Kamala Harris has launched her campaign for the White House, after President Joe Biden stepped aside Sunday under pressure from party leaders.
The vice president has Biden’s endorsement, and is unchallenged as yet for the Democratic nomination, which will be formally decided at the Aug. 19 convention in Chicago.
“I am honored to have the President’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said in a statement. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda. We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
In her statement, the vice president paid tribute to Biden’s “extraordinary leadership,” saying he had achieved more in one term than many presidents do in two.
I don’t like Harris, mainly because of her time as a prosecutor. I’m also not going to lie, I was having a really really hard time grappling with voting for Biden, I was begrudgingly willing to before the debate but when I watched it I was so outraged. I genuinely feel like his administration has been deceitful with his condition for a while. I’m not saying I wasn’t going to vote for Biden, I understand the stakes, but I kept watching his interviews trying to get any genuine motivation for Biden. All I saw was a stubborn old man who refused to even acknowledge reality.
I’ve been following Biden news and this week I was convinced that he would drop out and so I wondered who would replace him. Harris immediately came to mind. Now as I said I don’t care for Harris but before Biden announced this today I personally decided I would be willing to support Harris.
She isn’t ancient, I believe she’s more progressive, and I think she will be good in the debates. She isn’t my 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th pick, but I have far fewer hangups voting for Harris compared to Biden, and of course over Trump.
She isn’t the best candidate in terms of absolute popularity, but when you factor in funding logistics and the fact that I think many good Dems picks would want to run in '28 when the timing isn’t fucked, I think Harris is the most realistic pick. I’ll happily take her compared to Biden.
You know what? I felt the same way before today. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the announcement, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Harris is the best possible presidential candidate.
Like you, I don’t think she’d make the best president. Hell, she wasn’t even in my top 10. I’d have vastly preferred someone like Hakeem Jeffries. But here’s the thing: the person best suited for the office of president isn’t necessarily the best person to run for president.
Harris has all of the advantages Biden had: she can run on this administration’s record, since it was her administration too. Every positive talking point about the stuff that Biden’s done for the country can equally apply to Harris. Additionally, she gets his entire war chest, and with the president’s blessing today, she’s likely going to have 100% party support as well. To make matters even better, she doesn’t have any of the flaws he sported: she’s young, she’s sharp, she’s great in debates, and because she’s the antithesis of Biden in all of these respects, all of the criticisms pointed at Biden (which could also 100% be applied to Trump) will now all be applied to Trump and Trump alone.
Lastly, I think that now is the most favorable moment in our country’s history for a non-white, non-male person to become president. She’s got the built-in support of everybody who dreads another Trump presidency. A significant number of people who would vote for Biden but not Harris due to sexism or racism will be rethinking that position when the opposition is Donald Trump. Also, something like 40% of people in the US just simply don’t vote. Biden would never appeal to those people, but a black / asian woman who has succeeded in a mostly male dominated field could be very inspirational to a large number of otherwise apathetic non-voters.
I honestly think that Harris being endorsed for President is just an unalloyed good. I don’t see any realistic downsides, and an incredible number of upsides. It actually has me excited, which is a feeling I haven’t felt since 2008.
Don’t forget that the fascists will push away moderates everywhere because they have no idea how racist and sexist they are, nor how to hide it, because it’s their entire platform.
I don’t know where all this “I don’t like Harris” stuff comes from. Considering the presidents we’ve had lately, hahaha… if she won, it would be amazing. I’m sure there are better people in the world, but they don’t even get close to the White House. We have to be realistic. She’s a great pick considering current political realities.
Oh for sure. Don’t get me wrong; she’s not my ideal president, but she’d still probably be in the top 5 presidents we’ve ever had. That’s not necessarily making a judgment about her without seeing her performance first, it’s more of a statement about how bad most US presidents are. Still, I have high hopes for a Harris presidency. I think she’ll do a great job. She’s just not my #1 draft pick.
Mainly her policies she has fought for and enacted while in political office
Agreed with all that! But I have one caveat.
the most favorable moment in our country’s history for a non-white, non-male person to become president
Look, I cried tears of joy when Obama won. I mean that literally. But guess when the conservative hate machine got dialed to 11?
Some will say it started earlier, but I disagree. Back then I occasionally listened to Limbaugh and Hannity on the radio while running errands at work. They actually had some sane takes now and again. Wasn’t very political, but I had my ear to the ground. The entire machine, especially Fox News, went so far off the rails in response to a black President, I simply couldn’t listen to any of them, not for a second.
Conservative brains take time to assimilate new social conditions, gotta chip away at 'em. I’m already hearing the, “Fuck them!” replies, but that doesn’t change the fact that these people exist and vote. And they’re going to get more and more violent.
Look at LGBT rights. We got them to begrudgingly accept gay marriage. Fresh off that victory, liberals asked for more and more acceptance. Too much, too fast, they went full-on berserk. Now I feel gay rights are perhaps worse than before.
Scared to see what a double-whammy of a black woman does to their brains. I used to laugh about conservatives choking on their outrage, same with Christians. “Ha! Losing ain’t ya!” But now it isn’t so funny. They’re in a corner and lashing out. What next?
All, or at least the vast majority, of those people you’re talking about are already Trump voters. They’re going to continue backing Trump no matter who the Democratic party picks. They saw a black guy get elected president, and that radicalized them. They aren’t coming back. Pandering to the imaginary demographic of racists who will surely see the light if we elect the right candidate is simply a losing proposition.
Will there be right wing violence in response to a Harris presidency? Of course there will be. Is there right wing violence now? Of course there is. I understand that you’re tired of hearing the “fuck them” replies, but seriously: fuck them. They are a cancer on this nation. Holding back on doing something good just because you’re afraid that the fucking awful people you share a country with will do something awful just means that you never make any progress.
The thing is, they’ve already turned the hate machine up to 11. There’s not much farther they can go than here.
Too much, too fast, they went full-on berserk.
Raises a conundrum I struggle with:
No one should have to wait for rights, true.
yet
Idiots vote, true.
How should we act if we know fighting for certain rights means fascists have an easier time in elections?
Should we…:
A. Be publicly on the right side of history at risk of losing an election to the detriment of all.
B. Be publicly on the wrong side of a human rights issue in order to win, then try to privately backchannel to make up for the sin.
(Perhaps a false binary here, so ready to be corrected.)
Idealist in me says fight at all costs, maybe it’ll work out. Pragmatist in me says “win the damn election & backchannel the heck out of your term.” Feel guilty either way.
Edit: corrected word to “wrong” from “right”
I’m personally a little nervous about Harris–I remember the 2020 primary where her only notable accomplishments were accusing Biden of being racist over opposition to federal busing policies, and then flaming out shortly after and shuttering her campaign two months before the first caucus and polling single digits in California. Admittedly, she doesn’t have the same headwinds now that she had in 2020–she doesn’t have to differentiate herself from over a dozen other candidates and she won’t struggle to raise money–but she also made some unforced errors (e.g. coming out for total elimination of private insurance before revealing a plan that included private plans, or admitting her own policy on busing was essentially identical to Biden’s).
Hopefully, she’ll run a much tighter campaign now since she’ll inherit Biden’s staff and can focus solely on attacking Trump, but I do have some concerns.
Polling single digits in California might actually be indicative of her having a better chance. The same reasons why she want the top choice in a deeply blue state may make her a stronger choice in more “on the fence” voters.
Back to the lesser of 2 evils. It never ends
The only way you’ll get a candidate that aligns with 100% of your personal beliefs, is if you run for office yourself
That being said, I’d love a real leftwing candidate
And sometimes you have to run on or embrace the ideals of someone else just to get elected. Unfortunate.
BOtH sIdEs
Both candidates are right wing so it’s not really “BOtH sIdEs.” People on the left would like some representation for once.
Not surprised you’d say that
What policies have the right and left regularly agreed upon? What bills put forth have unanimous votes?
Don’t worry they will totally respond with facts here…
LMAO
Fighting universal healthcare. Refusing to revoke Citizens United. Refusing the Right to Repair.
The Patriot Act. The Iraq War. Enabling The Genocide of Palestine. The continuous decline into corporatocracy.
All bipartisan efforts.
You shitlibs genuinely do not understand the conversation happening in front of you. We know you don’t, or you wouldn’t be a shitlib, you’d be a social democrat at worst.
Using the term sHiTliB renders you exempt from discourse. It’s like screaming that you’re unreachable and a huge waste of time
Shitlibs lol… now you’re just being honest and making people mad
I think your conflating Right and Left with Republican and Democrat.
They aren’t the same thing.Both parties have been pro-corporate oligopoly. The Republicans, just more so.
Both parties have been catering to the same class of big corporate donors. The Republicans, just more so.
Both parties have been pro-military-industrial-complex. The Republicans, just more so.
Both parties have been pro-Israli genocide. The Republicans, just more so.
Both parties have shown a little movement toward economic populism. The Democrats, just more so.They might not vote together on many bills. Because it would look bad to their respective bases if they did.
But they’ve both been pushing in similar directions on a number of topics for decades.
Yes, that’s what rational people do, pick the less damaging choice.
What the FUCK is wrong with you people who actively choose the more damaging choice for lulz?
I never endorsed anyone
History has shown what that impact is. Get out and fucking vote
No shit I’m going to vote, when did I say I wasn’t? Everyone here so quick to forget we had two shit choices, now we still have two shit choices.
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Just quote Nina Turner, she said it best
And that’s how we get pulled further to the right. When did I say I had chosen anyone for the lulz. What the fuck is wrong with you jumping to conclusions?
I have yet to meet a forum poster who unironically used the phrase ‘and that’s how we get pulled further to the right’ in response to a reply about not voting for a fucking convicted felon pedophile fascist that wasn’t a fucking fascist themselves.
You just keep rambling nonsense without reading the replies
Appropriate username. I never stated in any way who I was voting for now fuck off. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with your childish emotional outbursts.
Yes, that’s how first past the post voting works.
when you factor in funding logistics
This is an incredibly important point. Unless rich donors said they’d fully make up the current campaign war chest for the new candidate, there would be a significant funding issue. Being able to use the existing funds is extremely important.
It’s attitudes exactly like this why American Democrats are center right, and why we have had almost zero meaningful legislation to help the normal people for 40 years.
If your family survives this coming shitshow of a fasist coup, I hope you beg their forgiveness and tell them your small part in helping start it.
As a normal person, I’ve been helped by legislation both by Biden and Obama. Just because it’s not perfect doesn’t mean it’s not good.
SCOTUS, Congress, and POTUS have all, regardless of party have catered to corporate interest over the citizenry an OVERWHELMING amount my entire life, and I remember life before the internet.
Sure we get a few crumbs, cars for clunkers, a crippled ACA, a constant ‘will they, won’t they’ over college loans.
Meanwhile Citizens United gave corporations near unlimited influence, the repeal of Glass-Steagall led to the housing collapse in 2008 and the banks were bailed out. Even recently in COVID those most benefitted were the corporations and ultra wealthy who netted a 1.3 FUCKINGTRILLION dollar payday with almost no oversight or pressure to pay back, and we are STILL seeing fraud cases from that show up.
So was your little 3k ‘gift’ that was meant for relief during A FUCKING PANDEMIC in any way commesurate with the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS the owner class (who was at no financial risk at any time) got to keep?
Do you feel all these little crumbs of social support they have doled out in meager and begrudging ways makes up for the fact that no matter what their party, NEARLY EVERY MEMBER of our top seats in government are more concerned about the interests of the wealthy than they are in normal people?
I feel your point deeply, but that’s a question you have to ask yourself….
Is the question “Why haven’t we all taken to the streets beating pots and pans in protest?” because yes I ask myself that all the time nowadays.
why we have had almost zero meaningful legislation to help the normal people for 40 years.
The Affordable Care Act is why I was able to take a year off work to focus on my mental health after the pandemic crushed it. The Inflation Reduction Act is helping keep the renewable energy company I work for afloat and offering an optimistic future.
No one expects to end up on government assistance or using FMLA to take a few months off for an illness. We support it on the left because we know it’s the fucking right thing to do.
It’s all good and fine to criticize programs as useless theoretically when you don’t rely on them. But when you’ve actually experienced them and needed them, your perspective changes heavily.
Democrats have gotten good shit done for the average person, and I’ve personally benefited from it when I really needed it.
Do you think the ACA that passed was the ACA originally intended? Because it wasn’t, and there’s only one party to blame for why.
I hope that one party you mean is the obstructionist republicans.
I prefer to call them ‘repugnicans’.
That’s irrelevant to your original point.
And there’s actually only one person to blame – Lieberman’s vote was required to pass the legislation, and he refused to vote for it unless single payer was removed.
So the DNC gets to make this decision not me. This is a last minute situation that hasn’t happened since the 60s, every ounce of divisiveness will only embolden the “facist coup”. The time is up, whoever they pick we’ve got to unite behind and hopefully rally voters to the booths. Honestly the presidency needs to be D so it can’t veto/ can veto, the VP can tie break, and executive orders. She will hopefully be a beacon to encourage voters to get more D in the senate and house. The house/senate flips and your meaningful legislation point becomes moot. Lastly I have no clue what you are saying in the 2nd paragraph, somehow voting for Harris makes a facist coup? No clue what middle steps are included to achieve that outcome but you must know something I don’t. Regardless I have no worries about my family but I appreciate the concern!
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Dude, take a breath. You’re coming off as unhinged. You’ll probably call me a shill or something, then continue to ignore people it. It isn’t all a grand conspiracy against you.
Right out of the fucking woodwork, just as predicted.
Do you think you might just be a little paranoid here?
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I have had a therapist for more than two decades now, your abelist bullshit has been reported.
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Dunno how many people of those are bots, but you are obviously right about the way politics work.
okey dokey
As to that 2028 topic…If Harris wins, it pushes all of them all the way back to 2032. Many of those hopefulf may like their odds right now, as opposed to 8 years later, unless those same people are confident Harris will lose against Trump.
If Harris wins, this election is proof that a competitive primary that knocks out the incumbent isn’t a death knell for the general. I promise you, Harris will have opponents.
Let’s hope so
She wasn’t anyone’s top 4 even in 2020. Between what they did before Super Tuesday then, and now this, this isn’t democracy. This is DNC controlling what happens to prevent something like Bernie. People aren’t getting choice and primaries are pointless.
People could have voted for someone other than Biden in the primaries. That was always an option. Just because the incumbent was running again didn’t mean the voters HAD to vote for him.
Quick poll
Please up vote if you had a chance (I did, that’s 1)
Please down vote if you didn’t get a chance to vote for someone else in the primary
I will never understand why we don’t just force Super Tuesday on all 50 states. My dipshit of a state is the week after and I hate it
I really think it’s there’s a few lobbies that keeps our election cycles so goddamn long. They need the horserace and the controversy for as long as possible to get ratings. News organizations, election consultants, advertisers, etc.
France had two elections within weeks of each other. Britain called a snap election and got it done in under two months. These things can be done quickly and efficiently, but nobody wants to run afoul of two groups required to get re-elected, so they keep us slogging through the mudslinging.
From my understanding, the reason for this is to give candidates with less funds and less name recognition an opportunity to bubble up. Imagine that if the primary consisted of all states at the same time, candidates would need to campaign nationally, or only in the most populous states, either of which would cost tons of money. This would make it so that only candidates already starting off with massive campaign funds would have any chance.
One possible alternative approach would be to start with the smallest states (either by population or by area), one at a time, and ramp up to multiple largest states at the end of the primary cycle. This would give candidates a viable way to ramp up their campaign funds and name recognition. The only problem with this approach would be that the smallest states tend to be very white, so perhaps some adjustments would need to be made to make it more representative of the demographics of the country as a whole from the beginning.
Does “uncommitted” count as a person
I’d count that as “no chance”, down vote.
Voted for Marianne Williamson who had already withdrawn because A) she was the only other choice on the ballot and B) She is actually great in interviews. Dont agree with some of her conclusions but you can tell she is studied on political theory…
Dont think that really counts. The primary was yet another illusion of choice by the DNC who has proven they will make backdoor moves to nominate whoever they want since the days of Debbie Wasserman shultz and hillary
I didn’t, but I’m registered independent, so I don’t vote in the party primaries in my state.
mainly because of her time as a prosecutor.
What didn’t you like about it?
Her policy
I’m curious who are your top 4 picks?
She has also gotten close to $100M in funding just in the last 24 hours. From small donators.
That’s a record of some sort
Literally having a criminal prosecutor run against a convicted criminal is kind of beautiful.
If the Dems can pull off a black woman president, the Republicans are gonna blow a gasket. I’d love to see that.
Going to be interesting to see fox news shift gears into full-time demonization of her.
I’m sure they’ll find their footing eventually, but so far it’s been pretty piss poor. Aimless. I think it legit never occurred to them this could happen.
They were always piss poor about Obama, because there wasn’t any ammunition to work with
The biggest grievance about her has been that she was overly hard on criminals, and that would backfire on them if they echoed that sentiment to the right wing base. It can piss off leftists though, so astroturfing leftist Internet folks while trying to not say it too loud so people on the right won’t hear it seems to be the game.
It does seem like the concern trolls have very quickly moved on from repeating that Biden is too old ad nauseum to Harris convicted too many criminals.
I think the best thing anyone can do in this day and age is educate themselves on trolling/astroturfing tactics. Once you do they stand out and it makes their goal of dividing and astroturfing significantly more difficult. It also makes them waste their time if no one takes their bait, which is good for everyone.
Know of any go-to docs on this? I think we’d be better off with a guide or doc somewhere that just gets stickied to every politics thread.
Admins: wanna get in on this?
This is the most indepth article I know of and includes a table. It’s a bit lengthy though. I hope this helps!
Yeah I’m still mad at her on her treatment of criminals, but I’ll vote for her
They’re regressives. Thinking ahead is exactly what that isn’t.
xD Well, okay.
Which is hilarious, since Biden is old as fuck, and has one of the most stressful jobs in the world. You’d think they’d already have a contingency plan in place in case he kicked the bucket while in office with all of the hate talking points for Harris.
I wonder if the ‘Black’ part means less to the republican party than her being a pretty competent woman. I can see Harris pulling a LOT of single issue woman voters over the abortion rights issue. And that scares the republican party. It would kill the down ticket vote as well.
Black prosecutor vs Old white felon. Hahahaha their poor brains are gonna get cloudstriked
Party of law and order is running a convicted felon.
Dems are running a DA.
Wtaf?
“Law and order” to Republicans means “use the law to enforce the order.”
ooooh never thought about that. people dislike that she’s a prosecutor so i don’t know if she should use this at all but it’s still kinda awesome
The “soft on crime” line is completely broken, though. They can’t use it against her because the response is how she built a career around holding felons like Donald Trump accountable, and nothing else. There is zero comeback.
good point. funny how the “tough on crime” people are supporting a convicted felon. of course as with all of their issues it’s just code for bigotry.
they don’t care about crime, they want to oppress black people.
they don’t care about the sanctity of marriage or family, they want to oppress gay people.
they don’t care about the welfare of babies, they want to oppress women.
and as an obvious part of that of course they never cared about women’s safety in public places or women’s sports, they just want to oppress trans people.
she built a career around holding felons like Donald Trump accountable
I hope she gets a chance to say something like that to his face in a debate
She already has, talked about she was a prosecutor who took down sex predators and scam colleges, both of which are Trump.
I like that angle, I think that could play
Now we just need to get Trump to step down. Then we can have a less insane election.
He really should. He has no business running.
Even if the assassin had finished the job, his cult would prop his corpse up and wait for him to come back to life.
That would have been fine.
I think I would shit my pants from happiness if that happened
I think we’d all shit your pants.
I know I sure would.
I’m next after this person!
Could I borrow yours I already shit mine, sorry got too excited
Rumour has it that Trump shits his pants, or at least pisses his pants. There was a whole “real men wear nappies” thing in support of him when it was around.
I don’t think we can have a president with one fucking ear anyway.
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Just use Trump’s words. “I prefer presidents that don’t get shot 🤷♂️”
There’s just no way.
It’s all or bust for trump. He’s not gonna choose bust.
He won’t choose it… no.
Now we just need to get Trump to step down. Then we can have a less insane election.
If that hands the GOP nomination to Vance, then Vance would completely destroy any of the Democrats who the Dem establishment could possibly let run. This was obvious on watching about a minute of Vance’s VP acceptance speech on the news. Dems should be careful what they ask for.
As an ohioian, I can assure you no one gives a shit about vance and he stands for nothing. He’s a Muppet who says what he’s told to say
Yeah nobody here likes him
then Vance would completely destroy any of the Democrats who the Dem establishment could possibly let run.
Well…
In February, during an episode of Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Vance said that he cared more about the security of the US southern border than the Russian troop build-up near Ukraine. “I gotta be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” Vance said.
““Indigenous Peoples’ Day” is a fake holiday created to sow division. Of course Joe Biden is the first president to pay it any attention.”
“I am as pro life as anyone, and I want to save as many babies as possible. This is not about moral legitimacy but political reality.”
“There are dozens of people who protested on J6 who haven’t even been charged with a crime yet are being mistreated in DC prisons. A friend suggested the below link if you’re able to support them.”
Vance said that Trump should “fire every single mid-level bureaucrat” in the US government and “replace them with our people.” If the courts attempt to stop this, Vance says, Trump should simply ignore the law. “You stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it,” he declares. The President Jackson quote is likely apocryphal, but the history is real. Vance is referring to an 1832 case, Worcester v. Georgia, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the US government needed to respect Native legal rights to land ownership. Jackson ignored the ruling, and continued a policy of allowing whites to take what belonged to Natives. The end result was the ethnic cleansing of about 60,000 Natives — an event we now call the Trail of Tears.
Yeah, Democrats will sure have a tough time with him…
Well, maybe you’re right, I had basically never heard of Vance until Trump picked him. But his acceptance speech was written to eat the Democrats’ lunch, since they weren’t willing to eat it themselves. And that stuff you quoted will delight Trump supporters, and maybe not bother too many Democrats.
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler” - JD Vance
He’s no different from Ted Cruz. Was against Trump, then later supported him. Both of these guys grew a beard after flipping to be huge Trump supporters too.
Just look at how dirty Vance and Cruz knees are. Tells you all you need to know about those two.
Oh I thought he was a huge liability being absolutely full of baggage. Insane things he’s said, including that trump is America’s Hitler (mind you that’s only insane to cultists)
And also the fact that he’s an obvious ivy league elite who pretends to be a “common man.”
lol 🤣 no one gives a shit about Vance, get real.
I don’t know, will Republicans vote for a gay man?
No one in GOP has a cult following like Donald.
I’m going to need 4 months of how old trump is, starting right now.
Him being a fascist and all kinda overshadows that.
Apparently not for voters. But we did keep hearing about how Biden was too old to be president.
You can be too old to be president, but never too fascist!
Biden wasn’t just “too old,” he was showing clear signs of dementia… Trump just shows clear signs of narcissistic personality disorder and low IQ, but that’s not new.
Sure. Trump isn’t showing any sort of signs of dementia at all. Not any.
Last week, he appeared to refer to his wife Melania Trump as “Mercedes” during his CPAC remarks. The week before that he told Michigan voters to vote on the “very important date” of November 27, though the state’s primary election was on February 27.
“Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people,” Trump said.
Lol… God that man is an imbecile… But that all just sounds like standard Trump word vomit. He certainly could be in cognitive decline, but how could anyone tell? He’s always been just so effing stupid.
I really don’t think forgetting his wife’s name used to be standard for him.
Yeah just his kids’ names
He’s all kumbaya, unity, defender of democracy, and holding hands now.
What do you mean you don’t trust a duplicitous billionaire politician?
He said that in-between getting shot and his acceptance speech, then went right back to the same old bullshit.
He didn’t even make it through the acceptance speech 🤦♀️
A turd is still a turd no matter how much you shine it.
“Hold my beer!” – JD Vance
You mean the oldest presidential candidate ever?
If anyone is concerned that there is only 4 months until the election, remember Jacinda Adern became opposition leader 3 months before the 2017 election and won - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41675801
She was a kind, empathetic leader and was great at uniting the country in crisis… multiple times.
Unfortunately she was distinctly average as a stable environment politician. Wouldn’t want her as PM now but would be great if we could hire her out on call when everything does hit the fan again.
I worked at a Sydney airport shop years ago and she would come through our area from time to time. She was approachable, easy to talk to and despite having big spooky security guys around, was happy to just go shopping and wait for her flight.
The Fijian PM at the time used to come through, crack jokes, run up a bill and then jokingly ask one of his security guys to buy all the stuff for him. He was a really funny bloke and he made our day.
Jacinda Adern wasn’t just a good leader for New Zealand, she was a good leader for the world in the covid crisis. She’s the reason several of my elderly relatives are still alive. Under Boris Johnson, the UK policy was initially “herd immunity” which basically means wait till everyone gets infected and then those that survive will be immune and it’ll stop spreading and die out.
They actually moved covid patients from hospitals into care homes, which seems stupid on the face of it, but was at least consistent in persuing the maximum death policy. The Conservatives had heard that non white people, poor people, people with preexisting health conditions (who cost a lot in the UK’s free health care system) and elderly people (who cost a lot in state pensions and state supported places in care homes) we’re worst affected. I think they saw whole scale death as a cost cutting measure and we’re never fans of ethnic minority folk or poor folk.
Anyway, along comes Jacinda Adern and implements lockdowns and travel restrictions and it works and it’s seem as sensible, then the Scottish leader at the time, Nicola Sturgeon, does the lockdown thing and it’s seem as responsible and then a fortnight later, Boris Johnson does it for England and Wales. We might not have abandoned our death first policy of it weren’t for the international leadership of Jacinda Adern.
Meanwhile, Boris copied another policy from abroad where you give vast sums of picnic money to drug companies to jump the queue on vaccines. This worked out well for us and was the best thing he ever did in his entire self-serving lying life. Of course he lied about it by claiming that being in the EU would have prevented it (it didn’t, and a few EU states went their own way on vaccines, facts never got in the way of what Boris wanted to say).
The whole VIP lane for masks and gowns, if you didn’t hear about it was the most bold faced corruption enabling scheme the UK has done in my life. No tendering process, no checks, no process, you don’t even have to be in a related industry, just, and I’m not kidding or exaggerating at all, literally if your company was recommended by a conservative mp, they were in the VIP lane and the government would order as much equipment as your company claimed you could supply. Guess what happened!
Anyway, I’ll always be grateful to Jacinda Adern. I credit her with not losing any close relatives to covid.
Does the New Zealand system have a restricted 3 month official campaign period the way the UK does? A lot of Kiwi government shares similar structure with the British system.
The US doesn’t, and normally campaigning spans a substantially longer period of time.
kagis
Yeah, this sounds like they do. Three months.
https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/historical-events/2023-general-election/key-dates/
Friday 14 July
Regulated period for election advertising expenses begins
Friday 13 October
Regulated period ends. All election advertising must end. Signs must be taken down by midnight.
Saturday 14 October
Election day.
https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2023/09/04/how-did-the-us-presidential-campaign-get-to-be-so-long/
Four hundred and forty-four days prior to the 2024 presidential election, millions of Americans tuned into the first Republican primary debate. If this seems like a long time to contemplate the candidates, it is.
By comparison, Canadian election campaigns average just 50 days. In France, candidates have just two weeks to campaign, while Japanese law restricts campaigns to a meager 12 days.
You can argue whether the US should or shouldn’t restrict the campaigning period (though I’m almost certain that doing so would violate the First Amendment and thus require a new constitutional amendment permitting it to put into force).
But the thing is, Trump doesn’t have that restriction, the American system doesn’t normally expect it, and Harris is going to be trying to run a British-length campaign with no lead time for prep in the American system when her opponent has no such restrictions. She is gonna have to hit the ground running.
Also, American presidential campaign spending and fundraising is very large compared to the European levels I’ve seen. Dunno what things are like in New Zealand, but I remember that when Hillary ran against Trump in 2016, each campaign spent about a billion dollars.
EDIT: I don’t know if this is directly comparable, because it sounds like Kiwi rules don’t have parties declare donations under $1,500 (and I don’t know if these aggregate figures include individual contributions that don’t have to be reported individually). I think so, because this is measuring spending, not donations. The Kiwi system is parliamentary rather than presidential and so the race for the executive is the same as the race for the legislature, whereas the spending above is only for the executive race in the US, excludes all legislative campaign spending. And I’m not clear on whether this includes donations to individuals, which apparently can differ from party donations, though the Westminster system is more party-centric than the American one, where candidates need to do a lot more of their fundraising and spending thenselves. But without my digging much more, some Kiwi numbers:
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350220141/labour-spent-1m-more-national-lose-2023-election
Labour spent $1m more than National to lose the 2023 election
The ACT Party spent more than National, declaring $2.77m in expenses. NZ First spent $1.51m on a campaign which returned them to Government alongside National and ACT, whereas the Green Party spent $1.33m on a campaign that achieved wins in key electorate seats.
Also, those are Kiwibucks, not American dollars, so the USD numbers are only something like 60% of that. Accounting for that, if the numbers are comparable, that’d be the largest-spending Kiwi party doing $1.6 million USD across all of their seats compared to the US presidential campaigns alone doing about $1 billion.
Harris has got to raise some – or all, not sure whether she can get funds from the Biden-Harris campaign warchest – of that in the time remaining, which means that she’s gotta convince people that she is who they want to be president enough to pitch into the war chest so that she can spend that to sell herself to the public. She has to build a campaign, plan to spend the money, and do so to target voters. Not much time to iterate doing that.
And keep in mind that the first Republican presidential debate mentioned above, 444 days before the election, isn’t when those people started campaigning, and certainly isn’t when they started planning their campaign. It’s just an early milestone in the campaign. Harris is gonna have to pull all of this off in about three and a half months.
The US presidential election is an awfully large and expensive marketing fight for voter minds.
EDIT2: One positive sign for her: this person says that she believes that Harris most likely can get access to the funds that the Biden-Harris campaign has, so that’ll help get her some of the way there:
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/21/kamala-harris-fundraising-surge.html
Harris can likely get immediate access to the Biden campaign’s roughly $96 million donation pot, according to Anna Massoglia, an investigations manager at the campaign finance research center, OpenSecrets.
“The general consensus among most people that I’ve spoken with is that she can use the funding,” Massoglia told CNBC in an interview.
And she picked up a little more after announcing:
But it wasn’t just the big donors who responded to Biden’s announcement: The progressive donation platform ActBlue initially said it raised $27.5 million from small-dollar donors in the five hours after Biden endorsed Harris. Later, the company announced it raised over $45 million.
Lucky for her she also has a significant national and international threat as her opponent. She isn’t an unknown going in to try take 50% - she’s already got all the votes for those who see what Trump is.
she isn’t an unknown
I mean, that’s true. But she’s a not-terribly-high-profile veep. The regular crowd has been campaigning for over a year. Hell, Trump served as President, and he’s got the visibility from that; he started campaigning for Trump-for-President like a decade ago.
Yeah, okay, Harris ran for Senate and California Attorney General, maybe they can draw some material from those campaigns or something, though running for President and targeting specially the Midwest isn’t quite running to be a senator for California in terms of what material will work best, but they’re gonna have to start getting people to put together a lot of content and to get it out there.
Harris has no campaign website, no volunteer network, no…like, I’m assuming that she has to be expecting to get at least a substantial chunk of the Biden-Harris campaign infrastructure, and hoping that Biden’s endorsement will result in his volunteers volunteering for her.
checks
It looks like Biden’s 2024 campaign website, joebiden.com, just redirects to ActBlue, a Democratic donations website, with a plain text message put up by him. They don’t even have a graphic, campaign logo, anything. Like, they didn’t have all this lined up and ready to go hot, or I expect that it would have redirected to a Harris campaign website.
looks further
They haven’t even taken down the old website’s content, just had the main page redirect.
Well, this is gonna be a historic campaign, win or lose.
She can campaign on access to abortion, healthcare and if she wants to really get radical, weed.
Who?
Prime Minister of New Zealand. I have a comment on it in response.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinda_Ardern
Labour prime minister of New Zealand. She was great, I was sad when she stepped down.
Kamala Harris I look forward to you wiping the floor with the Orange Turd.
The next debate should be hilarious. Someone with facts and speaking ability vs a windbag lie machine
Also, she is a cop/lawyer. She’s prolly pretty good at arguing as long as she can handle the big(ger) stage.
I wonder if she convicted anyone of falsification of business records? It would be interesting if she mentioned that as one of her past accomplishments while on the stage with someone found guilty of 34 counts of that crime.
Trump won’t debate her. He’s fucking stupid, but he’s not that fucking stupid.
Oh I quite think that he’d love to debate her! However his handlers will absolutely go bonkers trying to get him to shut up about it to keep that from happening.
So she should go on Twitter every fucking day and make jokes about how he’s too much of a coward to debate her. A narcissist can’t handle a bruised ego.
Damn, this would be amazing to see.
She has less than 4 months and was completely invisible before. She is going to lose hard and this time we can really blame the Dems for betraying Biden this late in the race.
About 30 seconds ago I felt a little smarter not knowing you exist, yet in so few words you’ve made yourself pretty thoroughly known.
Four months is plenty of time. Biden will be backing her. The DNC has voting wolves ready to kick their asses. Bernie and AOC both supported Biden and are wise enough to support Harris, and others will follow their example. Back to point #2, and to reaaaally highlight something obscenely important:
They listened.
Take that in for a meager second. Now ask yourself if we could get those prideful fucks to back down, and also get an old lifetime politician to step aside in a historical move, do you understand what we could potentially do if we complained half as hard as you do when so much shit isn’t on the line?
Oh, and give us an alternative that matches three things:
- Not invisible
- Likely to have larger support
- Not old asf
I think you’ll find 3 to be rather important for a LOT of people right now.
About 30 seconds ago I felt a little smarter not knowing you exist, yet in so few words you’ve made yourself pretty thoroughly known.
Savage
I’m saving this to use later, because it’s amazing, thank you, “About 30 seconds ago I felt a little smarter not knowing you exist”
Lol yeah what are Bernie and AOC supposed to do? Not support anyone and take on the backstabbers on their own? It is too late for any alternative. It was go with Biden who has a chance to win and beat Trump before or just giving Trump the win on the silver platter. Now I just hope Trump is so incompetent that there will be a next election or at least that he doesnt care about the rest of the world and only focusses on the US so at least we are safe. I hope the betraying Dems will realize their mistake and be deeply sorry for it.
I bet you were talking about how Biden was too old and needs to step down not too long ago.
I actually wasnt. I thought he was too old to run in the first place but always said its too late now to change.
I disagree. Biden slowly eroded his chance. Key moments were the beginning of his reelection campaign, the debate, and the failed assassination attempt on Trump. Because this election period is all about image, Biden hasn’t been able to keep up despite his intelligence and his strong and generally positive policies and record so far. In any other election year he’d be fine. At this moment he’s missed his chances to come back stronger than before. If his team and the DNC ran PR for a large corporation we’d be laughing them off of Twitter. They bumbled and through their combined negligence Trump has gained a stronger foothold with specifically the Right.
I’ll explain a little more: When you are in a position of leadership there is a default level of trust you should strive to maintain, and trust is very difficult to gain back. So…
-
Biden should have not sought reelection. However, because he did he should have come out and said that he believes he is best equipped to beat Trump. That if it became clear he wasn’t going to be able to that he would step aside for the best of this Nation and the people who put their trust in him. Boom. A leader who tells us straight and reinforces that he’s here for all of us.
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Not sought any debate. It was always lose-lose without a monumental performance. Trump looks like normal Trump and ANY fumble lowers Biden’s image. Had he had that showing 12 years ago people would have laughed it off and he’d recover and probably do okay. That isn’t this timeline. Rather than going Dark Brandon and really leaning into his strengths, injecting caffeine straight into his bloodstream, and take a couple weeks of back-to-back calls, speeches, and talkshows with hard questions where he doesn’t back down, he just…let it simmer. Recovery chance critically missed.
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The attempt on Trump’s life. This secured Biden in Trump’s shadow. Not because he lost any voters in particular, it likely didn’t shift the narrative and expectations. What happened is because Biden didn’t have a strong reelection foundation, despite great strides while in office, he allowed Trump to essentially camp out on his front lawn. Trump is a show man, which idiots mistake for charisma. Biden has moments of great leadership and a clarity which makes people want to follow him…at times. He lacks that spark which makes people want to follow consistently.
This leaves us with three options:
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Keep Biden in and hope his name is enough to pull him back up, or something happens and all but guarantees a win.
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Find someone people want to follow and have them be in the constant spotlight for the next four months. I can think of maybe four people who have the charisma and political clout to make this work. None of them have volunteered.
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Nominate an individual who can make strong arguments against every position Trump takes and who will have historical significance if made President. This leads us to Harris. She is not particularly charismatic. Far as I’ve been able to tell, she CAN argue like a mofo. Charisma inspires confidence because it inspires hope, or at least grants the hopeless a direction. Lacking that doesn’t mean you can’t lead, it does mean you need to be stronger in other areas, and more importantly it means you only have to lead better than the other guy. This means Harris’s team needs a good writer for the moments where she needs to puff out her chest and square her shoulders, and also need to give her room to work her Prosecutor magic when needed.
So far as my information goes, this is where we’re at. Dems need to play hard ball, which might be the most worrisome thing of it all.
-
I prolly agree with you, and you seem to have a good handle on the current political climate (thus an intelligent head on your shoulders), which is why I think it’s worth my time to suggest some introspection w/r/t your first sentence. Thanks for your consideration.
No, I support the mockery. This isn’t Fox News, not everyone gets equal time.
If only they had actual arguments instead of cute naivety. But hey, some americans just deserve project 2025.
I notice you never answered my question. You sure responded to others, which is your right. Go on, give us an alternative that match the necessary criteria I listed. Here, I’ll make it easy:
- Not invisible
- Likely to have larger support
- Not old asf
Before the Pandemic I would have agreed. However, because of people’s stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to facts, proof, and the science itself, people died. Many of them died through no fault of their own, or the fault of others, which is bad enough. However, many died because of those we gave too much leeway and understanding to. If being hopelessly polite and stretching my own patience to unimaginable lengths cause ANYONE to die, I may as well be a part of the cause of their death. Tolerance is no longer an option. Like it or not, there are lives at stake this time as well.
I stood against the anti-vaccine and anti-mask fools. I am sure as hell going to stand against the people who in bad faith claim to be Democrats or left-leaning. Who claim to want what’s best. Who shout their claims that their way is the only way when it clearly leads us down a dark path. I will stand against them.
Because it has to be done.
The pandemic blew my mind as well.
Is it more of our gut feel or is it an evidence-based position that kicking off a response with 10% ad hominem before getting into the meat begets better results than skipping the ad hom?
Depends on what you’re replying to, really. Though honestly, some people are so hard and radically set in certain beliefs that I use it to spark conversation. Because you know the types I’m targeting rarely respond to reason. The goal then is to get them to respond at all.
I know the playbook, you menial mentally mangled badly reconstructed sentient regressive bipedal sticks in the mud. I shall use it against you all! >:(
Keep in mind while answering this question that your goal while arguing in front of an audience is to fend off ideas and not (necessarily) to convince the other person.
Biden was going to lose. Do you really think they’d go through all this if that wasn’t the reality of the situation?
Biden had a chance, Harris has none.
According to the same pollsters cold calling boomers and then acting surprised reality doesn’t match up
and was completely invisible before.
Only if you haven’t been paying attention.
True, I forgot that a couple times it was talked about what a shit human and worse prosecutor she was.
It’s a huge advantage to her that she was invisible.
She doesn’t have any baggage.
Perfectly choreographed.
After the debate and especially after the botched assassination attempt, I felt despair and a hopeless sense of certainty that our comrades in the USA would have to endure a Trump presidency and all of us around the world would suffer the consequences.
I’m genuinely optimistic now. I think Harris can win.
People who complain about her not being a socialist or how electoralism won’t change the system are missing the point. Those are true things, but the alternative is a fascistic climate change denier with the Sons of Jacob as his cabinet.
The Americans are standing at a crossroads between an increasingly fragile status quo and tyranny. As much as I hate the status quo, I’m glad that the odds are now smiling far less at tyranny.
EDIT after the election: Lol
Fuck it, I’ll vote for her if not for the mere fact that I would get a lot of entertainment seeing people complain how our president is a black woman.
Thanks, Harris.
That might be the funniest outcome.
Fine. Whatever. No go on the offensive HARD before the Regressives can recover from the change! GOGOGO
Harris/Kelly ‘24!
Who is Kelly?
Damnit, he’s a doctor not a VP!
My heart fluttered seeing that. 🥰
Senator, astronaut, navy captain, identical twin, and straight white man.
And his wife is Gabby Giffords, a former congresswoman who survived being shot in the head in an assassination attempt (and I mean actually shot in the head, not just a grazed ear).
I would not be surprised if John Glenn’s failed presidential bid poisoned the idea of a former astronaut as VP candidate in the eyes of the DNC. They’re all old.
Yeah, Democrats famously talk all the time about how much worse the election would have gone had it been John Glenn running against Reagan instead of Walter Mondale.
Democrats or the DNC? Because we’re talking about the latter and they are terrible at reasoning.
Senator Mark Kelly, AZ
Didn’t like her in the primaries, still don’t like her now but honestly she’s the best shot Democrats have now. I’m just so pissed off that Democrats and Biden waited this long and now have to scramble like this.
It’s absolutely infuriating at this level of incompetence.
Meh. Timing is pretty good imo.
4 months is loads of time for her to establish a brand.
Great distraction from everything that’s gone wrong.
AOC for running mate! AOC for running mate!
Nope, gotta have a contrasting VP to spread the draw. Running AOC as VP would be like trump running Vance…just stupid. AOC is far more effective where she is anyway.
Okay I see your point. AOC is like a very young and sexy Bernie.
She can maybe get a cabinet position though, that’d be cool
I very much am hoping that Gretchen Whitmer gets picked for VP. Trump picked Vance to draw in the Midwest votes, Gretch could easily kick him in the balls if picked
As much as that would be a neat historic thing, and probably a good pairing, the Midwest can be as backwater as the South and would lean Fighter Pilot over Two Women, unfortunately. Can’t take risks chasing achievements when we need to play the game to win…and the harder trump fails, the better. I want him to see the entire country reject him in a landslide before he slips into the torment and constant fear of full blown dementia for the rest of his miserable days.
The only running mate for Kamala is Kamala
Read in another thread, and haven’t looked it up yet mind you, but apparently AOC is 1 year too young.
AOC is eligible. She would meet the requirements set forth in the Constitution at the time of her inauguration.
People continue to spread misinformation about her eligibility.
Thank you for confirming. That’s be one hell of a ticket. 😍
Huh, didn’t know her birthday offhand. So she’ll be 35 by Jan 20, 2025? And she of course is a natural born US citizen who has lived in the US for the requisite number of years.
Normally POTUS candidates pick VPs that in their minds shore up their perceived weak spots among voters to make them overall more electable. So who do you think Harris would do worst with and why would AOC draw that demographic in?
AOC is an actual progressive. I don’t know very much about Harris, and I’m going to vote for her regardless, but I’m not a big fan of law enforcement in general. I’m reading through her Wikipedia page, which seems to be the only non biased source I can find that goes over her LEO career.
AOC is outspoken about issues that I care about, she seems to actually want something better for the working class. It’s hard to feel that a former state prosecutor has the best interest of the working class in mind.
Besides the obvious magas and Republicans, who would never vote blue anyway, Kamala will be weakest with progressive young people. And I know people like to say there’s no use going after those people (now half the voting population!) because they don’t vote, but they actually DO vote when you give them someone worth voting for. Their numbers are also growing, while the centrist boomer population is declining.
I could see two strategies.
Some leftist people who are hard core ACAB, for those AOC may be so appealing that they don’t mind voting for a prosecutor.
However if they want to moderate concerns of sexists and racists, they would want to run some milquetoast white guy. While the full on sexist/racist is a lost cause, there are people who are more unconsciously racist/sexist they might think to get the vote of.
I’m guessing they see the latter as the biggest risk to mitigate.
A former prosecutor selecting AOC also suggests a semblance of growth on the part of the prosecutor.
Yes, she put away a lot of people on drug crimes and I’m sure other BS. The conservatives are already circulating memes with a collage of black faces she put in prison. As if they give a fuck about black people in any capacity outside of when it’s politically expedient. They’ll be in the camps with the rest of us if Trump wins.
Someone like AOC diffuses some of the Israel and ACAB criticism. Or it could be turned to say AOC is a sellout, which I think is a hard argument to make. No one saying that should really be taken seriously given her record.
In this political climate of violence, it’s basically also a giant “fuck you” to the right. You’ll get this centrist woman, or you’ll get this left leaning woman. It hints where a Kamala Harris admin is wanting to take the country in the future and could also serve to finally motivate the youth vote.
AOC seems to understand realpolitik better than the many on the left, and I think she’ll eventually save us all. I know she probably won’t be on the ticket, but manifestation is a thing right?
I will keep my overall prediction, that they don’t think they are at risk of losing the further left voter base, that they are more concerned about the more “up for grabs” voters that might vote either way. I think milquetoast straight white guy is the order of the day when they have a woman person of color running as the other half of the ticket.
It’s not necessarily how it should be, but the strategy they will presumably use to address the reality of the electorate.
I mean, that is essentially how Biden ended up as VP.
And aside from the racial angle how Pence ended up as VP - a milquetoast, boring standard politician type to counterbalance Trump’s lunacy, someone hypothetically to be the adult in the room.
Yeah but I doubt subconsciously sexist/racist people would be willing to vote for Trump… They’re stuck with whomever the DNC runs
My problem is not that it is misinformation, my problem is that Republicans could use it to gum up the elections in the courts.
The three basic requirements are clearly laid out in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. Neither the 14th or 22nd Amendments apply.
It’s cut and dried, with precedent. There is nothing remotely questionable about her eligibility. If the concern is that the opposition party doesn’t care about precedent, then the rulebook is completely tossed out anyway and we’re dealing with a different conversation altogether.
Anyone pushing the narrative that she does not meet the basic requirements is either engaging in pointless hand wringing, expressing ignorance about the requirements, or actively spreading a falsehood.
Until this year, there was nothing remotely questionable about whether or not it was legal for a president to commit crimes. And people like you told me similar things about how the court would rule there too.
I addressed what you’re alluding to. Second paragraph, third sentence. If we reach a point where precedent doesn’t matter regarding eligibility, all bets are off anyway.
I said nothing at all about how the courts would rule, only that we have prior examples of how eligibility has been determined.
If we want to talk about a sane world where rules matter, the question is settled. If you instead prefer to lament the possibility that those rules will be ignored, twisted, or rewritten, then it logically follows that any candidate will be subject to bad faith jurisprudence. At that point, all bets are off anyway, and the “question” of AOC’s eligibility as a candidate has no bearing.
Fret and panic if you feel that it’s your best course of action, but poisoning the discourse with that sort of nonsense is counterproductive.
If we want to talk about a sane world where rules matter, the question is settled.
What world is this? Because it’s not Earth in the year 2024.
Or is this one of those situations where you think the world runs on “should” and not “is?”
She’ll be old enough before the inauguration, she’s eligible.
Mark Kelly, he’d murder Vance on the debate stage.
It will be Josh Shapiro or Mark Kelly.
NOW KICK THAT FASCIST FUCK OF A RAPIST PIG IN THE BALLS AS HARD AS YOU CAN
I’m pretty sure the DNC and it’s donors helped force this hand, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they field a different candidate.
That being said, I’d actually like to see a non shill run who will actually fulfill his promises with legislation and not half ass executive orders that die after 5 seconds.
They’ll never let Bernie in, but like cmon choose at least someone who can agree genocide is not good. Can’t believe we’re still scraping the bottom of the barrel for requirements here.
How long until a major Republican drops a hard R n-word accidentally?
