That may have been the death knell right there. She needed to differentiate/separate herself from Biden by a wide margin. Also, I don't watch a great deal of TV, mainly sports leading up to the election, but everything I watched was inundated with Trump ads. I recall seeing one Harris ad and it wasn't very impressive.
I barely followed pre-election news at all, but Harris's statement on The View was like nearly a ticking time bomb to my ears and saying that she was in real trouble...
There you are. This post didn't age wellI was thinking the same thing
Actually, what I need a forward-looking thread for is rumination on how Trump might operate in office in this second term. That's what I've been mulling this morning.
At the center of my still-hazy thinking is wondering whether Trump will be motivated to do much of anything at all. First, he's already achieved the primary thing that motivated this run: Merchan now won't sentence him to prison time, and he can dismiss all the other cases. He's never been much motivated by the work of the job, except to create the impression that he's being successful. He won't be campaigning any more, and I think that might make a difference. He's very motivated by seeking people's approval, but the consequential form of approval is being elected and he can't shoot for that again. (There will maybe be some idle talk of repealing the 22nd amendment). He might invent some pretext for holding rallies, but it will probably feel a little flat because they'll be inconsequential. He'll mostly just want to golf and not be bothered, I would think.
I mean early on he'll end the war in Ukraine (by telling Zelensky we're not going to fund him any more, so seek the best deal he can with Russia). He'll bring peace to the middle east (since there has to be some point when Israel thinks it has achieved its military objectives, and that moment will fall during Trump's term; he'll be happy to package that as him ending the war that Biden couldn't). I think he'll have to make a show of deporting a bunch of people, but that may not prove as popular when people see it as it is when people think of it in the abstract, so if there's a PR downside, he'll just declare that issue solved and his followers will care as little as they care that the wall didn't get built.
He'll have no interest in grooming a successor or bolstering the R party. I'm not sure he thinks in terms of legacy, and to the extent that he does, he'll just tell himself that whatever happens during his term is the best in the history of the country, and maybe not actively go after very much.
I just think we might see a ton of golfing and not much attempt to get anything done. Now don't get me wrong, if I'm correct, a bunch of evil will get done by the people in whose hands he leaves the government.
But I just think he himself might default to his baseline laziness, again since just by winning he's achieved the primary objective he had for running in the first place.
Dunno.
Oh, I was very outspoken about my expectations, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.There you are. This post didn't age well
Apologize for what? Inno promised me a 350-ish EV blowout!
Agree with all but harsher prison sentences which I don't think there's appetite for.
The critical thing is that people actually believe you're fighting for them regardless of what is said. There seems to be little sense of that. It's why I'm bigger on class than most. Convince people you're fighting for them on class issues and a majority usually support you. It's a more consistent path to victory than policy wonkery, but requires you to be committed to populism and remain in touch with the larger public and their concerns rather than your ideology to a greater extent than many would prefer.
None of it is particularly extreme within the context of American politics. I've encountered much weirder positions in the wild. Alienating is a different matter I was not asked to give commentary on. Any position based on the moral leanings of a minority will be alienating.
Tbf, on that last point, while 60 is 20 years younger than 80, it's still not young at all ^^
I’m gonna have to end up watching it later after work.
TL;DR - She explicitly told the crowd to accept the result of the election, she stated that she called Trump to congratulate him on his victory, she concedes the election and will assist in the transition and the peaceful transfer of power. She told the crowd that its going to be OK and they should keep working to make the world a better place.
Leads to the intriguing question of what shifts you think have occurred and are likely to continue, of course.
You really think that folks don't realize the role the pandemic played in the 2020 election? Or are you just speaking rhetorically? There were a number of factors, like sustained civil unrest, specifically the BLM protests, but of course the pandemic created so many issues, lockdowns, remote schooling, masks, vaccines and all the fighting over those issues is a big part of why there was record turnout in the 2020 election.
