Tomato
3mo ago
I don’t think it has much of an affect. I’m not giving her credit for it, just saying she was czar of a problem that’s gotten a lot better.
Tomato
3mo ago
I agree that it’s kind of a bureaucratic argument but what’s being debated in this particular argument is what she was in fact in charge of. It seems like a separate argument to say like oh Harris should’ve carved out a bigger role for herself inside the administration on this issue beyond what Biden tasked her with.
Tomato
3mo ago
As I understand it she didn’t have authority over the border, she had essentially a diplomatic mission to those countries that in 2021 were contributing to the border crisis. I don’t know what the internal dynamics were around what her specific remit was and why it didn’t become broader over time (my guess is she didn’t want to do that job because it’s terrible and thankless).
I concede all of this and I appreciate the interesting specifics. I don’t think US policy has much of an effect on border crossings except very broadly that when the US is doing well and when other countries are doing poorly, more people want to cross. I don’t think Harris or Trump or anybody should get much hate or praise on this issue.
Tomato
3mo ago
Any pro-trumpers dismayed over the amount of pro-Kamala content on TikTok need to go get their guy. Full disclosure I also think tiktok is bad and should be banned.
She was tasked to solve the 2021 border problem, namely, migration originating from a few specific countries. In 2024 migration flows from those countries are way down, but migration from other countries has increased a lot. It’s basically two separate problems stapled together by the fact that both problems materialize for the US at the southern border.
It’s an awkward situation for democrats to communicate because clearly at the time she was the “border czar,” formally or not, for the 2021 border problem. The 2021 border problem that she was the czar of has largely resolved. Now she gets flak for a 2024 problem that she was never really the czar of but sounds very similar to a problem she was the czar of.
Dems can either try to communicate the above distinction in a super hostile republican information environment where it’s in the republicans interest to maximally link her to everything people dislike about the Biden administration, or they can do what they did which is to bluntly pretend she was never the border czar. I think they should have tried the former but instead they went with the latter and are caught looking very dishonest.
Edit: I’m not claiming she is the one who solved the problem (see informative posts down thread) just clarifying the problem the dems faced in communication.
Tomato
3mo ago
I suspect you live in an extremely Trump-biased media bubble. In my Kamala-biased media bubble vibes are at an all time high and people are convinced that JD Vance is going to get fired and are non-stop fucking a couch memes. Both of us are too online to evaluate how any of this plays with normies.
Tomato
3mo ago
I think everyone on this site, me included, is way too online either as a leftoid or rightoid to really intuit how ads like this play to grass touching normies. In my online bubble there is a ton of grassroots excitement and optimism about Kamala. Joyful memeing and shitposting like in the early Trump days.
In other replies, people, presumably in the other side’s online bubble, see the opposite.
I don’t think anyone like us, poisoned by our respective algorithms, can resolve the discrepancy through intuition and anecdotes.
Tomato
3mo ago
Okay, again, Biden hasn’t been removed from power. There’s an upcoming election and his party decided to not nominate him.
Tomato
3mo ago
A coup is when you overthrow the leader of a country. Figuring out who runs for election to be the next leader is just not what a coup is.
Tomato
4mo ago
Also, lol at Elon's lame attack on her on Twitter. They're afraid.
I know they’ll figure it out eventually but watching in real time as rightoids try to figure out how to attack Kamala is pretty funny.
In the spirit of equal-opportunity sneering, it was cringy how everyone’s bye Biden tweets all used the word “consequential” like someone must have directed them to.
Tomato
4mo ago
Posters here and Vance are advancing the following logical argument: unfit to run implies unfit to be president for the next 6 months. It obviously doesn’t follow. You can argue about A and you can argue about B but A doesn’t imply B.
Tomato
4mo ago
To be frank it’s just too deep a cut for anyone to care about. Only very online rightoids have any idea who that is.
Tomato
4mo ago
Biden’s decline is now yesterday’s issue. This was a powerful issue for republicans 3 hours ago and just like that it’s over.
Tomato
4mo ago
I just don't believe anyone is honestly upset at any alleged violation of democratic norms.
Nobody is. The news is too fresh and they haven’t coalesced around the new talking points yet. They’re in the throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks phase.
Tomato
4mo ago
This is one of the worst gotchas in the history of gotchas. I can’t believe people keep saying this. He’s fit for office for a few months, he’s not fit to simultaneously run a campaign or for office for four more year. There, I just drove a truck through the widest needle in the universe.
Tomato
4mo ago
Wait until you hear about the even crazier and more consequential things they do, like appoint the president over the wishes of the majority of voters.
Tomato
4mo ago
the more baffling the whole situation is -- unless you understand DEI and its consequences
Nice post and it perfectly encapsulates how I feel about DEI for rural whites (the electoral college).
Tomato
4mo ago
I feel like this is a bad idea because LLMs appear to be a dead end beyond helping you write code. Like they can’t handle 9.9-9.11, so I don’t think they’ll be good at something that needs a lot of real-time precision. Maybe they’ll go after another approach but given that a lot of SF VC’s plans appear to be to get Trump/Vance into office and then get huge handouts for whatever they’re currently working on, it seems like this’ll be the way it’ll go.
Tomato
4mo ago
What’s the big actual object level disagreement between the reds and the blues here? In the 1800s the country was divided over slavery. Now it really seems like a bunch of tiny object level issues plus a big aesthetic one, and nobody is going to have a civil war over aesthetics.
Tomato
5mo ago
Yes. This is my point. These people are not/unable to make themselves politically relevant.
You’re pretty clearly waging the culture war in your favor here especially in the way you frame and dismiss the “women things.” Take abortion, for example. I say this as someone who is probably more anti-abortion than the median American, but indeed post-Dobbs there is less protection over a woman’s ability to get an abortion and further erosion has been made possible in the future. It’s not a made up thing. You appear to be characterizing this issue as not a “real issue” because you don’t recognize abortion as a right. I mean, fine, we can argue on the merits of whether abortion is a cognizable right but whether a woman can get one matters to lots of women and it’s a live political issue.
Lots of young women would like to be able to get abortions in case they get pregnant while having fun casual sex. Why is the male version of this something cool and fun while the female version of this cat lady hectoring?
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