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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32904 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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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.

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