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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32893 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Harris is bad product with good marketing, so I continue to be near certain she ends up dragging in the polls when the honeymoon period ends and she actually makes public appearances.

I've been asking blue teamers to name the most impressive achievement attributable to Harris.

Aside from "got picked as VP" then "got picked as Presidential candidate" there's literally nothing. Every other attempt to rehab her image failed, too. She's got almost every liability Biden has aside from age, yet none of the experience or achievements to her name.

Unless they pull the "she makes no appearances publicly unless absolutely necessary" strategy that Biden pioneered, there's simply no possible way her public persona improves the current situation, and many ways it harms it.

Ironically Walz might have been chosen simply because he's really good at putting a decent spin on his own bad policies and that's literally what Harris needs to do right now.

I've been asking blue teamers to name the most impressive achievement attributable to Harris.

I don't care about any policy achievements attributable to Harris. I think Team Biden has done an extremely good job and that Team Harris will be a continuation of Team Biden. I do, however, think that Harris is a good champion to finally defeat Trump and permanently demoralize MAGA, which has been an insanely negative drag on our country since it sprouted up. I want and need nothing else from her.

  • -14

I think Team Biden has done an extremely good job and that Team Harris will be a continuation of Team Biden.

I have a Pier in Gaza to sell you if you're willingly advertising this as your true belief.

Price is $320 million btw.

The irony here is that MAGA hasn't had control of any major institutions at the Federal level, but we can objectively see people Voting with their feet to leave places like California (Kamala territory) and Minnesota (Walz territory) to go places where red tribe rules.

This is what we call a 'revealed preference' and its perhaps the most hilarious possible indictment of blue tribe governors as theydrive away their tax base

So I dunno, if you really want to show MAGA what for, just move to/remain in one of those blue tribe strongholds and let everyone else go where they please, please.

I'm a Pennsylvania voter so you're all stuck with me :)

I agree blue states have done a terrible job on building housing, and housing costs are really the main driver of outmigration, plus boomers retiring to the sunbelt. I'd be a single issue voter for any party that could credibly increase the housing supply in high demand areas.

I'd be a single issue voter for any party that could credibly increase the housing supply in high demand areas.

Isn't that party just the GOP? Like it's more a state and local issue than federal, but when you look at places with unified Republican control and a lot of people wanting to live there you're looking at places like Texas which does in fact build a lot of housing.

Actually it's probably tax policy beyond anything.

Because if it were housing policy, the outmigration should be driving house pricing back down towards 'affordable' levels too.

You get guys like Bezos and/or Billy Joel ducking out of places with income tax to places without it, it seems pretty obvious.

And you can argue he's not representative, but Musk moving his companies to Texas also indicates the issues blue states are creating for themselves.

But again, you do you. Just silly to scapegoat MAGA when you can't point to places where MAGA actually has political control of government and are 'a drag on the nation,' compared to places where blue tribe controls government and is literally driving people away.

The reason for business relocations to Texas is probably actually regulations, not taxes. Texas is not a low tax state, despite advertising as such, and while plenty of ordinary middle class people might make that mistake businesses probably don’t.

And Texas is the biggest beneficiary thereof, so it’s not as if this is an exception that tests the rule. It’s the trendsetter.

The easiest way to end team MAGA is to let Trump win, suck it up for four years, and then he'll be done and go back to golfing for the rest of his life. If he had won last time MAGA would be already over. If he loses he'll probably spend at least four years complaining with support from his base.

If you want the anti-woke impulse or populists to drift off that's a separate problem, but the MAGAists will go away when he does. Let him win and the timer starts and then he'll be bored and gone.

Yes, the way to defeat a movement is to give them power for another 4 years.

It's a movement 100% centered around an ancient guy with little real interest in politics and no real possibility of a successor that doesn't switch back to usual Republican politics. Trump would be functionally gone at this point except for screeching on social media and attempting to make himself relevant with endorsements if he won last time.

The anti-woke and normal republicans exist independent of Trump and will exist after he is gone. MAGAists are Trump fans.

Hell, if he somehow managed to get himself elected for a third term....guy would just die of old age.

Normal Republicans are great. I wish the Romneys and Rubios were in charge of the party.

I don't know how broad your definition of anti-woke is but I think the set of republicans whose brand is anti-woke (like the "intellectual dark web" people) are basically Trumpers in disguise or at least exist only to pander to Trumpers.

I’m no fan of MAGA but I don’t think that’s a good thing. I’m not just anti-MAGA, I want someone who is at least nominally capable of doing the job I’m voting for her to do. She might surprise me, but I’m not convinced she would be able to get bills through congress or handle a national security issue or emergency situation. If WWIII happens, do you trust her to be in the war room?

In elections, achievements do not matter in and of themselves. Only optics matter. Achievements only matter insofar as they help the optics. Trump had pretty much zero political achievements when he ran in 2016, but he ended up completely clobbering the rest of the Republicans and then beating Clinton.

Harris might not have Trump's high levels of charisma, and she might have no achievements to speak of, but that won't matter if the Harris campaign succeeds in framing the election as a fight between "fresh young hip Kamala and her cool cats" vs. "old stale criminal Trump and his gang of weirdoes". The facts don't matter, the reality doesn't matter. Only the optics matter.

Trump had pretty much zero political achievements when he ran in 2016,

And virtually everyone he ran against had a ton of political failures that he could pin them with because holy cow the years leading up to Trump were dismal in terms of anything good coming from the political process.

People don't remember that pretty much nobody on the debate stage could make a case for their great leadership or successful policy goal they'd helped push through. They all came across as feckless, useless grifters in the sense that they were asking for support when their records showed that they'd not done anything to earn it.

At this point, Trump AT LEAST can say he helped bring about the most conservative Supreme Court in decades, and can continue that trend if he gets elected and has support from the Senate.

The facts don't matter, the reality doesn't matter. Only the optics matter.

Yeah but the optics didn't used to be COMPLETELY illusory.

If we're through the looking glass at this point then literally nothing matters. Run whatever candidate you want and voters will accept just about any narrative about them.

If we're through the looking glass at this point then literally nothing matters. Run whatever candidate you want and voters will accept just about any narrative about them.

Yeah we are in a post post truth world. Whoever writes the best story wins.

And the optics are decided on by the media, who are a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. Game, set, and match.

And the optics are decided on by the media, who are a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. Game, set, and match.

And social media, which is more of a mixed bag.

And yet Democrats sometimes lose elections. Kamala might well lose, her chances are worse than Hillary Clinton's.

Harris is bad product with good marketing, so I continue to be near certain she ends up dragging in the polls when the honeymoon period ends and she actually makes public appearances.

There's not a lot of time to kill the honeymoon here. It's August.

And we don't have a media willing to force her to make public appearances, at all. Republicans don't have a candidate willing to do so either, since he's still so obsessed with crushing Biden he wants to just run off of that victory.

There's not a lot of time to kill the honeymoon here. It's August.

The irony is that there's not a lot of time to build up a campaign and a candidate's public image, but they're attempting it anyway.

Not sure how to react to the revelation that you DON'T necessarily need the 1 year plus leadup to the election in order to build public support for your candidate.

Why not have one month of campaigning, hold all the primaries on the same day in July, and then we can just have a 3 month race for president starting August. Much more efficient.

Not sure how to react to the revelation that you DON'T necessarily need the 1 year plus leadup to the election in order to build public support for your candidate.

You would, if "not Trump" wasn't enough to carry a boatload of people.

Trump is a weak candidate, helped once again by an even weaker Democrat. Now that Biden stepped away the problems inherent in that are rearing their head again

Political parties are mechanisms, at this point, for funnelling donations from the faithful into the pockets of campaign managers so they can run ads telling the faithful that their enemies are weird.

In this campaign, you don't need "public support", you just need "less public disapproval". Trump is at +8.3% disapproval right now; Harris has plummeted from a recent +17.4% disapproval down to a mere +5.5%. RFK is at +7.8% and Chase Oliver is at "Who?", so she's currently the most popular candidate not by virtue of being popular but by being less relatively unpopular.

If someone wanted to nominate a good candidate then their opponents might have to worry about having enough time to convince the public that their candidate is also good, but for some reason there just hasn't been much threat of that happening for the last decade.

but for some reason there just hasn't been much threat of that happening for the last decade.

I really wish I understood why, my only guess is that smart, well-rounded, virtuous people don't go into politics any more, because the level of media attention and frenetic partisanship make it totally undesirable for all but the most commited ideologue or the most narcissistic idiot.

I've been asking blue teamers to name the most impressive achievement attributable to Harris.

Things I've heard:

  • she's charismatic (??)

  • she's young

  • she's not trump

  • her prosecutorial record as AG is actually very progressive (this claim seems to be p-hacked to looking at drug convictions only I think)

Her prosecutorial record is astonishingly weak and it blows my mind that the Trump campaign hasn't started running huge numbers of ads showing what she did and said during that time. She was just beyond ghoulish in her decisions and I think that the sheen on her image will evaporate once that stuff gets more widely known - at the very least enthusiasm on the left will take a nosedive when they realise they're voting for the cop who wanted to keep innocent black men in jail for prison labour.

Her prosecutorial record is astonishingly weak and it blows my mind that the Trump campaign hasn't started running huge numbers of ads showing what she did and said during that time. She was just beyond ghoulish in her decisions and I think that the sheen on her image will evaporate once that stuff gets more widely known - at the very least enthusiasm on the left will take a nosedive when they realise they're voting for the cop who wanted to keep innocent black men in jail for prison labour.

Law and order appeals to the median voter, I think. Not sure that would help.

Except you don’t say “Kamala was tough on criminals.”

You say things like “Kamala fought to keep exculpatory evidence under wraps for an innocent man on death row.” That isn’t law and order; that is attempted murder!

Just "Kamala deliberately put an innocent man on death row" would be simpler. Don't complicate it with talk about evidence, the media is just going to say the claim is "without evidence" anyway.

Yep. And none of those really qualify as 'achievements' in my book.

Although in modern politics it probably makes strategic sense to avoid having your name tied to any major event or policy lest those end up going sour in retrospect.

I don't so much mind people trying to hype their candidate (although its spooky how they all pivoted on command when doing so) but c'mon at least realize what you're trying to shove down our throat.

I guess I'm just remembering that previously it was expected that the candidates for president had DONE SOMETHING demonstrably leaderlike in order to show they were up for the task of managing an entire administration. Acting as VP is usually an argument for this, but for some reason we've not been allowed to analyze her time as VP too closely.

I continue to be near certain she ends up dragging in the polls when the honeymoon period ends

When was the last time a democrat nominee's honeymoon period didn't last until election day? Dukakis in '88?

Kerry got absolutely soaked in 2004. The amount of credibility given to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was ASTOUNDING!

Well, when he let himself get photographed crawling around in that anticontamination suit he took some ridicule, I'll give you that.

But as for the swiftboat vets, I remember them being vehemently denounced by all the unbiased, non-partisan media.

Can anyone give me the rundown on Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Curtis Yarvin seems to think they were obviously right, and that it was the shameless media pile-on that pulled the term “swiftboating” out of the air and discredited them off of nothing.

I was too young back then to follow this stuff, so I have legitimately o clue who’s right.

The thing is, I feel that in the context of a Presidential election in which military service of the candidates is an issue, it does not matter much whether the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were right or not because at the end of the day, if you are someone who values service in the US military, the worst that one can say about Kerry's service is that he saw combat but then lied about some things. On the other hand, though, George W. Bush never saw combat at all and spent the war in the United States.

This is why the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth thing has never made any sense to me. No matter what Kerry lied about, he still demonstrably put himself on the line in service of the US military much more than George W. Bush did. And I am pretty sure that, with his connections, George W. Bush could have made his way to Vietnam if he had really wanted to fight there.

I can give a broad overview.

Post Vietnam war there was basically a domestic truce declared between the pro-war and anti-war sides. People who served in the war were patriots who loyally served their country. War protesters were patriots who wouldn't let their countrymen die in a misguided war.

When Kerry got back from Vietnam he became a major figure in the protest movement. There's some dispute about what he actually said personally, but he at least associated and sat on panels with people who were saying horrible things about US soldiers. People from his old unit got at least the impression that he was saying he saw them commit horrific war crimes.

Since this was back in the 70s there aren't many recordings showing exactly what he said when.

Once things quieted down it wasn't heavily criticized due the de facto truce and he went about his political career.

Then in 2004 when he was running for President he wanted to play up his war record. Bush only served in the air national guard while Kerry was deployed and won a silver star. Bush is a little younger than Kerry and got a deferral to help on one of his father's campaigns. By the time he would have been deployed things were winding down in Vietnam and the NG didn't really need him for anything.

In the Presidential campaign Kerry cast himself as a proud veteran. Meanwhile other swift boat veterans were still pissed off at him. They had been quietly shit talking him for 30 years.

Some of them got in contact with Republican organizers and we got a bunch of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads.

Basically a bunch of people who had reason to dislike him came forward and badmouthed his claims about his military service. I have no idea what the truth is or the specifics of the claims.

The Dems organizers didn't really understand that just because other veterans weren't talking about him publicly didn't mean they didn't still carry a grudge. They don't run in the same social circles.

So from the Dem point of view it was a manufactured conspiracy that came out of nowhere.

Interestingly there seems to be similar situation brewing with Walz.

https://facebook.com/story.php?id=100006969510534&story_fbid=2192944367614526

That post is from 2018 but i expect that it will be either memoryholed or suddenly relevant shortly.

Basically a bunch of people who had reason to dislike him came forward and badmouthed his claims about his military service. I have no idea what the truth is or the specifics of the claims.

Their claim was that he was a rich kid who wanted military "experience" for his future political career and didn't do anything as soldier. IIRC they even suggested his Silver Star was earned via an intentionally-inflicted minor wound that also got his tour cut short.

That was the first time I saw election memes and they were devastating against Kerry. I can't find it now, but it was a series of pictures of Bush/his wife looking presidential and Kerry/his wife looking silly (e.g. breaking the law of politics that you never, under any circumstances, wear a hat) that had me laughing, even as someone whose politics at the time largely consisted of "I hate neocons."

when the honeymoon period ends and she actually makes public appearances.

Why is there an expectation that she will actually make public appearances? She's going to vibe her way to Nov and win. I increasingly can't understand any argument otherwise, except as wishful thinking.

The idea that Kamala will be forced to make a fool of herself in public is Q-Anon level cope.

A major economic downturn or a bungled military crisis are the only two outside shots Trump has.

Debates?

I think there's too much unpredictability. I could easily believe Trump crushing Kamala in a debate. I could easily see the opposite. Trump's not the best contrast to Kamala's weaknesses of vapid and ramble, while Kamala is a great contrast to both Biden and Trump re: not geriatric.

Either way, are debates really going to happen?

Shucking and jiving outside your campaign bus or calling Repubs weird gets you somewhere with the faithful but it won't win over anyone who isn't. Kamala is going to be in fundraising mode for two months and only then will switch into targeting votes instead of donations.

If she can successfully manage not to interact with any voters for 2 months, that's a huge win on her part. If I were her campaign manager, I'd be telling her to do exactly that (making it until election day would be even better). Go have fancy dinners with donors, talk to friendly and allied interviewers, maybe take a month long vacation at the beach, and let the media and TikTok do all the heavy lifting. It's a pretty solid strategy.

I mean, she can do that if she really wants but this would be very unorthodox. Dare I say it, even weird.

Shucking and jiving outside your campaign bus or calling Repubs weird gets you somewhere with the faithful but it won't win over anyone who isn't.

Maybe not, but being 59 instead of 78 will, and being a relative unknown instead of someone a decent fraction of the electorate is probably simply bored of by now also will.

Can Kamala stay as Mystery Democrat for three months? If she doesn't explain herself to the electorate, Trump will do it for her.

Can Kamala stay as Mystery Democrat for three months? If she doesn't explain herself to the electorate, Trump will do it for her.

How? Nobody who isn't already for Trump listens to Trump, and whatever he says bad about her the media will just report as "Trump falsely claimed..." or "Trump claimed, without evidence,..., and actually Kamala Harris is the greatest candidate ever"

Video clips. Flood the market with video clips of Kamala in her own words.

Who would see them? The mainstream media won't play them and swing voters aren't paying attention to right-wing media.

It won't? Why not, she's only rising in the polls. What is the mechanism that will end her honeymoon before November? It's pure copium.

What is the mechanism that will cause this two week trend to continue forever, until presumably Kamala is acclaimed as Emperor of the Universe?

so to be clear, I don't think it will last forever, but will last till november.

Because when someone enters the race they typical get a boost and then fade.

That and hundreds of millions of attack ads.

When was the last time anyone entered the presidential election this close to the election as a major party candidate? I really don't think we could draw too much guidance from primary candidate fades.

Different country, different circumstance, blah blah blah, but Rudd replaced Gillard in 2013 three months before the election. In his case the honeymoon lasted about one and a half months.

Why would she change? She can get all the votes she needs the way she's going now. She doesn't need to campaign, she has the media to do it for her. The more she does, the worse she'll do.

A 51% chance of winning means that it's certain, right?

Pretty much. In general, the Democrats/left only need a single temporary advantage to achieve a goal, whereas the Republicans/right need all the possible ones; any setback means failure. It's just the way the world works given the capture of the institutions.

People are literally too stupid to attach the downturn to her. Or too reasonable - she didn't have the power to do anything about it anyway.

The only thing that saves the Republicans right now is a big, unjustifiable spat of race riots where she doubles down again while nobody's feeling sympathetic. The problem is that summer is coming to a close, so the time for the media to make a mistake and race-bait us into that outcome is too.

Economic trouble won't necessarily be blamed on Kamala per se, but it will lock in a perception of probably the weakest aspect of the past four years of Democrat rule: economic stife via inflation. I think a real downturn will turn out the vote for Trump. But it's not something I'm rooting for.

She'll 'have' to do something if the polls are still close or Trump is narrowly leading in the 'must-win' states. Its not clear the media can drag her over the line with independents this time around.

A few offhand predictions, in no particular order:

  1. Harris slips a critical few points in national polls and swing state polls.

  2. Some new actual crisis WILL emerge between now and the election (odds seem to favor it, with so many in the last two years alone).

  3. Her first public outing without an inherently friendly audience, which might be a debate with Trump, does not go well.

  4. Some GOP candidate will probably screw up in their congressional campaign which narrows the contest for congress. And for some extra tinfoil:

  5. Biden kicks the bucket sometime around late September and Harris gets a sympathy bump in the polls, and also makes her President thankfully with only a very narrow window in which to screw something up before the election.

Why will she have to do something if polls are close if that something is objectively worse that hiding from scrutiny? She's not going to go on an adversarial program or field tough questions just because.

Why do you think Biden agreed to an early debate with Trump?

There's rumor that it was pushed on his side to basically force him out quickly. I think that's plausible, but even the more benign reasoning, concerns about Biden's age related fintess were real, causing him to sink, and needed to be addressed quickly. Biden had already worn his honeymoon for 4 years. Kamala needs to sprint into November from the basement.

He personally wanted to debate, and it gave more time for any bad impressions to wear off (which, in fact, did not happen, until he was forced out).

Actually, do people still think of Biden as too old now (on a gut level)? Has that lessened since people stopped caring about it?

I'd heard the reason was "to catch Trump off-guard," among others, but that simply turned out to be a grave miscalculation on the part of the Dems, which they might not repeat with Harris.

Seems to have been a very happy miscalculation, as it led to them dumping the anchor they had at the top of the ticket.

Because he thought he'd win.

And there's your sign.

If she can finagle a situation where she thinks she has an advantage, then she may take the risk.

Biden kicks the bucket sometime around late September and Harris gets a sympathy bump in the polls, and also makes her President thankfully with only a very narrow window in which to screw something up before the election.

I was thinking that they might be holding a 25th amendment claim in their pocket for an October boost if they feel they need it. Get some "first female president" good vibes to propel them over the finish line.

“Generic Democrat” and “Generic Republican” almost always beat named candidates in polls. Right now Kamala is running as Generic Democrat, and it’s working. There are probably things Trump could do to take the shine off and put the ball in her court, but his campaign is MIA. What are they even doing? Where are the ads? Where are the memes?

There are ads. There are memes. They just aren't cracking the firewall that is MSM. They fortified their lines after 2016 and no Republican is allowed to speak even mildly freely on the big shows anymore. Im sure they will spin up ads more heavily in important states after the DNC, but IMO the race is a holding pattern until then. DNC will give a new vibe to Kamala, which might work or not. And then that is the vibe you have to take on.

What are they even doing? Where are the ads? Where are the memes?

Aren't these pretty much limited to X? No other platform wants them.

I mean, any resident of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, or in past elections, Florida & Ohio can tell you that TV stations have no problems taking anybodies political ads and running them.

As far as memes go, I thought with Musk in charge, X was now the land of free speech where the true non-restricted views of the people can run free.

TV stations are legally required to accept political ads.

A major economic downturn or a bungled military crisis are the only two outside shots Trump has.

I don't think is true, I think Trump is still favored at this stage. Kamala has a better chance than sticking with Biden I think, but that isn't a high bar.

PA is almost a must win for her, and that means carrying Philly, very strongly. Which means carrying the black vote very strongly with high turn out. And currently I am not sure that is going to be the case as I mention above.

Silvers model is now favoring Kamala, so are the most recent polls. I think Trump will only slide from here in the polls. There's nothing new to keep him up. He's at a ceiling between now and November.

Attack ads. And more attack ads. People know Trump. He is baked in. People will get to know Harris in the next 75 days. That will change the polling.

How will they get to know her? She'll hide in the basement, give pre-prepared speeches, and be Generic Democrat as far as anyone knows.

There's almost certainly going to be a debate or two, and Kamala just does not look good in front of a camera.

I think there's a very reasonable chance that Trump bombs in any debate with Kamala. Trump was only good in his debate with Biden insofar as he wasn't a corpse. Trump will be the geezer this time and Kamala will get the 'not a corpse' halo instead

Kamala came in third in the VP debate between herself, Mike Pence, and Mike Pence's housefly.

Sure. agreed. which is why I think she'll ride into November in the basement.

I don’t think Kamala can avoid going to a debate.

Even accepting that, bad things can happen to Dems. Economic news can only be bad. Lurid crime stories. Netanyahu attacks a hospital and we get full 4k footage of a child literally being shredded. Zelensky takes some brand new American hardware and commits a cheeky war crime with it. A scandal comes out that we didn't even know about yet, who had "RFK hid the bear cub in the park in 2014" on their bingo cards? Biden can still suddenly decline in a way that makes things awkward.

Or she is having the bump from replacing Biden.

Fundamentals still favor Trump i think. The econony is not great, loss of incumbent advantage. Its a lot to overcome. Which isn't to say its a slam dunk.

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