this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2024
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I would imagine it depends a lot on how you quantify things, there's all sorts of procedural votes and "renaming a post office" bills with no real substance that you could reasonably argue should or shouldn't be included, to say nothing of ranking the partisan quality of different legislation (like, if Sanders and Harris both voted the same way in a routine budget bill that got unanimous support, should that count the same as them voting the same on some legislation he sponsored that failed or something?).
That all said, this CNN article I found from 2020 makes it sound more true than not, but there's some nuance - tl;dr, at the start of her career as a state AG she did some more conservativ-ish things, but she's been consistently more and more progressive since then.
My personal opinion is that she's willing to change her positions a lot if she thinks that's where voters are going, which isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the last generation of Democratic leaders who are also willing to change their positions a lot but think voters are way more conservative than they actually are (because that generation is still stuck in the 1980s). Kamala didn't start talking about Medicare for All until Bernie made it popular, but when he did she didn't have a problem jumping on board (unlike Biden, who would only ever go as far as public option).
Isn't it good that she is willing to change her position if she thinks that's where the voters are going. It seems to me that nobody really cares what the voters are thinking.
Yes and no imo, our political leaders should be responsive to the desires of the people they lead, but on rare occasions the people are stupid and need to be told so (e.g. for most of the 1960s, civil rights were not popular), and a lot of the time leaders need to help people recognize problems or opportunities that haven't been widely discussed by the media or other politicians before (e.g. universal healthcare, basic income, safe drug use sites, etc.).
Bad leaders do whatever public opinion polls say or whatever they want, good leaders find a way to do what they can without compromising on the values they ran on, great leaders find a way to move public opinion polls closer to them. Kamala is a good leader, not a great one, imo.
That's good how you replied, but your reply was very general and idealistic. What about the current situation and a pragmatic situation? I mean, besides the fact who is on the opposite side lol.
Sorry for going into hypotheticals.
I'm not sure exactly what the question is, but with the way I defined things above I think Kamala is a good leader running against a party full of bad ones, so she's got my vote.
I would love a great leader that could engage and organize the general public a bit more and push opinions on things like immigration/asylum, police accountability, and trans rights and human rights in general in more positive directions, but there's nobody with a real shot of being President who fits that description so I'll take what I can get.
I'd prefer for candidates to be ideologically aligned but votes in the interests of people i.e. ask the constituency what's most important to them, and voting in that direction despite ideological beliefs. I see that as a trait in Bernie, and that has yet to be established in Kamala yet.
I'm just so fucking happy that Kamala is the candidate, the news actually made me relax a bit for the first time in a while.
It's one thing for a politician to say whatever to get elected and then go the opposite way. Actually changing positions based on new information and what you think is what voters need is exactly what a politician SHOULD do. I never get this complaint... I guess it's just that people don't trust that politicians are ever genuine?