor of whats going to happen in elections.
The polling in 2024 was mostly on point. There were a few polls that showed a slim lead for her and a few that showed a slim lead for Trump. The final results were well within the margin of error in most aggregates.
There was widespread speculation that maybe Harris would beat the polls because Dems were doing extraordinarily well in all the special elections after Roe v. Wade was overturned, but that means the speculation was wrong, not the polls.
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On June 23 2025 06:28 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 23 2025 03:04 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 02:59 Magic Powers wrote:
Lets keep in mind Trump won despite being a multiple times convicted felon. Americans voted for their cult leader and disregarded policies entirely. And they already know it just a few months later.
Harris didn't lose because she was too left or not left enough. She lost because of a number of factors, one of them being that she ran too late because ol' selfish bastard Biden refused to drop out sooner. Biden shouldn't have dropped out. Yeah he looked bad in that one debate, but Obama was widely perceived to have lost his first debate against Romney as well. Even AOC was telling Biden to stay in the race. It was the megadonors that had their knives out, and as it turned out, having their money didn't win the election for Harris anyway. The only people I blame for the 2024 debacle (besides the aforementioned donors) is the corrupt media that had orders of magnitude more shit to shovel over Biden sounding rambly than Trump saying wildly insane shit every single day. I disagree with this comparison. There is a difference between Obama losing his debate against Romney (while still being able to speak in complete sentences and get some points across) and Biden literally being catatonic during his 2024 debate against Trump. Democrats and potential-voters-of-a-Democratic-candidate have a much higher bar / purity test / gatekeeping mindset for their candidate than Republicans do. Trump could have been equally catatonic (or a racist, sexist, felonious sexual predator who had a complete meltdown during his debate against Harris) and Republicans still would have overwhelmingly voted for him (because that's exactly what happened). I saw the debate and "literally being catatonic" is wildly hyperbolic. He clearly worked a long day and was burnt out, but he seemed totally fine every day after that.
Biden had far more than the odd mental lapse every few months. He became chronically deficient.
Trump speaks like a baby, but that's consistent. When a baby receives support today, it will receive support four years later. That consistency matters.
Biden, prior to his term, was mentally fine. Then during his term he turned into a walking zombie.
He should've dropped out a year before the elections. He was in such bad shape that I thought only a mad person could allow him to run a second time. Trump was running circles around him.
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On June 23 2025 06:28 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 23 2025 03:04 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 02:59 Magic Powers wrote:
Lets keep in mind Trump won despite being a multiple times convicted felon. Americans voted for their cult leader and disregarded policies entirely. And they already know it just a few months later.
Harris didn't lose because she was too left or not left enough. She lost because of a number of factors, one of them being that she ran too late because ol' selfish bastard Biden refused to drop out sooner. Biden shouldn't have dropped out. Yeah he looked bad in that one debate, but Obama was widely perceived to have lost his first debate against Romney as well. Even AOC was telling Biden to stay in the race. It was the megadonors that had their knives out, and as it turned out, having their money didn't win the election for Harris anyway. The only people I blame for the 2024 debacle (besides the aforementioned donors) is the corrupt media that had orders of magnitude more shit to shovel over Biden sounding rambly than Trump saying wildly insane shit every single day. I disagree with this comparison. There is a difference between Obama losing his debate against Romney (while still being able to speak in complete sentences and get some points across) and Biden literally being catatonic during his 2024 debate against Trump. Democrats and potential-voters-of-a-Democratic-candidate have a much higher bar / purity test / gatekeeping mindset for their candidate than Republicans do. Trump could have been equally catatonic (or a racist, sexist, felonious sexual predator who had a complete meltdown during his debate against Harris) and Republicans still would have overwhelmingly voted for him (because that's exactly what happened). I saw the debate and "literally being catatonic" is wildly hyperbolic. He clearly worked a long day and was burnt out, but he seemed totally fine every day after that.
And you think Im trying to deny reality, lmao.
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Norway28797 Posts
On June 23 2025 06:28 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 23 2025 03:04 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 02:59 Magic Powers wrote:
Lets keep in mind Trump won despite being a multiple times convicted felon. Americans voted for their cult leader and disregarded policies entirely. And they already know it just a few months later.
Harris didn't lose because she was too left or not left enough. She lost because of a number of factors, one of them being that she ran too late because ol' selfish bastard Biden refused to drop out sooner. Biden shouldn't have dropped out. Yeah he looked bad in that one debate, but Obama was widely perceived to have lost his first debate against Romney as well. Even AOC was telling Biden to stay in the race. It was the megadonors that had their knives out, and as it turned out, having their money didn't win the election for Harris anyway. The only people I blame for the 2024 debacle (besides the aforementioned donors) is the corrupt media that had orders of magnitude more shit to shovel over Biden sounding rambly than Trump saying wildly insane shit every single day. I disagree with this comparison. There is a difference between Obama losing his debate against Romney (while still being able to speak in complete sentences and get some points across) and Biden literally being catatonic during his 2024 debate against Trump. Democrats and potential-voters-of-a-Democratic-candidate have a much higher bar / purity test / gatekeeping mindset for their candidate than Republicans do. Trump could have been equally catatonic (or a racist, sexist, felonious sexual predator who had a complete meltdown during his debate against Harris) and Republicans still would have overwhelmingly voted for him (because that's exactly what happened). I saw the debate and "literally being catatonic" is wildly hyperbolic. He clearly worked a long day and was burnt out, but he seemed totally fine every day after that.
Naw that is a perfectly accurate description of Biden's debate performance vs Trump. I can think of a few examples of a debate performance killing a candidacy- Rick Perry's 'oops' was hilarious, Chris Christie murdered Rubiot, but I've never seen an overall performance be even close to as bad as Biden's vs Trump. Maybe with the exception of some stoned environment party candidate I saw at a high school debate once, he didn't say a word until his closing statement, which consisted of reading a poem. But frankly even that guy was fine, nobody expected more from him. Phil Davidson's speech outlining why he should be the Stark County treasurer was perhaps worse, but that wasn't a debate.
But for a high profile debate in the US? It was the worst performance in history. If you want to change my mind, please link me a counter example because I'm sure I'll love it.
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On June 23 2025 05:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 03:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 23 2025 01:53 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 01:51 Zambrah wrote:On June 23 2025 01:30 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 01:18 Zambrah wrote:On June 23 2025 01:05 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 00:08 Zambrah wrote:On June 22 2025 23:33 LightSpectra wrote:
From what I can gather, GH is mad because I had the audacity to say that spamming "DNC bad, progressive policy good" isn't a winning strategy, progressive candidates need to take centrist concerns seriously instead of calling them low information voters and then raging at them when they vote for who they think is the best candidate.
For some people, it's not enough to be right, they need to be taken as right by default and condescend to people who don't automatically agree with them. God can you imagine a more maligned political affiliation in the US than centrism, those poor, poor centrists with no one to represent them or take their concerns seriously, oh woe is them, for not once have the Democrats run on or elected centrists, when will those cruel leftists in power stop using all of their institutional power to crush the poor, poor centrists? Cuomo is taking them seriously, that's why he's still leading the polls against Mamdani. What do you prefer: progressives winning elections but you have to not sound like a douchebag, or sounding like a douchebag? If you're into politics just so you can feel superior to people with worse beliefs, you're doing a bangup job. If you're into politics because you want the world to be a better place, you should figure out why people vote the way they do and try to appeal to them. Is this such a radical idea? Am I basically a Republican for saying that? You’re incapable of nuance and half of your comments toward me include dumb disingenuous bullshit that I didn’t say. Go paint a frowny face on a wall and argue with that if you want to argue with whatever your idea of a progressive is, because I’m not going to argue with freaks who talk to people by arguing with people who aren’t even there, it’s the same type of dumb bullshit that the debate lord conservatives do and the reason I scroll past their inane posts. Well, ok then. For both of our sakes I hope the "energize the base" strategy you've decided to put all your tokens into is a winning one, despite all evidence to the contrary. Yeah, appealing to centrists is such a winning strategy, Joe Biden won more votes than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history by campaigning as a liberal throwing some bones to progressives. + Show Spoiler +How many elections have progressives won outside of deep blue congressional districts? You're not wrong about him being a centrist offering little to progressives, but that's not how the media/Democrats sold it. Seems people completely forgot the headlines like "'Moderate’ Joe Biden has become the most progressive nominee in history" www.washingtonpost.com Wasn't that true though (at least, in modern history)? I mean, compared to FDR back in the day, or Bernie Sanders nowadays, or European left-wing parties, of course Biden is nowhere near them, and many of us definitely believe that Biden is not progressive enough... but isn't it also correct to say that, on a relative scale, Biden is the most progressive nominee in modern history? Moreso than Obama, H. Clinton, B. Clinton, and other Democratic nominees over the past 50+ years? Or is your concern something more along the lines of "technically yes, but the implication from the headline is that this bare minimum is progressive enough for our country - that his policies ostensibly don't need to be any further to the left, because one tiny step to the left ought to be sufficient to sway left-wing voters"?
The contention in this context is that Biden's campaign ran on being a centrist instead of leaning into ostensibly being "the most progressive nominee in history". With the most popular Democrat of our lives (Obama) saying Biden is going big with a public option and so on.
Whereas Harris ran AWAY from her alleged progressive stances to appeal to centrists/moderates
Behind all the early excitement over her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris quietly is dialing back several progressive policy positions she's held in recent years.
Her changed stances appear to reflect ... her attempt to win over moderate and independent voters whose support will be crucial to winning the presidency.
https://www.axios.com/2024/08/09/kamala-harris-pivots-progressive-policies-2024
Plus Light's just spouting nonsense again
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"Among respondents who completed both the pre- and post-debate survey, just 4% are giving less consideration to voting for Biden. In comparison, 2% are giving less consideration to voting for Trump following the debate."
https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/538-ipsos-june-2024-presidential-debate-poll
It was a bad performance for sure, but it took several days of 24/7 media crisis coverage to persuade people that Biden turned into a zombie before the needle started shifting significantly.
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On June 23 2025 06:28 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 05:48 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 23 2025 03:04 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 02:59 Magic Powers wrote:
Lets keep in mind Trump won despite being a multiple times convicted felon. Americans voted for their cult leader and disregarded policies entirely. And they already know it just a few months later.
Harris didn't lose because she was too left or not left enough. She lost because of a number of factors, one of them being that she ran too late because ol' selfish bastard Biden refused to drop out sooner. Biden shouldn't have dropped out. Yeah he looked bad in that one debate, but Obama was widely perceived to have lost his first debate against Romney as well. Even AOC was telling Biden to stay in the race. It was the megadonors that had their knives out, and as it turned out, having their money didn't win the election for Harris anyway. The only people I blame for the 2024 debacle (besides the aforementioned donors) is the corrupt media that had orders of magnitude more shit to shovel over Biden sounding rambly than Trump saying wildly insane shit every single day. I disagree with this comparison. There is a difference between Obama losing his debate against Romney (while still being able to speak in complete sentences and get some points across) and Biden literally being catatonic during his 2024 debate against Trump. Democrats and potential-voters-of-a-Democratic-candidate have a much higher bar / purity test / gatekeeping mindset for their candidate than Republicans do. Trump could have been equally catatonic (or a racist, sexist, felonious sexual predator who had a complete meltdown during his debate against Harris) and Republicans still would have overwhelmingly voted for him (because that's exactly what happened). I saw the debate and "literally being catatonic" is wildly hyperbolic. He clearly worked a long day and was burnt out, but he seemed totally fine every day after that.
Come on. I think Biden's presidency was successful and I was a vocal supporter for Biden running again, but his 2024 debate performance was an absolute unrecoverable disaster. It's a frustrating double standard, as I just explained, but Biden was embarrassingly unable to provide coherent remarks that night.
Edit: I don't completely disagree with all your recent political takes, but I do disagree with your perspective on Biden's debate performance.
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On June 23 2025 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 05:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 23 2025 03:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 23 2025 01:53 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 01:51 Zambrah wrote:On June 23 2025 01:30 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 01:18 Zambrah wrote:On June 23 2025 01:05 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 00:08 Zambrah wrote:On June 22 2025 23:33 LightSpectra wrote:
From what I can gather, GH is mad because I had the audacity to say that spamming "DNC bad, progressive policy good" isn't a winning strategy, progressive candidates need to take centrist concerns seriously instead of calling them low information voters and then raging at them when they vote for who they think is the best candidate.
For some people, it's not enough to be right, they need to be taken as right by default and condescend to people who don't automatically agree with them. God can you imagine a more maligned political affiliation in the US than centrism, those poor, poor centrists with no one to represent them or take their concerns seriously, oh woe is them, for not once have the Democrats run on or elected centrists, when will those cruel leftists in power stop using all of their institutional power to crush the poor, poor centrists? Cuomo is taking them seriously, that's why he's still leading the polls against Mamdani. What do you prefer: progressives winning elections but you have to not sound like a douchebag, or sounding like a douchebag? If you're into politics just so you can feel superior to people with worse beliefs, you're doing a bangup job. If you're into politics because you want the world to be a better place, you should figure out why people vote the way they do and try to appeal to them. Is this such a radical idea? Am I basically a Republican for saying that? You’re incapable of nuance and half of your comments toward me include dumb disingenuous bullshit that I didn’t say. Go paint a frowny face on a wall and argue with that if you want to argue with whatever your idea of a progressive is, because I’m not going to argue with freaks who talk to people by arguing with people who aren’t even there, it’s the same type of dumb bullshit that the debate lord conservatives do and the reason I scroll past their inane posts. Well, ok then. For both of our sakes I hope the "energize the base" strategy you've decided to put all your tokens into is a winning one, despite all evidence to the contrary. Yeah, appealing to centrists is such a winning strategy, Joe Biden won more votes than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history by campaigning as a liberal throwing some bones to progressives. + Show Spoiler +How many elections have progressives won outside of deep blue congressional districts? You're not wrong about him being a centrist offering little to progressives, but that's not how the media/Democrats sold it. Seems people completely forgot the headlines like "'Moderate’ Joe Biden has become the most progressive nominee in history" www.washingtonpost.com Wasn't that true though (at least, in modern history)? I mean, compared to FDR back in the day, or Bernie Sanders nowadays, or European left-wing parties, of course Biden is nowhere near them, and many of us definitely believe that Biden is not progressive enough... but isn't it also correct to say that, on a relative scale, Biden is the most progressive nominee in modern history? Moreso than Obama, H. Clinton, B. Clinton, and other Democratic nominees over the past 50+ years? Or is your concern something more along the lines of "technically yes, but the implication from the headline is that this bare minimum is progressive enough for our country - that his policies ostensibly don't need to be any further to the left, because one tiny step to the left ought to be sufficient to sway left-wing voters"? The contention in this context is that Biden's campaign ran on being a centrist instead of leaning into ostensibly being "the most progressive nominee in history". With the most popular Democrat of our lives (Obama) saying Biden is going big with a public option and so on. Whereas Harris ran AWAY from her alleged progressive stances to appeal to centrists/moderates Show nested quote +Behind all the early excitement over her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris quietly is dialing back several progressive policy positions she's held in recent years.
Her changed stances appear to reflect ... her attempt to win over moderate and independent voters whose support will be crucial to winning the presidency. https://www.axios.com/2024/08/09/kamala-harris-pivots-progressive-policies-2024
Okay, that makes sense and would obviously be frustrating.
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On June 23 2025 06:58 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On June 23 2025 05:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On June 23 2025 03:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On June 23 2025 01:53 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 01:51 Zambrah wrote:On June 23 2025 01:30 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 01:18 Zambrah wrote:On June 23 2025 01:05 LightSpectra wrote:On June 23 2025 00:08 Zambrah wrote:On June 22 2025 23:33 LightSpectra wrote:
From what I can gather, GH is mad because I had the audacity to say that spamming "DNC bad, progressive policy good" isn't a winning strategy, progressive candidates need to take centrist concerns seriously instead of calling them low information voters and then raging at them when they vote for who they think is the best candidate.
For some people, it's not enough to be right, they need to be taken as right by default and condescend to people who don't automatically agree with them. God can you imagine a more maligned political affiliation in the US than centrism, those poor, poor centrists with no one to represent them or take their concerns seriously, oh woe is them, for not once have the Democrats run on or elected centrists, when will those cruel leftists in power stop using all of their institutional power to crush the poor, poor centrists? Cuomo is taking them seriously, that's why he's still leading the polls against Mamdani. What do you prefer: progressives winning elections but you have to not sound like a douchebag, or sounding like a douchebag? If you're into politics just so you can feel superior to people with worse beliefs, you're doing a bangup job. If you're into politics because you want the world to be a better place, you should figure out why people vote the way they do and try to appeal to them. Is this such a radical idea? Am I basically a Republican for saying that? You’re incapable of nuance and half of your comments toward me include dumb disingenuous bullshit that I didn’t say. Go paint a frowny face on a wall and argue with that if you want to argue with whatever your idea of a progressive is, because I’m not going to argue with freaks who talk to people by arguing with people who aren’t even there, it’s the same type of dumb bullshit that the debate lord conservatives do and the reason I scroll past their inane posts. Well, ok then. For both of our sakes I hope the "energize the base" strategy you've decided to put all your tokens into is a winning one, despite all evidence to the contrary. Yeah, appealing to centrists is such a winning strategy, Joe Biden won more votes than any other presidential candidate in U.S. history by campaigning as a liberal throwing some bones to progressives. + Show Spoiler +How many elections have progressives won outside of deep blue congressional districts? You're not wrong about him being a centrist offering little to progressives, but that's not how the media/Democrats sold it. Seems people completely forgot the headlines like "'Moderate’ Joe Biden has become the most progressive nominee in history" www.washingtonpost.com Wasn't that true though (at least, in modern history)? I mean, compared to FDR back in the day, or Bernie Sanders nowadays, or European left-wing parties, of course Biden is nowhere near them, and many of us definitely believe that Biden is not progressive enough... but isn't it also correct to say that, on a relative scale, Biden is the most progressive nominee in modern history? Moreso than Obama, H. Clinton, B. Clinton, and other Democratic nominees over the past 50+ years? Or is your concern something more along the lines of "technically yes, but the implication from the headline is that this bare minimum is progressive enough for our country - that his policies ostensibly don't need to be any further to the left, because one tiny step to the left ought to be sufficient to sway left-wing voters"? The contention in this context is that Biden's campaign ran on being a centrist instead of leaning into ostensibly being "the most progressive nominee in history". With the most popular Democrat of our lives (Obama) saying Biden is going big with a public option and so on. Whereas Harris ran AWAY from her alleged progressive stances to appeal to centrists/moderates Show nested quote +Behind all the early excitement over her campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris quietly is dialing back several progressive policy positions she's held in recent years.
Her changed stances appear to reflect ... her attempt to win over moderate and independent voters whose support will be crucial to winning the presidency. https://www.axios.com/2024/08/09/kamala-harris-pivots-progressive-policies-2024Plus Light's just spouting nonsense again
Yeah but have you considered more centrism? America loves electing centrists lately. Surely more centrism will help Democrats, they havent tried being centrist before.
I'm going to make this my last post on this subject and return to the initial Zohran vs. Cuomo element, and why I think its a relevant thing to look at in American politics and highlights the deficits in the way Democrats do things.
Zohran came in with just about no advantages, he was a random nobody, a leftist, a muslim, up against Cuomo who came in with immense NY fame/infamy, centrist moderate, institutional money backed.
Zohran managed to make the race extremely competitive by utilizing the things the average Democrat who mirrors Cuomo never have, he has charisma, strong popular policy, and grassroots enthusiasm.
What Democrats should learn from this election is that they need to start finding and cultivating charismatic leaders.
They need to support and implement popular policy.
They need to cultivate enthusiasm and a strong grass roots support.
They need to stop bending over backwards to moderate and bend the knee to billionaires and their interests (I refer you to their brief consideration of trying to court Nazi Elon Musk.)
They need to stop uplifting the old and the shitty just because theyre long time party affiliates.
They need to give people hope for a better future instead of just a less shitty one.
They arent going to do this by running the same stupid fucking playbook theyve been running since Clinton '92.
They need to look around them, look at what is popular, get in touch with actual people and their problems, and shed their reputation for ivory tower ineptitude.
Zohran is a perfect case study in how far this takes you, it would be even more effective with all of the institutional backing of one of the largest most monied organizations on God's Green Earth. That Democrats prefer to forego these potential advantages is a huge part of why fascism has been allowed to rise, because fascism has used those things to great effect.
It doesnt have to be that way, but Democrats have helped it be that way, and its long overdue for them to wake the fuck up and do better.
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I can see I'm not persuading anyone here about Biden bere, so I'll stop bothering.
Regardless, my point stands that Obama won big by coming across as moderate, Clinton would've won big if not for James Comey wrecking her campaign two weeks from election day, Biden won big by promising to be Obama 2, and Harris' campaign suffered because she was perceived as being too left-wing (regardless of the reality being that she was not far from Biden on the spectrum).
If progressive campaign promises is the life hack to sweeping elections, the evidence for that hasn't turned up yet. Certain progressive planks do poll well on their own, but voters aren't turning out big for them, and haven't been for the past ten years. "Energize the base" is simply not a winning strategy. It's predicated on the notion that there's a silent progressive majority just waiting for someone to be excited for, when the reality seems to be that most swing voters are somewhat apolitical and sometimes only turn out when they're pissed about something specific, but otherwise prioritize lower taxes and less daily annoyances.
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Northern Ireland26790 Posts
On June 23 2025 07:01 LightSpectra wrote:"Among respondents who completed both the pre- and post-debate survey, just 4% are giving less consideration to voting for Biden. In comparison, 2% are giving less consideration to voting for Trump following the debate." https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/538-ipsos-june-2024-presidential-debate-pollIt was a bad performance for sure, but it took several days of 24/7 media crisis coverage to persuade people that Biden turned into a zombie before the needle started shifting significantly.
That’s not inconsiderable, given we’re talking two ex-Presidents, one would think it takes quite a lot to shift position on either. And I mean it’s a straight head-to-head poll. If I was American I still would have voted for Biden over Trump, even if that debate gave me serious reservations.
Biden’s main problem was, given rumours were swirling around about his mental sharpness he delivers that.
It would be like me doing a recruitment process for a job, and while they’re assessing my teamwork skills in an exercise, I show I’m a team player by immediately punching one of my squad in the face.
If Biden was as sprightly as ever, and regularly showing that, I think maybe you can ride one disasters out as a bad day in the office. If the task is just to put in a competent performance and put rumours to bed, and you look and talk like you don’t know where you are half the time, you’ve utterly failed in that brief.
But it really was atrocious. And it really didn’t take the news cycle either to embed that narrative.
Hey it’s maybe not representative of the wider populace, but you can scroll back to that debate night on this very thread, it was pretty immediate and organic in this corner of the world.
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What really confuses me is why people continue to attack peoples morality for not being left enough. It does not make anyone a bad person for thinking moderates are OK and not the great evil. In fact, they are the people that the progressives need to win over to win elections and get the change they want. the disgusting thing is the condescension and purity tests.
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On June 23 2025 07:30 Billyboy wrote:
What really confuses me is why people continue to attack peoples morality for not being left enough. It does not make anyone a bad person for thinking moderates are OK and not the great evil. In fact, they are the people that the progressives need to win over to win elections and get the change they want. the disgusting thing is the condescension and purity tests.
Also the lack of respect for doing any work or improving anything at all about peoples lives. Just constant desire to lose over and over again until magically everything will get better, and when nothing gets better they can't acept that they could possibly be wrong but the way that its decided what happens is what is wrong.
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Yeah, that's my perspective. If we imagine a spectrum where positive values make the world better and negative values make the world worse, where Trump is -10 and Bernie Sanders is +10, and 0 is a hard maintenance or the status quo, then people like Clinton and Biden are still on the positive end of the spectrum. We could debate if they're closer to +9 or +1, but they certainly are way higher than every Republican would be. If someone refuses to vote for a +5 because they'll settle for nothing lower than +10 and thus passively allows the -10 to win, they're sabotaging their own interests.
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There does seem to be a massive perfection getting in the way of progress talk. Like I don't know how many times I've read how bad obama care is because it was a "right wing" idea one day and blah blah. Well it happened, it was way better than before. That makes it better than everything else that never happened. And it in no way blocks future improvements to it.
On June 23 2025 07:45 LightSpectra wrote:
Yeah, that's my perspective. If we imagine a spectrum where positive values make the world better and negative values make the world worse, where Trump is -10 and Bernie Sanders is +10, and 0 is a hard maintenance or the status quo, then people like Clinton and Biden are still on the positive end of the spectrum. We could debate if they're closer to +9 or +1, but they certainly are way higher than every Republican would be. If someone refuses to vote for a +5 because they'll settle for nothing lower than +10 and thus passively allows the -10 to win, they're sabotaging their own interests.
And I think they know that, so non-stop brow beating people about whatever is about making themselves feel better. No real revolutionary everyone anything by being alone in their tent looking down on everyone else. They had thick skin and turned people into allies not enemies by answering every question and making people think. Can anyone imagine Bernie being on this forum and calling people disgusting or whatever the insult of the day is because they didn't think exactly like him? No he would use logic and empathy to understand their point of view and explain how his version helps them get closer to theirs. He would focus on their commonality.
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The anti-leftists here are as worth talking to as oBlade, fuck me Ive been talking to squirrels.
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Am I an "anti leftist" because I'm against infantilising and insulting centrists?
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The only anti-leftists here is oblade (and maybe some of the other conservatives) , people do not need to agree with your 100% on 100% of the issues. Especially not in a 2 party system.
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EPT
