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[-] 4am@lemmy.zip 187 points 2 weeks ago

Many believe Harris lost in 2024 because voters viewed her as too progressive, and that Ocasio-Cortez could face the same problem.

Who’s this “many”? Kamala lost because of her Joe Biden neolib policies, her hard heel-turn to the right, and her “nothing will change, we are the most lethal military” stance on the Middle East.

Instead of reassuring the masses who she thought were a shoe-in, she tried to appease the “I’ll never vote for a black woman” crowd, which alienated the former and would never have worked on the latter.

It was either the greatest miscalculation ever, lead by Third Way focus groups, or someone tugged the leash. Either way, with the GOP rat fucking that was almost certainly happening to some degree.

Pretty shitty of Newsweek to pretend that progressive policies are unpopular with a majority of Americans.

[-] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 46 points 2 weeks ago

Personally, I think it is because there was no Democratic Party primary. Biden stole the time that any potential candidate could have used to prove their mettle to voters.

[-] Kacarott@aussie.zone 16 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, I would also actually lay more blame on Biden over Kamela, despite Kamela being a pretty terrible candidate

[-] MsPenguinette@lemmy.world 34 points 2 weeks ago

DNC has already shown they aren’t taking that as the lesson learnt. They won’t even release the 2024 autopsy cause they don’t like what it says

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 10 points 2 weeks ago

It was obvious the party was cooked in 2018 - when, in response to regaining power after losing in a great upset to an insane game show host, they kept the exact same leadership.

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 weeks ago

No, she lost because she was black and a woman. People always underestimate just how racist and sexist the US is. Don't fall into this trap.

[-] teslekova@sh.itjust.works 30 points 2 weeks ago

The polls say otherwise. She was leading after her announcement, when she was still talking about healthcare reform, economic justice, taxing the rich, etc. For about three weeks.

Then she talked to her business rep corpo brother, and shifted gear to espousing pro-corporate policy, defending the wealthy, calling leftists Bernie bros, etc, and fell behind.

I agree that Palestine made little difference, btw. It cost her around half a million votes, but she lost by three times that. That's looking at state by state, too.

She lost because she turned herself into Biden 2, instead of what people wanted her to be, which was Obama (until he became President. He lied very well, then governed well enough that we forgave him for being friends with the corps).

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Women won senate races in three of the swing states she lost and a Hispanic man won a fourth. It's hard to imagine an explanation more out of line with actual evidence.

[-] ZombieMantis@lemmy.world 21 points 2 weeks ago

It's possible that it she was a white man, and absolutely nothing else was different, that she very well might have just barely eeked out a victory. That's still a failure. It should have been a blowout. It was a failure of a campaign, racism and sexism against the candidate by the general public was a component, but the least relevant one.

[-] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yeah. Her argument was that she was Joe Biden, but younger and more diverse. But Joe Biden was LOSING. Even before his debate performance. And he only barely won in 2020, which also should have been a blowout.

It's not the blackness or the femaleness, it's doubling down on shitty uninspiring politics. An old white male Joe Biden was going to lose even worse than the middle aged black female Joe Biden.

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 9 points 2 weeks ago

Exactly. People forget that Biden in 2020 under performed polls, and it's pretty clear that absent COVID he would have lost.

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

I agree, even if Biden was 20 years younger I think he would have won. If he was 20 years younger and female and Indian he would have lost just as Harris did.

It was definitely policy that hindered them, but also the sexism and racism.

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago

No, she lost because she was black and a woman.

"Kamala Harris ran the perfect campaign, she was just stabbed in the back!"

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[-] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 18 points 2 weeks ago

You couldn’t mention her name around here without a bandwagon of “She’s the literal genocide queen and a vote for her is a vote to murder Palestinian children.”

[-] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 weeks ago

Since you mentioned the name, I did notice quite obviously the disrespect everyone had toward Kamala Harris in the news and online comments simply due what they called her.

Almost everywhere, it was quite common for people to refer to her as Kamala and not Harris.

I suspect it was either due to her being a woman, or due to her being Indian (Kamala sounds a lot more foreign than Harris).

It was always "Kamala vs Trump" never Harris vs Trump or Kamala vs Donald.

[-] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 2 weeks ago

Almost everywhere, it was quite common for people to refer to her as Kamala and not Harris.

Because that's the more unique and thus memorable part of her name. Just like "Bernie" is more memorable than "Sanders".

It wasn't a sign of disrespect, sexism, or othering to call Bernie by his first name, and it wasn't in the case of Kamala Harris either.

Anyone who says otherwise is likely grasping at straws to explain away the fact that it was mostly her policy positions and allegiance to Biden, corporations, and Israel over the people she was SUPPOSED to represent that lost her the election rather than bigotry.

[-] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

I assumed it was the woman aspect, hadn’t even considered the foreign aspect.

https://news.asu.edu/20170721-solutions-asu-mayo-study-how-female-doctors-introduced

I have a really hard time remembering how to pronounce her first name because I know someone with the same spelling but different pronunciation, (and I read the news, don’t watch it) so to avoid saying it wrong I only ever said Harris.

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

That sounds exactly like something those Sandersbros would do, they're basically indistinguishable from r/TheTrump.

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 8 points 2 weeks ago

I mean, she did support the genocide. Which murdered tens of thousands of Palestinian children. What is your point?

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[-] Enkrod@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

But "around here" is representative of what? 5% of voters? 16% of democratic voters max? Let's not pretend Lemmy users represent a sizable number of democratic voters.

[-] WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago
[-] grue@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago

Case in point: your bullshit comment.

"Oh, it couldn't possibly be her shitty policy positions; it had to have been because of her race and gender!"

Fuck all the way off with your soft bigotry of low expectations.

[-] SuiXi3D@fedia.io 11 points 2 weeks ago

A THIRD of people, only slightly smaller than the third that voted for Trump, voted for Harris based on the fact that she WASN'T TRUMP. Another third didn't vote because they felt her stance on Israel wasn't enough to offset that she wasn't Trump. I don't feel it had anything to do with her race or gender.

[-] JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Pretty crazy to write that the third that didn’t vote, did so because of Israel lol

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yeah, that's not true.

But if it was, then you need to be asking why, in an election they claimed was existential, the Democratic Party anointed a black woman to run as their candidate against Trump.

Because that's the conclusion of the excuse you're making - that the Democrats can only nominate men, or they're choosing to lose.

[-] Objection@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

No no, that's the trap of their narrative. "The Democrats are always just bending over backwards trying to promote minority candidates even when the deck is stacked against them, because they're just such true believers in progressive ideals."

The reality is, by playing up the "progressiveness" of a candidate's inherent characteristics, they can be quietly used as a vehicle for conservative policies that make their donors happy. This is a strategy that's very played out around the world, even Pakistan once had their own version of Margaret Thatcher, and Japan just go theirs recently.

From the perspective that progressive politics are completely off the table, picking a minority candidate was a tactically reasonable choice. A candidate's race and gender are about the only "concessions" they could give to the left, while courting their donors.

But the problem with that is that second-wave feminism, the kind that tends to see Thatcherites as a win, never caught on in the US like it did in the UK, and third-wave, which is more popular these days, accounts for that failure and focuses more on systemic issues and policy than individual leaders.

But any strategy that might work to get progressives to bend the knee to neoliberalism will be tried again and again, and if it fails they'll just chalk it up to sexism or whatever other bullshit.

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[-] demizerone@lemmy.world 19 points 2 weeks ago

She came out look ling like Darth vader in one of the televised things she did and did the war hawk dance. Fuck off forever, you lost to Donald Fucking Trump after spending 1.5 billion.

[-] brownsugga@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

its almost like all legacy media is inherently fascist

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 16 points 2 weeks ago

Many = the author. Every time.

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 14 points 2 weeks ago

they do this every time though. The centrists fail, so obviously the answer is more centrism.

[-] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago

More centrism to the right, of course, never to the left.

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 13 points 2 weeks ago
[-] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

However, the immediate effect of not voting for the lesser evil is either not voting, meaning the right wins, or voting for candidates with no chance of winning, taking votes away from the more left ones and allowing the right to win. "More right" is better than "all the way to the far right."

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 8 points 2 weeks ago

If you're not going to change direction, the speed at which you're moving right isn't really important. You're getting there anyways.

[-] samus12345@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

It is important, because continuing that way isn't a foregone conclusion, despite you acting like it is.

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 6 points 2 weeks ago

Sure thing Charlie Brown, one day you're gonna kick that DNC football!

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[-] pjwestin@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

In fairness to Newsweek, based on the sentence before this, I think they mean, "many in the party establishment," not, "many people in general."

She brings significant energy to the primary among younger voters, but some in the Democratic Party establishment believe her progressive policies could alienate swing voters in the general election. Many believe Harris lost in 2024...

[-] notwhoyouthink@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 weeks ago

Essentially, she showed herself as who she truly is: an establishment Democrat more intent on maintaining the status quo instead of listening to the left and helping push the party further towards progressive policies and reshaping the party into something that represents the modern constituency.

Yeah that.

[-] varjen@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

Harris was progressive? Really?

[-] FrowingFostek@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

We'd prolly know for sure if they released the report. Ken Martin needs to be fired.

[-] starik@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago

There are many contradictory opinions on why Harris lost. These opinions usually boil down to “Her policy positions weren’t close enough to my policy positions, and that’s why she lost.”

[-] prole 5 points 2 weeks ago

And every other leftist on this site seems to believe that she would have won, had she just pandered to them more. Completely ignoring the fact that leftism essentially doesn't exist in this country, and Lemmy isn't an accurate representation of American voters.

[-] mattyroses@lemmy.today 13 points 2 weeks ago

Well, it's pretty obvious that running for the Liz Cheney voter did not work.

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[-] apftwb@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I remember during the Trump/Harris debate when Israel came up and they both took turns declaring they could suck off Israel harder than their opponent.

I do not consider Harris a progressive.

[-] dreamkeeper@literature.cafe 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

She literally campaigned with Liz Cheney. Too progressive? Lmao no one believes that shit except brainwashed magats.

Crazy how every rag shifts between blaming gaza voters for her loss while simultaneously claiming Harris was "too progressive".

[-] sveltecider@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 weeks ago

It seems American voters want right wing vs far right.

this post was submitted on 12 May 2026
972 points (100.0% liked)

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