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PaperclipPerfector  23d ago (text post)   26092 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024

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The Harris Campaign Gives Their Side of the Story

Harris campaign staff joined establishment Democrat podcast Pod Save America for an election post-mortem.

What sticks out is how unsurprising everything is. These people are exactly the type of out-of-touch elite consultants that populists on both sides are always whining about. They come off as less woke than popularly imagined, but are every bit as uncreative, process oriented, and unaccountable as expected. Being on mobile due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m not in position to mine the transcript for key quotes, but clips from this podcast have been going viral on Twitter. A few highlights from memory:

  • Campaign staff had no preparation for Biden dropping out of the race.

  • They knew that the campaign message wasn’t getting through to young men. They still decided to prioritize on-the-ground campaigning in swing states over going on any of the bro podcasts. In their telling, Kamala was willing to go anywhere, but they simply ran out of time.

  • They flat-out couldn’t figure out a response to the “Kamala is for they/them” ad. Nothing they tested seemed effective.

  • They still think Liz Cheney is an avatar for moderate Republicans.

As context, Harris's campaign did a lot better than we expected, and than the democratic establishment expected. They made a very visible pivot towards the center, especially on immigration and the border. I'm not sure many of us would've predicted Harris, if she ran, would be able to brand herself as a "tough border-state prosecutor" a year ago. It's easy to have an impression that 'harris campaign maximally bad' without keeping context in mind.

Also, of course, what these people are willing to say in public is probably different from what they'll say in private. Criticizing people they worked with, and especially the personal decisions of the candidate, isn't going to do them any favors in the future. That this is true is still a failing of the progressive social system, but keep that in mind.

That said, if I were a progressive, listening to that interview would've left me infuriated. The apex for me was, when discussing why Harris didn't break from Biden more, how they dismissed the idea of directly disagreeing with Biden on any issues. They treated it like it wasn't even an option. Oh, there'd be so many stories contrasting that to her past positions! And she'd be personally uncomfortable with it. With no attempt to weigh that against the benefits of coming out against the currently extremely unpopular president. This is how she ended up saying things like, in response to a question about what she'd have done differently from Biden, "There is not a thing that comes to mind." It's the kind of thing that happens in organizations that don't cultivate agency, where you select for people because they saying the right things, knew and were loyal to the right people, did the tasks assigned to them, nobody has the practice at taking personal ownership of a risky and surprising, but overall good, decision. (Directionally, at least, they still did fine, see first paragraph).

Would a Harris campaign that had openly criticized Biden but done nothing differently won? Probably not, but it should still sting if you're a progressive that these were the people making the decisions.

As context, Harris's campaign did a lot better than we expected, and than the democratic establishment expected. They made a very visible pivot towards the center, especially on immigration and the border. I'm not sure many of us would've predicted Harris, if she ran, would be able to brand herself as a "tough border-state prosecutor" a year ago. It's easy to have an impression that 'harris campaign maximally bad' without keeping context in mind.

I think the idea was correct. Democrats do much better by campaigning to the right. Clinton was a good ole southern boy, Obama was against gay marriage, Biden was a return to normal. Sure these were all obvious lies, but they worked for a part of the electorate. But Kamala was incapable of selling the lie. She couldn't get even one step outside of her talking points without crashing and burning, and that was the problem. She was quite keen to tell us all that she was "the only one in the race who had prosecuted international criminal organizations" but oddly she was never able to elaborate on this. No names, dates, stories. Its almost like that was a fabrication.

Kamala was potentially an ideal candidate for this kind of narrative. In San Francisco, she was on the "Right," a prosecutor who actually prosecuted and got criminals off the street. She also has her race and gender: she had much more space to jettison the more extreme ideologues without getting called racist and misogynist.

The issue comes down to intra-Democratic culture. The type of person to succeed isn't the type of person who embraces personal agency and is willing to take risks. Success in the Democratic Party (particularly, the CA state party) isn't something that comes to those who are willing to rock the boat, but to those who are team players. This selects for people who can excel at following the rules of a controlled system but doesn't produce individuals who are constitutionally capable of competing in open systems.

As context, Harris's campaign did a lot better than we expected, and than the democratic establishment expected.

Given that the measure of a campaign's performance is election results, is the contention here that the Democratic establishment expected Harris to lose the election by an even bigger margin than she had? I don't think that was the case.

I should've been more specific back before the drama about Biden's debate performance, the more reasonable people in the Dem establishment had negative views of Harris's electability. One of the reasons cited for why Biden shouldn't drop out was that Harris was a poor candidate and wouldn't do much better. Matt Yglesias was against harris's VP selection in 2020. And Harris did a lot better than other incumbents did worldwide.

Early on, Harris proved to have exactly the weaknesses one would expect from someone with her profile, and insiders made a hard pivot against her. But that pivot has grown over the past few years into a wild overcorrection to the point of paralyzing the Democratic Party. It’s led to ideas like, “Maybe she’s less electable than a guy who can’t get through a press conference” or, “We should replace the nominee only if we can guarantee the existence of a process that leads to the election of a fresh-faced yet well-vetted outsider.”

As best I recall, they did not level any criticism at Harris which I assume meant they were not being honest or forthcoming.

I think that’s a bit unfair. It’s not their job to pick the candidate. That decision came from above.

But they were pretending to explain what happened.

I actually find the idea that they are shocked that Biden dropped out as hilarious. The right-leaning media could find obvious signs of dementia, including him wandering off during NATO conferences, numerous visits by a Parkinson’s doctor, and so on. How the sitting VP had absolutely no idea is beyond me.

I thought the Trump campaign was actually surprised by Biden dropping out? They'd been preparing to fight him, and had to pivot rapidly since many of their prepared lines of attack didn't work against the younger Harris.

I think the Trump campaign was surprised because they thought:

  1. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) would never give up on their "he's totally not senile" psy-op;
  2. Joe would make them take it from his cold dead fingers.

Consider the possibility that this was all a psy-op to boost the morale of the Democratic rank and file.

I listen to conservative talk radio and they had such easy certainty that Biden would drop out months before he did. They were laughing at journalists saying Biden is so sharp that people can't keep up with him.

I think you are taking their statements a bit seriously. Their words shouldn't be taken as a sworn testimony, but as part of a narrative they wish to promote. Not "This is what we think happened", but "This is what we think we should say we think happened".

Their candidate lost, but Democrats still have other elections to look forwards to, and these advisors will have more successful careers if they affirm the party line.

Except that this was obvious. How can you credibly sell your ability to win elections when you can’t predict something that obvious. It’s not something I think they missed so much as they were hiding it. Affirming a lines that says the sitting VP was so out of touch that she had no idea that Biden was suffering dementia, it doesn’t say much for the democrats as a party that can win elections.

It’s the less damning admission. Which would rather cop to:

-You were too dumb to realize that your 82 year old presidential candidate was getting a little slow

-You were a Machiavellian conspirator that intentionally installed a blackmail compromised figurehead President so that a CIA directorate could lead the country into the Third World War?

first, as second is some deranged babbling

Except that this was obvious. How can you credibly sell your ability to win elections when you can’t predict something that obvious.

The people they are selling themselves to share the same self-delusion, so it's to their benefit to affirm the delusion to get more work. This assumes that they are self-aware enough to know that their delusion is false, but most delusions persist because the deluded will not challenge them.

The people they are selling themselves to share the same self-delusion

Or, alternatively, are judging them on their ability to not go off-message on a public podcast.

They knew that the campaign message wasn’t getting through to young men. They still decided to prioritize on-the-ground campaigning in swing states over going on any of the bro podcasts. In their telling, Kamala was willing to go anywhere, but they simply ran out of time.

This is of course dumb as an explanation, from people who may be lacking in common sense but who, I’m sure, do not have low enough IQ’s to think the math works out this way.

What I think actually happened was Kamala or some key aids knew that an unscripted hours long interview was not going to go over well for her. I think this explanation is mostly face saving.

In their telling, Kamala was willing to go anywhere, but they simply ran out of time.

I listened to the whole thing. They pretended that Kamala could not go on Rogan at any point in the campaign because it would consume too much time and she was too busy on the road campaigning. They really tried hard to make it seem like a sensible logistical issue.

They are of course lying their asses off. Harris took multiple multi-day breaks in the campaign. She really wasn't that busy, judging by presidential campaign standards.

As for the illegal trans prisoners' taxpayer-paid gender reassignment surgery issue: they said any direct response to that polled worse than generic talk about the economy. I believe that. Trying to justify or qualify that position is a losing proposal. So politicians should make sure not to state on video that they support such positions.

They are of course lying their asses off. Harris took multiple multi-day breaks in the campaign. She really wasn't that busy, judging by presidential campaign standards.

I remember specifically on the day that it was announced she officially wasn't doing Rogan they tried the talking point that he should come to her and do a shortened interview because she was so busy. On that day she had a single event scheduled starting at 7 PM.

They pretended that Kamala could not go on Rogan at any point in the campaign because it would consume too much time and she was too busy on the road campaigning. They really tried hard to make it seem like a sensible logistical issue.

This sounds right. Campaign staffers that want to work on more campaigns can't be honest about a great many things. They can't say "there was a real risk the candidate would not be up to the task of competing with renowned philosopher and thinker Joe Rogan." Pundits can read between the lines and say that. Do they criticize Kamala as a candidate or describe her limitations at all?

The machine does not want to sell that story. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps it's not right to do so. Kamala did her bit. She did the VP duty thing. Not exceptionally, but most VPs are not exceptional. She managed to be quiet and forgotten. For a brief moment in time Kamala had her time in the spotlight with all the cogs moving to support her bid. I suppose a billion dollar campaign is just what you do to go through the motions.

Kamala running a billion dollar campaign is necessary to get enough democrats to show up to vote that republicans don't have a veto-proof majority in the house and 55 senate seats. In a real sense, Tim Kaine was the beneficiary, not Kamala Harris.

I'd credit fraud and fraud-adjacent activity much more for that given what we have seen.

Your explanation of the phenomenon reminds me of a stage play or professional wrestling, where everyone knows everything is fake, but we're supposed to suspend our disbelief in order to have a good time. As a Democrat, I feel immense frustration at the kayfabe that the DNC apparently wants all of the electorate to play along with, for the sake of their careers and status and pride and all that, when politics is theoretically supposed to be about actual real life. An election loss like this has consequences; the people who failed to win should be expected to be held accountable for their failures and to honestly assess their failures so as to not repeat them, because their failures hurt many more people than themselves, and yet they're just insisting on play-acting on stage for the audience.

I think Dave Chappelle called Trump an "honest liar" for just telling the electorate that the whole system is fake, while playing along with the fakery. I wonder if there's room in the Democratic party for someone to take on a similar role.

I'm also reminded of the line "magician is the most honest profession there is; he tells you he's going to fool you, and then he fools you." Magic shows are fun, but a stage magician who insists that everyone truly believe that he has supernatural powers, and not as part of his act, is probably not going to gain too many fans other than cultists

Well don't let the words of some guy on the internet get you down. I think it is technically possible to be too cynical when it comes to national politics. The reverse is the more common folly imo.

The theatrics are front and center, inside and out, on the front-end and in the back end. Insiders, pundits, campaign staffers, candidates and the political class at large gives a lot of attention and time to concepts like narrative, optics, and messaging. There is mandated finger wagging from some Klein/Yglesias Debbie Downer to say Policy is What Counts and, yeah, probably so. Policy ain't a campaign though.

It's optimized. Both parties distill turnout driving messaging all the way down to "most important election of our lifetime". I like candidates being more honest and direct about stuff than doing the politics, but I think we're in the minority. It wins more elections. Simple as.

I didn't vote for the guy either. Capturing authenticity in a market saturated with fakery, hackery, and theatrics? It's smart. It's not a one-in-a-million Trump strategy that can't be replicated. Walz was supposed to be authentic. I didn't really buy it. Vance was presented by the media as an inauthentic robot early on. I think people oversell his Normal Guy status, but he's not standing-awkwardly-in-a-donut-shop.jpg as presented.

Even in a staged McDonald's photo op, with obviously screened patrons Trump comes out looking authentic in a way that Kamala never could match. I saw (admittedly, low hanging internet comments) Dems screaming "but it's fake!" Yeah. It doesn't matter that it's all staged. Voters know it's staged. Voters know he loves McDonald's. They like watching him bullshit with a worker and pretend to cook fries. It resonates.

My guess is national/DC Dems have too many people that have drank the Kool-Aid. Trump will sometimes pull the curtain up, but the swamp remains undrained! This run on the podcast circuit (will see more of that) I heard him speak a few times about people he is meant to hate -- Chuck Schumer, for instance -- as normal colleagues playing a game. If he loses the election, then he might be going to jail at the behest of these people! That is a calming, confident response. Hate the man for his faults and failures, but that's a base leadership quality people recognize. Might be a product of the assassination attempts as I don't recall that kind of candid (comfortable?) speaking in 2016.

Trying to justify or qualify that position is a losing proposal. So politicians should make sure not to state on video that they support such positions.

I think there is a strange similarity between "gender transition surgery for illegal alien inmates" and "no abortion even for rape victims" in that these political self-owns stem from attempts at legitimate ideological consistency that most voters simply don't have. If you actually fully accept that abortion is literally murder and no different from taking a newborn and bashing their head in then obviously there should be no exception for rape, it wasn't the baby's fault it was conceived through rape and conception through rape obviously wouldn't justify murder of a born baby. But this position isn't widely popular, even among people that may oppose abortion under some conditions.

Similarly if you fully accept the transgender ideological position that gender-affirming care is life-saving medical treatment then a lot of extremely unpopular things logically follow from that. If you didn't allow your child to be treated for a broken arm or for cancer obviously this would be viewed as child abuse and the state would be able to intervene. Similarly if an inmate gets stabbed or gets cancer we don't just deny them treatment on the grounds that they're inmates or illegals. Kamala's position is really just the ideologically consistent one and in a way it reminds me of Trump's "gaffe" when he said he would punish women that get abortions.

But you can look up clips of Greg Abbott defending no rape exceptions in Texas abortion law, and he just sounds like a politician. Politicians need to be able to frame their least popular positions to stop the bleeding.

I can't be spending time listening to that, but I have seen conservatives bitching about it on x - do they really admit internal polling never showed Harris could win?

It's true, but it's not as bad as it sounds - their internal polling is still polling, it's still just a noisy estimate. If public polls projected harris had a 50% chance of winning, maybe their internals corresponded to a 35% chance of her winning. "Never showing harris could win" means that, if you take the polling average as exactly correct, she wouldn't win, but that doesn't matter, it just means she probably has <50% of winning

Yes.

What's remarkable about all these admissions coming out after the fact about how Harris' internal polling never showed her winning, is how shameless they lied during the campaign. I mean, obviously you aren't ever going to admit your team has no chance. I wasn't expecting that. But to go even further, mocking Trump's internal polls (which agree with yours) that say he has the election almost in the bag, like that's a sign of how deranged he and his followers are. To frame Trump saying the public polls are fake, which you and he both know are fake, as Trump attacking democracy and preparing his following for another "insurgency". Things like that cross over from "The lies you are expected to tell" to "This is just evil" IMHO. Denying the truth is one thing. Going one over, and creating this narrative that everyone who believes the truth is insane and evil is political malpractice of the highest order.

Edit: I shit, I almost forgot how much Rasmussen polls were maligned! They were one of the only accurate public polls, and they were routinely excluded or down weighted by polling aggregates because they were considered "low quality". This despite both campaigns knowing, from their internal polls, that they were actually the most accurate!

Of course, the best arrow the Harris campaign and her spokespeople had against Rasmussen is that they are ardent 2020 "election deniers", and routinely tweet about the many ongoing lawsuits from 2020 that are continuing to this day. Funny how the most accurate polling company just can't manage to believe the 2020 election was "The most secure election ever." I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Historically commonplace, unfortunately. One of the most famous examples was JFK's "missile gap". Eisenhower couldn't publicly correct him, because it was actually important to keep the information classified. Yet IIRC, even after JFK was briefed about the truth, he kept on banging on about it. The nice version of an interpretation is that it was an honest deception operation, because if he just suddenly stopped talking about it, maybe foreign governments could figure out why. The more likely story is that the politics were too good.

But to go even further, mocking Trump's internal polls (which agree with yours) that say he has the election almost in the bag, like that's a sign of how deranged he and his followers are.

That is exactly what you should do. If your polls show you are losing and you believe them, then one of your only chances is to convince your opponents supporters that actually they are losing in the hope they decide not to turn out on the day, and to convince some people that maybe he is actually really bad. That's why biased polls are useful. Because the polls can influence what people actually do, that is why there is so much argument about them. So yes, you absolutely should lie and mock your opponents polls even if you are certain they are correct. If you can convince enough people that Trump is a threat to democracy then you can retrospectively make the fake polls true. It's a high risk tactic and does not have a great success rate, but if you are sure you losing, then it is worth a shot.

It isn't political malpractice, it is just politics. If they didn't try it would be malpractice. You can lie about your opponent being a communist or a Nazi why shouldn't you be able to lie about their poll numbers, and that them attacking the poll numbers shows they are a Nazi in the hope that convinces people?

It sounds like you are both condemning and condoning the lies, and I don’t think that works. Either those political operatives have a duty to win the election at the cost of honesty, or not. Either we get the politicians we deserve(condemnation) , or we all lie to each other by mutual consent.

And I don’t think the latter situation is desirable or stable. Politicians lie to people, who know they lie, so they become politically disaffected, so the politicians lie more brazenly to keep them engaged, but the people know they lie and trust them even less; At some point all communication between them becomes pointless. Why would you normalize lies and encourage this spiral?

I am neither confemning or condoning. There are incentives put in place by our actions, those incentives lead to where we are today. A principled political consultant gets out competed and replaced. Politicians who are truthful and humble are outcompeted buy those who are not.

Those are the outcomes of our actions as voters and our actions as voters are downstream of the psychological make up of humanity.

Whether that is good or bad is irrelevant really. It simply is.

There isn't anything any individual can do about it, its a massive coordination issue, and there is no-one outside of humanity that can coordinate a better outcome.

The good news is this equilibrium is still better than the alternatives. Political engagement ebbs and flows and people are always very good at tricking themselves into thinking this time it will be different. This time the politicans will be better.

We had terrible disengagement in the 70s and it came back. No reason to think it won't happen again. Our ability to fool ourselves is one of our greatest strengths.

I don’t understand what’s so hard about condemning lies. To be clear, you think that Trump’s, above average tendency to lie, is morally perfectly fine, even required of a politician.

I don’t accept the responsibility of ‘us voters’. I don’t vote for liars generally. Some politicians lie more than others, and in different countries, at different times, politicians’ lies are more or less normalized.

Lies are a social technology with a purpose. In and of themselves lies are neither good nor bad in my opinion.

Trump doesn't really lie more than your average politician but he does lie differently. More the lies your boastful uncle tells than the more crafted non lie lies politicians generally aim for.

At a population level it doesn't matter if some individuals don't vote for liars, if the majority do.

More comments

This assumes you can endlessly exploit the public trust forever. Arguably, the last election should have put to lie that assumption. I loathe to see your reply that the Democrats just need to lie better, as opposed to artlessly denying everything with shameless compulsive lies (Kamala was never border tsar!). The problem being, there are no more artful lies to be told. You cannot lie better when you are caught red handed in the act, which is where the Democrats routine denial of reality has landed them.

I find their lack of interest in running on issues to be telling. They don’t really seem to think their ideas have the potential to be winning issues for them. They just don’t seem interested in saying what they want and have used the same playbook for decades. Most of their campaign seems to be calling republicans various forms of evil and telling us they’ll prevent republicans from doing bad things. They don’t care to talk about their ideas and rarely have big plans they want to accomplish, and when they do, they’re often talking about how their ideas are “nonpartisan” or in the case of Obamacare, that the idea came from republicans.

My first advice to democrats is find a vision of a future you want to build that people would actually want to live in. And not only start talking about it, but start trying to actually build it.

My first advice to democrats is find a vision of a future you want to build that people would actually want to live in. And not only start talking about it, but start trying to actually build it.

Adam Curtis’ documentary Hypernormalisation is my recommendation to you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=to72IJzQT5k?si=zvQm4rUCploqAEtw

TL;DR: no such positive vision can exist any more, because there is simply nothing aspirational left inside democratic Western political philosophy that hasn’t already been tried and failed.

My first advice to democrats is find a vision of a future you want to build that people would actually want to live in.

What if the problem with that is the "and"? That is, what if the future Dem elites want to build is one the majority of the population wouldn't want?

I loathe to see your reply that the Democrats just need to lie better,

Not just Democrats, this is politics and we get the politicians we deserve. We vote for liars and the ruthless, so we get more liars. Nothing to do with Democrats vs Republicans.

Counterpoint, voters respond to authenticity.

Kamala could have come out in early October and said something like this: "I have bad news to report. Our internal polls say that we're losing to Donald Trump. I know I'm not the perfect candidate. But I promise to do better. We still have a chance to win this election. Give me your vote and I promise to do my best to govern for all Americans."

That would have played incredibly well. It would have galvanized her base while also reaching across the aisle. And it would have given credibility to the idea that the Democrats represent normalcy and humility, and not just a different brand of crazy.

But the party was so buried in its own echo chamber that they played the "Trump is Hitler" card instead. It's hard to say they didn't deserve the outcome they got.

Counter-counterpoint, big donors respond to expectations of power. The more Trump is ahead, the better bet it is for the wealthy to give him money over Harris.

They do not. They respond (sometimes!) to the carefully curated appearance of authenticity. Because they can't tell the difference. And that is much easier to fake than having actual authentic politicians. Your idea shows weakness and would not have galvanized her base it would have done the opposite. Why support a loser?

Believe me, we get the politicians and the political processes we do because they work (at getting people to vote for them, not necessarily at governing). People didn't vote for Trump because he was humble because he isn't and he doesn't even try to be! Trump understands that. Trump played the Harris is a lunatic communist card and he won. Not because of that, but it didn't make a negative difference and it made him look strong to his supporters.

Despite what feel good movies and shows might tell you, decades of working in politics have taught me that being a humble, truthful candidate is not a positive. It is a negative. And so that is why we get the politicians we do. Because there are very few people who vote for that. They vote for the people who attack their opponents and look strong doing it. And that should not be a surprise, we have to have a whole plethora of rules here to try and get a space where people will simply not attack their opponents, and there are not many like it, and quite often we fail at that even here. That is the norm.

For what it is worth, I wish you were right. I likely would not have burned out in the political arena to the extent I did.

Yes, and repeatedly doing so will make anyone who has more than a goldfish memory despise you as an amoral sociopathic gaslighting liar who can be trusted only to manipulate everyone around him to serve the current party line.

despise you as an amoral sociopathic gaslighting liar who can be trusted only to manipulate everyone around him to serve the current party line.

As I said, politics. Political aides are not there to be moral, they are there to win elections (or try). I can assure that in my time in politics whether working for left or right wing parties never were they particularly interested in the truth of whatever campaign slogans or claims we were working on, just whether they could be made to stick.

That is exactly what you should do. If your polls show you are losing and you believe them, then one of your only chances is to convince your opponents supporters that actually they are losing in the hope they decide not to turn out on the day, and to convince some people that maybe he is actually really bad. That's why biased polls are useful. Because the polls can influence what people actually do, that is why there is so much argument about them.

This is a very commonly stated model, often even just implicitly taken for granted, but I've yet to encounter anyone who's actually produced evidence that elections and polls work this way, rather than the opposite, which also seems perfectly cromulent. I'd say it's political malpractice on the part of both Republicans and Democrats to push polls biased in their own favor under the assumption that they'll help their chances without actually doing the hard work to prove to some standard that they're actually helping themselves rather than hurting.

Personally, I'd also say that, given that Democrats are supposed to be better than the Republicans, I find the notion that we'd stoop to the level of lying through our teeth to the electorate in order to manipulate them into voting for our side to be less acceptable. If such dishonest manipulation is just accepted by the party, that calls into question every other claim that's been made about how we're meaningfully better than the other side.

Personally, I'd also say that, given that Democrats are supposed to be better than the Republicans,

And here is a great example of a political success. There is very little difference between Democrat politicians and Republican ones when it comes to being a "better" person. So if they have managed to convince you there is (and of course many Republicans will believe the opposite), then people like me have been successful.

To be clear, we get the politicians we do, because we deserve them, the lies, the obfuscations, the techniques to divide, work. We vote for the people that use them successfully. Never trust a politician, left or right. In my decades in politics there are perhaps a handful I would say were actual decent people.

Do you think that this was always the case? If not, why not? I could see an argument for the professionalisation of politics intensifying the incentives for winning and the consequences of failure, compared to when politicians were expected to be independently accomplished and wealthy.

The increase in wealth controlled by the US government is probably a factor. A senator has influence over billions of dollars. Very few individuals will have that level of influence outside of it. One with a professional machine behind them, to be organized will outcompete those without generally. Even Trump benefited from thousands of workers for the Republican party in each state for ads, flyers, get out the vote etc. Though it's possible we'll move into a more celebrity based era going forward. Social media is a significant amplifier, for at least the getting elected part of the job.

But politicians believing one thing and doing another is as old as politics itself. Power attracts the ruthless and ambitious.

Yes I think, there is a clear incentive driven change. Part of it is also an increase in wealth and power, a senator today has influence over huge amounts of money, power and prestige. It would be surprising if that did not attract the ruthlessly ambitious. It does have benefits, I think many politicians today are actually very competent. Just not very honest.

That's an even more cynical attitude than I tend to take on, but I can't really argue against that. I suppose it's true that there's a sucker born every minute, and some people and parties are extremely good at taking advantage of it.

In my decades in politics there are perhaps a handful I would say were actual decent people.

Could you share?

If such dishonest manipulation is just accepted by the party, that calls into question every other claim that's been made about how we're meaningfully better than the other side.

To be fair, if you're looking for a party that's going to be "meaningfully better" than their rivals, you're going to have a bad time. If they help you achieve your political goals, back them, there's nothing more to it than that.

If that's true these people must all be filthy rich now, from the prediction markets.

I am starting to think that the "they/them" ad will be long remembered. In a very close race one could point to any number of issues and proclaim it The Difference, but this was the last one; the one that drove a vital few thousand waffling voters, without an effective response.

I keep seeing progessives like Krystal Ball, Kyle Kulisnki and Jon Stewart parroting the new party line that "Kamala never ran on trans issues, so it's unfair to say she lost the election because of trans issues." They keep repeating the same "debunk" that Kamala never uttered the word trans in the last 3 months of her campaign or whatever.

However nearly everyone lived through the last 4 years of the Democrats expending massive amount of political capital pushing trans issues. The Biden admin "reinterpreting" Title IX to mandate how all publicly funded schools handle trans kid, which means penises in girls locker rooms, biological men in girls sports, and violating parental rights with secret transitions in schools. The Biden admin leaned on WPATH, already an organization with few guardrails due to their ideological biases, and had them remove all age guidelines on child transition. They appointed a trans pediatrician who's top priority as Assistant Secretary for Health seemed to be transitioning children, and even gave her a phony rank in the armed forces to have some fake historic "first".

And Kamala Harris said she would do nothing different than the Biden administration.

James Carville came out recently, to much derision from progressives, for claiming in his folksy way that if you govern a certain way, even if you don't run on it, the other sides gets to beat you upside the head with your record. And the Biden/Harris regime had a record of one of the worst crimes against humanity in history in promoting the sterilization and mutilation of children.

"Kamala never ran on trans issues, so it's unfair to say she lost the election because of trans issues."

If the election had gone the other way, and abortion was cited as being as important a reason for the Republicans' drubbing as trans issues were for the Democrats', would anyone at all have thought that Trump "not campaigning on abortion" meant that Republicans were excused from changing course?

I think, in that case, not changing would be considered to be certain doom for the Republicans' prospects. Of course, that's probably overestimating that effect much like those quoted are underestimating the effects of their own not changing course.

Funny you mention that, before Election Day I did in fact see multiple ads promising that Donald Trump would not pass a national abortion ban. Clearly, his campaign recognized it as a vote-losing issue and took steps to try to remedy that.

Cursory research in how politics work in the country to their immediate north would have told them this is a flag the party with an urban female voting bloc will wave without end.

...new party line that "Kamala never ran on trans issues, so it's unfair to say she lost the election because of trans issues." They keep repeating the same "debunk" that Kamala never uttered the word trans in the last 3 months of her campaign or whatever.

Is anyone supposed to be convinced by that? What's next, "The New England Patriots didn't play on the far half of the football field, so it's unfair to say they lost the game because of that."?

The pundits are claiming that she abandoned a powerful and convincing topic because...why, exactly? The fact is that Trump did run on Kamala's stance on trans issues, and got some easy wins from that.

if you govern a certain way, even if you don't run on it, the other sides gets to beat you upside the head with your record.

Yes, 100% this. I've largely stopped paying attention to election campaigns because the major parties have extensive track records on exactly the things I'm concerned about instead of a proxy measure like how well they can focus-group and make promises. I still check up on independent candidates and the individual representatives, but it hasn't shifted my vote yet.

Also, everyone instructed by their school or firm that they must at least pay lip service to the woke line on the trans issue.

Trans is a great attack surface against Democrats. They are constitutionally incapable of backtracking due to the culture and composition of their coalition. They can ignore the issue — many of them would like to ignore the issue — but they cannot answer the question, “why was my daughter posted-up by a 6’2” man during her high school basketball game?”

The Dems probably thought the Republicans were incapable of backtracking on abortion, but Trump pulled it off.

Trump is Nixon in the "only Nixon can go to China" sense, on many many issues -- the Democrats habit of casting their Nixons into the outer darkness works against them here.

Only Trump could do that, though. The democrats don't have a similar figure. Who is their great MAGA king?

Democrats have a bad habit of marginalizing all their most promising candidates early on so they can’t compete with party flacks. Hell, even Barack Obama only broke out by accident, that wasn’t how that election cycle was “supposed” to go.

Reminds me of the Bolsheviks being so scared of “Napoleonisation” (i.e. that a strong and charismatic party leader would upstage everyone else) that they hamstrung their most popular and effective guy, Trotsky, and were much the worse for it.

and even gave her a phony rank in the armed forces to have some fake historic "first".

The Public Health Services Commissioned Corps has been around since the 18th century. Say what you will about the other stuff, about which I mostly don't disagree, but the head of the PHS being an Admiral wasn't invented for Rachel Levine.

The Assistant Secretary for Health (who is head of the Public Health Service, and therefore the direct boss of the Surgeon General who is head of the uniformed Corps) only wears a PHSCC uniform and uses a PHSCC paramilitary rank if they are a PHSCC member - and they don't have to join if they are not already one.

Looking at the list on Wikipedia, there have been 17 senate-confirmed ASHs since the office was established in 1963, of whom 7 had PHSCC ranks. Richmond and Satcher served as Surgeon General and ASH simultaneously, and Mason served as Acting Surgeon General while ASH, so they all had excuses. I am happy to accuse the other four (including Levine) of LARPing as a uniformed public health officer. Interestingly, the four LARPers are four of the five most recent ASHs - something changed under Obama, and didn't change back under Trump.

The 'they/them' ad even had resonance in whatsapp forwards here in Asia. Basically it is the embodiment of '白左‘, or white leftists, which are very much an unpopular category here. Using Kamala Harris own words that she would devote resources to an extremely fringe undeserving minority is basically chum for Asians who dislike white culture that is viewed as punishing success.

While any Harris response likely would not have been transmitted outside for network effects, the fact that no attempt was made is still extremely telling. Harris made an attempt to counter her bad reputation with men with those extremely cringe ads, but at least she tried. The they/them ad had no response from Harris, because responding means she did not actually support they/them. The ad ended up resonating because it was perceived as, and likely is, true.

'白左‘

Note that the transliteration "baizuo" has been at least semi-recognized in Western circles for several years.

Supposedly it is one of the most powerful election ads ever made. Nearly 2 point shift in voters who viewed it. I've heard that asserted plenty, but not seen a good source for that claim.

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