US General Elections 2020

Kamala for president! This will be interesting.

Edit: shame my post is the first on this page when Malicks post before mine was much better. I didn't see it since I was typing superslow and listening to the news.

The main advantage she has over other contenders is that the money raised for a joint Biden-Harris ticket can still be used by her; others will have to start raising campaign money from scratch.

But she's not popular. It's not that she's really done anything wrong, or has a bad personality; it's just that she rarely knocks a ball out of the park, or is as gregarious as a politician needs to be. Just like Biden people will vote for her because she's not Trump, but no other reason.

Maybe she can pull off a well defined image makeover and happen to say things that are attractive to swing voters. It's not clear. When tasked with the illegal immigration problem, she visited the countries that are responsible for most migrants - rightfully saying that the problem will be solved there, not at the borders. But not even bothering to visit the border was a huge political misfire, and she has a talent for this type of thing.

I think ditching Harris at this point is risky, other than the campaign finance rules you'd have the optics of not running the black female candidate if favour of (more than likely) another white male, and trump and co could argue that the Democrats have no faith in their own candidates etc.

If Biden had promised from the start to run for a single term and stepped down a year ago, the Democrats could have had a proper discussion and united behind a candidate with broad support, now there will be a mad scramble of panicked in-fighting.

If they do unite behind Harris it all hinges on the VP pick, on reddit I'm seeing sugegstions Mark Kelly would be a good pick?

But would any high profile Democrats want to gamble on this election when Trump is likely to win? I doubt Gavin Newsom/Gretchen Whitmer would run this time and risk their odds in 2028 (assuming Trump and co haven't cancelled/rigged the elections by then).

They just need to grab a few thousand votes from swing states, hammer Trump on abortion/Project 2025 etc maybe it will be enough to get over the finish line, Harris can turn things around but it will be tough i.m.o

General election campaigns in the UK run a few weeks, and have much less money and vitriol involved so from a British perspective US elections are always more interesting/worrying to watch unfold...

The VP pick is a minor factor, but given how closely things are balanced it could make an outsized difference. But I think revising her image is a more important thing to focus on.

Unless she picks Joe Manchin, who so far has resisted any calls to run. He'd be a shoo-in to beat Trump, he's just not interested. And I can't see him as a spare wheel.

{{ OK I know America is stupid. I know the right is in particular very stupid, but the ongoing row in US right wing press over the Olympics Opening Ceremony is painfully funny in just how well it highlights American ignorance right to the very top.
For those who don't know as part of the opening ceremony there was a bit with some drag queens reinacting a feast at a table on a river boat going up the Seinne. Prompting no media in Europe to think twice about it, other than to mention how it was a celebration of bringing people together regardless of difference, and the US media to explode in outrage at the offence to Christianity of having a bunch of queer folk mock the Last Supper.

'House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also condemned the scene in a post on X, writing, "Last night’s mockery of the Last Supper was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world who watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games." "The war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today. But we know that truth and virtue will always prevail," he wrote.- Fox

and much more besides.

Did they never stop to ask themselves what would France's opening ceremony be doing celebrating an Italian painting? Because it's not depicting the Last Supper- it was the Feast of Dionysus, Greek God of Wine in honour of the Olympics and because Dionysus is a 'jewel of France' and father of a daughter who lends her name to the river Seine in France, upon which the opening ceremony partly took place.

America as you rage and yell about how offended you are, the world is laughing at how stupid you are. }}

Remember that the current incarnation of republicans in America are anti intellectual, and Greek myths are far beyond their circle of knowledge. The sad thing is that reporting on this incident doesn't clarify that it was about Dionysus.

{{ Fox are currently running a front page story on it under the headline- "Grotesque Mockery! Christian Faith Leaders react to alleged parody of Last Supper.'

Note the alleged in that headline, they know it's not about the Last Supper, they even finally say so in the very last paragraph of the piece. After several pages of ranting about how offensive it is. And even then they try to pretend that's only a possibility- 'others claim it was intended to represent the feast of the Greek God Dionysus'.
No 'others' don't claim anything, it clearly was. The person who created it says it was, the organisers say it was, it had a big fat blue guy rolling on the table drinking wine looking like Dionysus in depictions from Greek art, it took place upon the river named after Dionysus daughter. It was the Feast of Dionysus. Clearly. Unequivocally. Obviously. Obvious to anyone not American it seems at least. }}

{{ Trump appears to have lost whatever slim grip he had left on reality with his latest weekend tweets, in which he claims the 10,000 strong crowd that greeted Harris's coming off her plane was in fact fake and didn't exist at all and was added in by AI. This obviously despite there being several different news stations covering it, many different angles of the same event, and people in the crowd putting out the footage they shot on their own phones whilst attending the event.
It is complete and utter madness.
Surely even to his supporters, this sort of completely crazy thinking is hard to explain away.
And whilst I am sure there are forever-Trumpers who will simply believe him that it's all being somehow faked by the MEDIA and the DEEP STATE, but this cant be going across well with everyone else who is not a Trump addict, surely independent and floating voters of middle America would see it for what it plainly is, delusional and grasping desperately at straws to try to seize any sort of attention back to himself.}}

I havent been following it but, to me it sounds like hes either not stupid at all and is telling the world some truths or, hes fecking crackers and needs a head scan ? Maybe he has an onset of disease coming on ? I dont wish it ! but, the old noggin can slide away to the playground as we get older.

In his own mind it's inconceivable that he could lose at anything, ever. He's been like this like the beginning, hadn't you noticed?

I estimate a whopping 20% of the population will believe anything he says. Another 20% will at least consider anything he says.

{{ But surely when you have on one side someone who of recent weeks has claimed Harris only recently turned black, that his crowds are bigger than those of Martin Luther King whilst Harris's crowds are actually invisible and non-existent and are being added in by AI later, and on the other side you have Harris and her VP campaigning in every swing state talking about expanding Medicaid, protecting women's and minority rights and expanding workers rights.
How is this even still a choice to most Americans? }}

Same as it has been over here Petty... they lie.

They say things lie Democrats want open borders when in fact they have been harder on immigration they Trump was.

They say the Democrats want anarchy on the streets when crime under Biden went down.

They say when Democrats talk about pro-choice they want to murder newborn babies.

They say that millions of young kids are being given HRT or are going through surgery to reassign genders when the numbers very clearly show thay isn't true.

And the people consuming that don't use other news sources to validate anything because they are told everything else is fake. So they live in a echo chamber and basically brainwash themselves.

Same thing that happens here!

Plus the democrats are commies who steal newborns for satanic rituals. Documented fact.

Okay, yes I know it's 2024 now. But anyway. Saw Kamala's speech. I thought her body language at the beginning was atrocious: too much the sweet obliging woman pose, which I think in part was thrust upon her by her advisors to counteract the unlikability rating she got during the 2020 campaign when she came across as too hard and cold for a woman. Fortunately she found the right balance partway through the speech. Like all campaign speeches it was long on promises and short on detail, but I think she hit it about right on Gaza and the Border. She offered nothing but meaningless blather on the economy but overall I think it was a good enough speech to not disqualify her in the eyes of those looking for an alternative to the smarminess of Trump.

{{ I saw a surprising amount of the final night of the DNC, as it was on in the background when I was working through the night.
I doubt you Americans realise just how absolutely ridiculous and over the top and silly the entire things seems as a political rally, or political anything, to the rest of us. I dont know what I was watching but if I didn't know it was supposed to be a political rally there was not a lot to let you know it was.
It was more like a charity concert and a sort of feel good pep rally. It was mainly laugabley cringe.
And if there were any policies in there they eluded me, generalised be nice to each to other, looking after children and the elderly is nice, make the world a nice place, all races should be friends to each other (except Palestinians who weren't allowed in to speak, obviously), isn't climate change awful, aren't billionares terrible, and now billionare Beyonce who flew in specially on her private gas gusling jet will sing about money and wanting material goods, everyone chant U.S.A. over and over again till you're in a self -indiced hypnotic star spangled stupor.

Given the ridiculous amount of time a US presidential election goes on for, and the even more ridiculous sums of money they cost, at any point does anyone actually put forward anything resembling what we would call a manifesto, or any agenda of policies? Or is it all going to be this wishy-washy rubbish the whole way punctuted by pop music? }}

Ever since the onset of television national political conventions have been no more than pep rallies. The only reason to watch is to see how new candidates handle themselves during their first official speech. Used to be the delegates would cast their votes and in the absence of wall to wall media and polling there was a touch of suspense. Now it's nothing but feel-good fluff.

There was a debate, Harris didn't face-plant, and she managed to demonstrate how easy it is to provoke Trump by mentioning people leaving his rallies early. So I'd call that a win, but for a slam-dunk she'd have to mention details in her various "plans" that go beyond tax breaks for this or that. Only that clarity might have moved the few non entrenched electorate, so I'd say we're still at a draw.

{{ I thought she put more meat on the bones of any plans than Trump did, what was it he said his health care plan for replacing Obamacare was? Oh yes, his health plan was a 'concept' but 'if anything better came along' he'd do that. What? Only thing amazes me is that its as close as it is.
I thought she wiped the floor with him, showed just how easy to maniplate and provoke and be pushed off balance he can be just by a few critical words. On every point she was weak on and he potentially had the stronger postion- economy and immigration mainly, she derailed him so that instead of going on his strengths with voters he just ranted about his crowds or something instead. }}

Oh people know Trump has no real plan on anything beyond cut taxes and wall off immigrants. So it's just business as usual for him, which won't make a difference to potential voters. But she has always been a bit of a stuffed animal politically speaking, so she had to demonstrate vision to break through and establish an image. She only demonstrated aspirations, which is not enough to budge her needle any more than Trump didn't budge his.

{{ But why cant Americans see if Harris can derail Trump so simply and effectively someone like Putin, with decades of experiene and KGB training in people handling, can manipulate Trump any way he pleases? She demonstrated what a weak and pathetic man he is, that doesn't resonate with US voters? He still seems appealng after that?
The appeal of Trump is beyond my comprehension, he is so obviously self serving, a liar, and a criminal who has demonstrated his entire career a complete disregard for others, especially the working class that it boggles my mind people even take him seriously.
Between Trump and Amercians seeming to love guns more than their own children I am starting to think there is something very seriously wrong with the mental state of the US}}

Oh, but if transgender immigrants really ARE eating dogs in prison, then he's just standing up like a man and throwing the truth in everyone's face. Yes, it's a shame you don't understand the US electorate; but not your fault, you just took the wrong colored pill.

Haven't heard of this guy before, but I think he nails it. Note that when asked about race and gender he ignored it, pointing out that Harris is rightly ignoring it. Those on the fence aren't racist or sexist and are annoyed at even having the issue brought up. The same goes for most republicans though most of their votes are set.