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She has some criticisms for her past as an attorney, but I’m not sure why she’s so disliked now. What has she done to engender such distaste from the public?

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[-] StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org 73 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

She's a racist, classist noeliberal and a fucking cop (or close enough).

Her political career has been chock-full of attacking public institutions like schools, protecting white-collar crime which destroyed countless lives, protecting child molesters in the church, implementing policy against the poor, and protecting prison slavery. I'm not sure where exactly the confusion lies.

[-] BaconIsAVeg@kbin.social 20 points 2 years ago

This isn't Facebook grandpa, you need to show your work.

[-] Rayston@kbin.social 19 points 2 years ago

This is i,t shes a fucking cop. I dont trust cops.

[-] rackmountrambo@kbin.social 5 points 2 years ago

The Cons should love her, I don't get it.

[-] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 years ago

Woman. Of color. Democrat.

That's a large part of why no republican (or conservative) is going to give her any respect.

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[-] specialdealer@lemm.ee 33 points 2 years ago

she’s a black woman? Seems like that’s enough for a lot of people.

[-] Pilcrow@beehaw.org 18 points 2 years ago

Used to really like her as senator. She was a bulldog questioning people in front of committee, and going after other senators for nonsensical arguments. When she became candidate, she became completely stage-managed to the point that she seems so phoney. I'm not suggesting that most politicians are not phoney, but she just comes off fake and smug to me.

[-] OldFartPhil@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago

I agree. I was a big fan of hers during Congressional testimony. But she is definitely awkward in unscripted environments and would be a poor presidential candidate in a nation where a significant portion of the electorate wants a president they can have a beer with. Additionally, her history as a prosecutor makes Democrats suspicious of her.

Republicans hate her because she's a Black woman. They'll make up other excuses, but none of them hold water.

[-] potsnpans@beehaw.org 9 points 2 years ago

Yup. Everyone here giving their own reasons for disliking her seems to be missing that the amount of vitriolic hatred spewed at her is wildly disproportionate to anything she's actually done or failed to do.

(speaking as someone who doesn't like her either, in that I don't "like" 99% of politicians)

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[-] the_robomafia@readit.buzz 28 points 2 years ago
[-] argv_minus_one@beehaw.org 11 points 2 years ago

With a record like that, she'd fit right in with the other party. I don't know what Biden was smoking when he decided to tap her of all people, but it must be so good it's still illegal in Oregon.

[-] Atarian@vlemmy.net 27 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
  1. She's a democrat. that means 42% of the population automatically hate her.
  2. She's grossly inappropriate and cackles at exactly the wrong time, and that creeps people out.
  3. She was a "tough on weed" prosecutor who became a bleeding heart liberal overnight when she got her new job. That makes her seem disingenuous.

Just what I've picked up from other people, I have no feelings about her whatsoever.

[-] raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org 9 points 2 years ago

This more or less sums it, there are differences between why the right and left might dislike her (ex. I'd say there's an element of misogyny and racism on the right mixed in with valid criticisms).

But fundementally, she's phony. And people are kind of over phony politicians. And more importantly she's not any good at being phony. You have people like Biden who are just as full of shit, but he has a schtick that works on a lot of people to give the impression that he's this worldly, aviators-wearing grandpa who's gonna "give it to you straight, Jack" yadda yadda.

Kamala, by contrast, has no real convincing schtick like that, her mannerisms are overly polished and practiced, so she just looks like another empty suit.

[-] Atarian@vlemmy.net 6 points 2 years ago

I'm not going to argue that some of the dislike she receives isn't due to racism or misogyny. There has to be an element of that.

But yes, phony is the perfect word.

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[-] Cylinsier@beehaw.org 22 points 2 years ago

The single biggest problem standing between the left and sustained and meaningful control of the federal government is the complete lack of ability of voters to circle around a consensus candidate. There are several valid reasons to be critical of Harris just as there are pretty much every single Democratic Presidential decade basically of my lifetime. But Republicans vote consistently for candidates they dislike or even hate just to beat Democrats. Every single candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2016, 2020, and undoubtedly in 2028 will have some vocal subset of registered Democrat voters telling you exactly why they will never in a million years vote for them. I saw it constantly on Reddit and I don't see any reason why it won't continue.

Until somebody drops the magic "consensus candidate" name that somehow pleases everyone, Democratic voters are always going to be a major hurdle to their own success. And frankly I don't think that "consensus candidate" name exists. Such is the curse of being the big tent party opposite the GOP. Republicans know they can continue winning elections for at least a little longer thanks to Democratic infighting alone.

[-] Ethereal87@beehaw.org 29 points 2 years ago

Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line.

It's reductive, but look at the Christian Right and Trump. Trump is nowhere close to the picture of a Christian. It's astounding he can safely cross the threshold of a church. But he promises to make sure abortion is illegal and men can't pretend to be women to steal kids, so they vote for him. Replace the abortion issue with guns and you get another set of voters who will vote Republican regardless of what they might personally feel.

Meanwhile and to your point on the left, each candidate's worst flaws are held as some kind of uncrossable line by people who are terminally online (which isn't helpful) and the Democratic Party does what they can to feed this and make sure they don't have to enact meaningful change. They just want to maintain the status quo but they get to do it with a pride flag waving behind them. If the Party establishment would just stop putting a thumb on the scale (not just against Bernie but ANYONE remotely progressive/left of the neoliberal center) and let the primary process shake out the most popular candidate, they might actually find themselves winning elections.

[-] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 years ago

More accurate is: Republicans vote, Democrats don't.

If this country had compulsory voting with sane voting days, and better protections against taking away voting rights to blacks and poors, Democrats would have a supermajority in Congress, and a Democratic president for decades.

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[-] PauliExcluded@beehaw.org 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

But Republicans vote consistently for candidates they dislike or even hate just to beat Democrats. Now, that’s just not true. The Republicans lose elections because of in-fighting too. For example, they lost the most recent election for House in Alaska to a Democrat because Begich voters didn’t want to consolidate behind Palin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Alaska%27s_at-large_congressional_district_special_election

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[-] CIWS-30@kbin.social 19 points 2 years ago

She's not really a good public speaker for one. Not a lot of charm or charisma. She's not good at schmoozing like Bill Clinton or Obama. A good presidential candidate needs that, and I think it's a big part of why Al Gore and Hillary Clinton lost. She can speak well in public sometimes, but at others she sounds flat, boring, and artificial.

Charisma is a big deal. Think about Reagan Democrats and how people to this day love Reagan even though facts and hindsight analysis show that he was a terrible president who was arguably the start of America's modern decline into horrendous oligarchy.

[-] cupcakezealot 18 points 2 years ago

Because she's black and she's a woman.

Same reason why Hillary Clinton was widely respected every year except when she ran against a man.

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[-] Nonya_Bidniss@infosec.pub 18 points 2 years ago

I assume nearly half of the country hates her for being black and/or a woman, while some other large chunk of the country hates her for being "a cop." I think she's fine. She's done the job a hell of a lot better than a whole list of other VPs I could name. And since I'll be voting against Republicans no matter what, if a Biden-Harris ticket is the opposition I'll be checking that box. No problem.

[-] BurnTheRight@kbin.social 17 points 2 years ago

The only thing conservatives hate more than black people having power is black women having power. So, of course conservatives hate her.

Progressives are tired of neo-liberals sucking corporate cock as hard as the republicans. She is a neo-liberal (and thus a diet conservative), so progressives don't like her (or Biden) either.

That really just leaves neo-liberals to actually like her.

[-] dax@beehaw.org 15 points 2 years ago

For me, it's strictly because of this. I'm not suggesting truancy isn't an issue worth combating, but going at it this way showed a shocking lack of sense - to the degree where I'm not sure I could trust any grown-ass adult who would go along with such an idea for more than 2 minutes.

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[-] AviationAJ@beehaw.org 13 points 2 years ago

I don’t hate herby nay means, but it just feels like she really hasn’t done much of anything during her tenure in office tbh

[-] snakespm@startrek.website 7 points 2 years ago

I'm mean the VP's #1 job is to have a pulse, so she has full marks on that front.

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[-] scamper@kbin.social 12 points 2 years ago

She's painful to listen to. Can't string a clear sentence together and laughs constantly. Not inspiring or particularly incisive. Which is a particularly disappointing combo when Biden is the same.

[-] Dresta@kbin.social 11 points 2 years ago

I'd guess it is the "isms"

[-] Supermariofan67@lemmy.fmhy.ml 9 points 2 years ago

She's a right wing authoritarian.

[-] BrikoX@vlemmy.net 9 points 2 years ago

She's just incompetent. Look at some interviews with her, she can't answer basic questions and has done absolutely nothing as a VP. It has nothing to do with her being a woman or black.

[-] thesanewriter@vlemmy.net 7 points 2 years ago

Partly because of discrimination, partly because she lacks charisma. There are a substantial number of people that dislike her because she's a black woman and they have biases against both, sometimes without even knowing it. There are also some people on the left that dislike her because she's a moderate liberal that used to be a prosecutor. Honestly she's about standard as vice presidents come, so though I'm farther to the left than her I don't have any strong feelings on her.

[-] alyaza@beehaw.org 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

as you can probably pick up from the responses so far: she gets all of the racism and bigotry you'd expect from being a visible minority public figure and all of the flack you'd expect from her fairly cringeworthy, not great track record as a politician. her core demographic is basically a slice of liberals who don't care that much about politics and enjoys the facade she puts on--and that's a small audience, politically. anyone who examines her track record more deeply will probably find a bone to pick with her, or is likely going to hate her because of her identity.

[-] BrooklynMan@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

She was disliked before she was VP

[-] trekz@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago

What has she done to engender such distaste from the public?

My question is what has she done (that's actually has improved the country) since she's been VP?

[-] shadowolf@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 years ago

What roles does a VP have that front and center for policy though? Fundamentally a lot of the roles with in the executive branch are kind of invisible to the general public. Unless your neck deep into politics (and I don't mean the cable news network.. but more along the lines of reading stuff from federal register and CRS reports, and straight up political science research papers.)

unless your that deep into things what the VP does might as well be invisible

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[-] ArugulaZ@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

On the conservative side of the fence, she's black and Indian and most unforgivable of all, a DEMOCRAT!
On the liberal side, she's taken a hard stance on crime, including minor drug offenses that probably shouldn't be crimes.
She's got something for everybody! To hate!

[-] Arotrios@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago

This is probably the best breakdown of public perceptions of her record:

A close examination of Harris’s record shows it’s filled with contradictions. She pushed for programs that helped people find jobs instead of putting them in prison, but also fought to keep people in prison even after they were proved innocent. She refused to pursue the death penalty against a man who killed a police officer, but also defended California’s death penalty system in court. She implemented training programs to address police officers’ racial biases, but also resisted calls to get her office to investigate certain police shootings.

But what seem like contradictions may reflect a balancing act. Harris’s parents worked on civil rights causes, and she came from a background well aware of the excesses of the criminal justice system — but in office, she played the role of a prosecutor and California’s lawyer. She started in an era when “tough on crime” politics were popular across party lines — but she rose to national prominence as criminal justice reform started to take off nationally. She had an eye on higher political office as support for criminal justice reform became de rigueur for Democrats — but she still had to work as California’s top law enforcement official.

Her race and gender likely made this balancing act even tougher. In the US, studies have found that more than 90 percent of elected prosecutors are white and more than 80 percent are male. As a Black and Indian American woman, Harris stood out — inviting scrutiny and skepticism, especially by people who may hold racist stereotypes about how Black people view law enforcement or sexist views about whether women are “tough” enough for the job.

Still, the result is the same: As she became more nationally visible, Harris was less known as a progressive prosecutor, as she’d been earlier in her career, and more a reform-lite or even anti-reform attorney general. Now critics have labeled her a “cop” — a sellout for a broken criminal justice system.

Sauce is Vox

[-] carlyman@beehaw.org 6 points 2 years ago

Thank you for sharing that there is nuance beyond just "she's black."

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this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
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