I'm sure she'd do just fine as president, but I have a hard time believing that the US is going to elect a woman of color.
Please, voters, I hope I'm wrong on this one. Prove me wrong, please.
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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Couple of positives:
Having the current VP take over the nomination at this point is "continuity of leadership." It's a much smaller change than bringing in someone with less name recognition, or from a "lower" political position.
Having a woman of color take the nomination would make the race between Harris and Trump much ideologically clearer. It would also dare the right to show its true colors about it. Remember that we got Trump essentially as a "Well, if you can elect a black guy, we can elect a racist lunatic!" Having a woman of color running as the Democratic nominee is going to make people pick sides even harder than they are already, and it's the "oh god, not Trump" people who really need to be motivated to pick their side.
And you know that Biden's endorsement of Harris had to have come after discussions with congressional Democrats and other party leaders to make sure most everyone gets in line behind Harris, and doesn't act like a bunch of backyard chickens going every direction. I expect (hope?) this endorsement to be followed by many others.
Yeah, but it's a prosecutor running against a criminal. The memes write themselves.
And the criminal is running for the "Party of Law and Order".
We are democrats. Never trust us to slit our own throats.
But yeah. This feels about as coordinated as it can be. Expect vp tomorrow
If they're smart they'll tap AOC or Bernie for VP.
Instant party unity with zero effort.
Makes too much sense so won't happen.
Historical precedent says you're right.
Normally I love being right....booo
Sanders gets us back to the "too old" and has the added benefit of him being historically horrible at condemning atrocities by "Communist" countries.
And AOC is too young. And also a she is of color
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Dayum. Here for this.
I dunno, they need to give something to centrists and independents to win. Kamala's base is all totally united against trump already I think.
I'm hoping for Buttigieg for VP.
I hope you are right. Not fielding the incumbent is a mistake according to most people who have had good success of predicting elections.
At least for now, I am hopeful. All sorts of other countries have elected women. The U.S. should get with it. I know there will be people who say, "Maybe, but not THAT woman" -- but those people always say that about any woman, so that's never going to be the base.
Yeah, I'm thinking along the same lines. The people not wanting to vote for that woman is sure has hell not going to vote for Whitmer, for example. And they didn't want to vote for that woman in 2016 either.
The 49% who always vote Republican will always vote for whoever's nominated.
The 49% who vote Democrat will always vote for whoever's nominated.
You're trying to pull the 1-2% who can be swayed here, and they're going to be reading lots of stories about Harris' tough-on-crime record where she ruthlessly pursued nonviolent drug users and people who skipped school.
Clinton had a ton of baggage too.
Pretending people just hate women is silly when you're picking women whose records are eminently hateable, especially so after none of you voted for Marianne Williamson in the primary.
It's more like the 30% who always vote R will vote for whoever, the 30% who always vote D will vote for whoever. Kamala's task is to get the 1-2% independents who always vote, yes, but also convince as many of the 40% who never bother showing up as possible to actually show up like some have started to in the last elections where reproductive healthcare/etc have been on the line. If she can motivate people for herself and simultaneously underscore that trump is an octogenarian with dreams of fascism and Project 2025 is what he would do, I think we'll have a landslide. That's a big if though.
convince as many of the 40% who never bother showing up as possible to actually show up
That 40% has spent the last eight years having both parties emphasize to them, repeatedly, and daily, that they don't give a f*** about their economic security.
Why would they miss a badly needed day's pay to vote for either of these parties?
I think we're going to have another razor thing 49% election, personally.
Biden should just declare election day- the day that defines the very nature of the nation, the day all Americans should do their patriotic duty and vote a national holiday.
If those people can look at Trump's record and be fine with it, I don't suspect the ethics of one's work as a DA are going to be the deciding factor.
Partisans of either color don't care about a person's record. They care about team color.
The thing is that when Americans voted for the oldest Presidential candidate ever, with Harris as the VP, they were effectively saying they were okay with her as President. So, it's safe to have some faith in Americans on this one!
I will be canvassing and driving people to the polls.
With Kamala, we’ll probably lose Nevada and may lose some of the blue wall, but this will put some southern states back in play.
I think we’ll get Michigan and Minnesota, but lose Wisconsin.
Georgia comes back to blue. NC comes back in play, but it will vacillate depending on what direction the wind is blowing on Election Day. I think there’s a possible chance there that Robinson/Kamala split the ticket.
I have absolutely no insight on politics in Arizona, but I’m not optimistic there.
Florida and Texas will be even more red than normal.
Pennsylvania will be an absolute squeaker, it will take every precinct in Philly to show up and show up hard. It was and will continue to be the most important state for the election.
What I personally need to see from Kamala is passion. She needs use that brilliant wit of hers to cut Trump down to the bone like she did Biden in 2016. But of course there’s a fucking “angry black woman” bias racist bullshit that the media is going to push that she has to overcome as well.
Or they can lean in to. Yes, I'm angry. I dont want a racist, sexist old convicted-criminal leading the country I fight hard to jeep safe. All the more so when he's crazy.
Shell be able tonpush trumps buttons In a way Biden can't any more.
I like it, take the weakness and flip the script on its head.
I have similar concerns, but I am hoping that the pro-Hillary men in 2016 have largely seen the events of 2016 and 2020 and not changed their minds (still voting for Democrat.) At this point, I would imagine that anti-women voters i.e. seemingly most Republicans and Libertarians, the misogynists have largely been pipelined into Trumpism. They already weren't going to be voting for a woman, or Democrat.
Which leads us to the recent polling that showed Biden was dramatically up with women voters. I would be very surprised if this didn't translate.
Can't argue with your logic there. I hope you're right.
I hope so too. Believe me, these are pretty much my, "oh man I hope this is the case"
I worry that a lot of the left is going to be hesitant to turn out to vote for a tough on crime cop so soon after we had nationwide protests against people like her and at a time when the stop cop city protests continue to get national coverage.
Meanwhile, I bet Fox is already talking about the DEI hire who never would have been hired to be anything more than a waitress if not for reverse racism.
And we haven’t even gotten to the chance that she isn’t even allowed to show up on the ballot in some Republican ran states because the deadline for submitting candidates already passed or whatever.
Biden was as bad in many ways and got elected. I mean, the leading point against him during 2020 was his 1994 bill.
Kamala, for as disturbing as some of her policy has been, has also shown to hold true to her personal convictions. As DA in 2004 supported by Feinsteinn, Kamala was vehemently anti-Death Penalty. To the point where she advocated for and saved the life of a cop killer. After Feinsteinn learned this, she rescinded her support of Kamala.
Granted, that was '04 and she spent the next 12 years prosecuting and having conflicting interested as Attorney General (by which I mean her Back on Track policy being at the same time as California's weed legalization, ultimately resulting in her taking way too long to change her opinion on weed, as well as incarcerating people for possession.
From her perspective, she was aiming to get convicted criminals to have their felony record expunged. The thing is... there wouldn't be felons for these crimes. Non-Violent offenders were the main purpose of Back on Track, but the whole idea of the policy was that if you were convicted, you would admit to the felony, which would then be expunged later. The reality ends up being we just get a bunch of felons who don't deserve that status.
I grew up in Oakland so I'm definitely unsure how to feel. I've seen her actions and policy decisions first hand, and how she hasn't always had her constituents in mind. She's deep in the LE. But she has also had moments that go against this, so I'm just... I dunno.
Personally, I think she is better than Biden in many ways and would much prefer her to the previous alternatives. I have concerns, but only insofar as the status quo. The reality is that with Kamala as President we are... back on track as a country.
Edit: forgot to mention, it's important to me that she was one of the first politicians to actually call for a ceasefire. So even though she has supported giving weapons to Israel unconditionally, she also supported the ceasefire in Gaza "calling on Israel to support aid given to the enclave." quote from NYT, not my words.
Regarding ballot eligibility- I think part of timing for this is that the Dems are about to have their "roll call" in the next week or two to officially nominate a candidate to get on ballots before the official full convention.
They're currently calling it a successful coup against a sitting president by the Dem party, and highlighting that Harris was endorsed by Hillary Clinton. But at the same time they are calling for Biden to resign immediately, which would make Harris president instantly.
They want Kamala to get in via succession, rather than via voting. If she succeeds Biden now, they can just claim that she was effectively the incumbent, come November. If she gets in via votes not as the incumbent, it's harder for them to claim it was just "handed" to her by the DeepState(tm).
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I know more women who support Trump than men who do.
Vocally..
I feel like there are a lot of women who are less vocal about it who might be afraid of getting attacked
It is naive to ignore people's stated preferences in favor of what we ourselves might wish to happen. Man vs. Bear... it's their choice, not ours, even if we "know better".
I'm stating a fact that trump supporters tend to be more dangerous and more vocal, and as such, democratic supporters are less likely to speak up...
I'm not American, but I personally don't know any women who support Trump (internationally, he's hated). But I agree there could be confirmation bias, because i don't tend to get along with right wing people here in Australia either
I find that thinking people from all walks of life can get along with one another extremely well - by simply not being a jerk:-) - whereas even people from the same tribe/religion/belief/whatever cannot get along with one another or even deal with being alone, bc toxicity is painful.
One funny thing to note is that, outside of just overt racism, all the arguments to use against Harris (that were used in the last election and primarily from the left) are ones that...won't exactly make her seem bad to conservatives. Like, are you really going to use a "she's tough on crime" argument against her?
Republican voters are never going to change their preference to a democratic candidate based on who the Democratic candidate is. The people who have potential to vote for Democrats aren't undecided in who they prefer, they're undecided if they even care enough to vote at all. Getting more people motivated to vote who didn't vote in the prior election is the only way to gain votes. That's true for any Democratic or Republican candidate for president. Presidential candidates need to make sure that people who voted in the last election for their party's candidate don't become disinterested in voting in the current election.
The tough on crime reputation Harris has may demotivate otherwise likely voters for a Democratic candidate.
Oh they will ignore that and focus on something else.
I have 0% problem voting for and supporting Kamila, but....
We are doomed! Trump will win without cheating including the House and the Senate, he will scream "Mandate" and get another term too.
This is not the America Obama won in. Do you really belive a woman of color can be elected to lead this nation at this time in this climate?
I really hope I am wrong, I would love to eat the words above, but I am a realist.
I think we had/have one chance of hope. Senator Mark Kelly (Navy combat veteran and Astronaut) but the Democratic party leadership is full of braindead sycophant's, that's why we are here now.
Its definitely worrying. Even if she were the BEST candidate, Kamala Harris has an uphill battle in this country because she's not white and a woman.
And she isnt the best and most popular choice which makes it tricky.
The problem is who else would they put on the ballet?
Honestly? I think she's got this. I was really against the idea of derailing energy from the Biden campaign, but now that we're here? I'm on board 100%. I have a good feeling.
She's not Hilary. A sitting vice president probably has a better shot than a felon.
Fox News is already calling this a "successful coup carried out by the Dems against a sitting US president".
The fact I'm seeing so many conservatives butthurt over this tells me it was the right choice. They knew they had it in the bag before he dropped.
And here comes Kamala with a steel chair!
Ah, what could have been...
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