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She lost an unwinable election.
No time in American history has an incumbent quit mid-campaign and had their VP win.
No time in American history has a challenger survived an assassination attempt and lost.
No time in American history has the incumbent party won with both an economic downturn and an unpopular war.
That Harris nearly won is astounding. And since she's eligible to run, it's natural and sensible for her to be the default candidate.
Any 2028 contender who can't persuade dems that they'd be better than Harris shouldn't bother.
Anyone can cherry pick reasons one way or the other.
Trump was impeached.
He was found guilty of sexual misconduct (rape).
He was besties with a pedo and there's plenty of evidence he himself is one.
He attempted to impede a peaceful transfer of power.
She lost to convicted felon and sex pest who was already impeached. It's the fault of the American people as much as her own, but that's embarrassing regardless.
While she was/is not perfect, the choice was quite obvious, so nearly all the blame lies with the voters.
It was completely idiotic to vote for PEDOnald. These moron magats that now tell the media they are getting completely boned economically and voted for him "because economy" are just so frustrating to watch. They think he did well in 1.0 version when all he did was manage to not completely fuck up an already good state of things. He completely bobbled Covid. And then these same idiots keep blathering about inflation under Biden, as if he pulled some lever to make inflation go up, vs. dealing with Covid fallout.
Watching these tools talk about the economy is quite something, that's for sure.
The thing is, there isn't supposed to be such a thing as a default candidate. We're supposed to have a primary race where candidates come out of nowhere and try to make the case for their platform. It's been a while since Americans got that luxury.
There is nothing saying that there shouldn't be either. For most of American history the public had no vote or direct say in presidential primaries.
There have been no real rules outside those the parties made up. Highly centralized nations, parties, and governments are always a problem. Doubly so when the parties make up their own rules.
I mean yeah. Using FPTP from the outset of the US and then making zero rules about how parties have to govern themselves internally could have been the fatal flaw; FPTP always seems to lead to a bipolar/duopolistic state, and whenever there's enough money that's going to lead to a good cop/bad cop scenario.
I agree with your position that even the most popular candidate we've had in a long time -- Obama -- most likely would not have won that election, but we cannot know for sure. What we do know is that if you're up against stacked odds, then you need to maximize -- over-perform -- with the quality of your candidate.
I voted Harris. She was better than Trump in every conceivable way no doubt -- and yes, including on Gaza and most certainly Ukraine, Climate Change, LGBTQ+ rights, etc., -- but she was still just an average candidate. Can't have average against stacked odds of billionaires putting their weight on the scales of democracy.
The only persons I think could've won that is probably 2016 Bernie, or Michelle Obama.
If Harris wants to run again in the Democratic Primaries, then sure, go for it. I hope we have lots to choose from. But honestly, I'd rather Michelle run.