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To be honest the sense I get is that the Democrats have settled their major internal fights since 2022/2023, and Bidens age was a distraction. Three progressive democrat sacred cows were executed in 2022: racial hyperfragmentation, defund the police, open borders. Latinx as a neologism being thoroughly disparaged by the entire polity in 2022 put paid to the split-and-lift approach democrats had of highlighting racial subidentities and holding them in high esteem in order to oppose white men and drive turnout. Defund the police and restorative justice as a whole died with the COVID crime rises and Chesa Boudin being ousted put other prosecutors like Krasner, Price, Bragg and Gascon on watch for being overly progressive, with less public celebration of defending criminals. Finally, the migrant invasion into democratic cities has muted active open border proponents.
The democrats still are vulnerable on these issues, but the muting of the progressive wings gives normies hope that democrats aren't actively trying to end run the retard ball into an open goal. Yes the progressives are loud and extremely irritating still, but they aren't being actively supported by politicians anymore. Without the progressive bogeyman, much of the past 8 months has been focused on Bidens incapability, and with Harris wisely shutting up about specifics there is little attack material that is holding against her.
Culture war now is a wash for republicans, because abortion is remarkably salient, while Trumps centrality to the Republican establishment means his rambly whining and halfhearted autofellatio is taking up valuable discussion focus away from economy and border.
Hyperfocused overthinkers are wont to laser in on individual policies or vague connected webs to posit the end of civilization based on the extrapolated outcome, but most people don't care for that. Talking about democracy ending with Trump was not a vote winner, and talking about the woke mind virus isn't either. Democrats have pivoted to a surprisingly blank slate bollard of a candidate, Trump is still trying to gas up his hot air balloon while flinging shit at Harris. The election is still Trumps to win, but he's gotta get the cook going now.
I'm not at all getting the feeling that those holy cows are dead, just that they're swept under the rug for now.
Everyone seems to have gotten the memo that they need to unite under glorious leader of joy Kamala and her bright unspecified future because the dems do believe in winning, But while it's easy keeping divisions unstated when you are this vague, she's going to have to concretize at some point. Either during the debates or when she actually has won and must have a policy.
Hell, if things made any sense, she'd have to concretize right now given she's the incumbent.
This entire illusion rests on the sole condition that nobody asks any hard questions so she can maintain ambiguity. It's not a bad strategy when the media is on your side, Obama ran on the same sort of emptiness, but it's very fragile.
Anything that brings back the news cycle to some hard reality could bring it all down. You can't be a windbag if the economy is crashing or some serious international incident is going on.
Is it fragile? Obama won re-election.
It also only has to hold for a couple of months
(Before someone says that Kamala is no Obama)
Hell, Virginia and Minnesota start voting in three weeks.
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A very different Obama won reelection. "Hope & Change" Obama vanished in a puff of smoke some time after he got his Peace prize.
It's not really a unique gamble, but Harris is uniquely audacious for attempting it while still being in office.
Sure, but ‘Hope and Change’ Obama was replaced by ‘I guess he’s not that bad, there’s no urgent need for [further] change’ Obama, and that kind of continuity is exactly what Harris is about. People saying “I guess the present isn’t too bad, and I dislike Trump”, and indeed that describes a lot of voters.
It's what she's trying alright, but imagine Obama running on "Hope and Change" in 2012 after being in office for a full mandate and right in the tailwinds of the 2008 crisis. Much harder sell.
We don't have a 2008 crisis on our hands yet (things suck but its a rotting, not collapsed economic house), and the wrecking ball of an economic failure will annihilate Harris just as badly regardless of her party discipline. My point is that a portion of the animus motivating people against democrats from 2020 to 2023 have dissipated with the retreat of the progressive cultists. It will be a while before they can resurrect their unpopular totems, and in the meantime the Republican's are flailing against shadows. 2024 Harris isn't spewing progressive bullshit like in 2020, and her current brevity has let her deflate much of the invective flung against her I'm also not sure pinning her down is an automatic win for Trump; a blow has to land and Harris being brief on specifics and long on Joy somehow stinks of Bait to lure in a bad attack from Trump.
If Trump can stay on message and hammer Harris on the border and the economy consistently, he takes November. Right now though he's just whining and rambling.
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Obama did, but he stopped pulling down ticket races up by his coattails in 2012.
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Romney ran a bad campaign on what could have been a winnable election. Obama is still viewed fawningly by his supporters, but presided over a tremendous drop in elected Democratic officials nationwide. His presidency directly lead to the election of Trump. In exchange, liberals got... Obamacare?
Sotomayor, Kagan, and potentially Garland. Plus the various court victories and budget squabbles that benefited from a Democrat in office.
Obamacare was disappointing, but in a way which made it easy to demonize Republicans. “Real socialized healthcare has never been tried!” Neither Trump nor Biden really delivered on a corresponding promise. Maybe signature legislation is just unlikely in this political climate?
The Obama presidency definitely lead to the Tea Party, and from there maybe to Trump. There was also an interesting post in the old country which argued he specifically hollowed out the Democrat roster. I’m still reluctant to assign blame/credit for Trump, though. In the counterfactual where Trump had a heart attack before ever announcing his bid, I don’t see Republicans running anyone remotely comparable.
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So, while there were legitimate issues with Obama and his team's larger running of the Democratic Party, it's important to remember that of the supposed 1,000 legislative seats lost, 150 were in NH alone (because NH is weird and has a massive 400 seat legislature with lots of weird swings), and a lot more were in rural Yellow Dog seats in places like Arkansas, Mississippi, and so forth that were basically doomed the moment they could be put in a flyer next to a black Democratic President in a way that wasn't true of John Kerry or Al Gore.
I would say the nomination of Hillary and James Comey's choices of what to announce and when is what led to the election of Trump, but I'm aware the latter is the minority position here.
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