No, and no. But compromise choices like Harris don’t always work out either. Here are the lessons we can draw from every Democratic nomination since 1968.
EVERY Democrat in Congress, both House and Senate, and including nominal "independents" Bernie and Angus King, is a co-sponsor of the 2025 Equality Act, which would make gender self-ID instantaneous and unquestionable at all places of "public accommodation" (essentially, any business that serves the public). Any man would be able to enter any women-only space, place, event, etc, at his own personal whim.
That tells me that the "progressives" completely control the Democratic Party.
Toilets on planes are single person, either sex. Completely different than allowing any man to enter any designated multi-person women's toilet facility at will.
I know you know this. You're just trying to insult and gaslight, because you have no actual argument. Pretty far below the usual level of discourse here, but you do you.
Using bathrooms on a co-ed basis is a no brainer to me. It's like, ok, who cares. But it stops there. Co-ed locker rooms with bilogical men in womens' locker rooms and almost anything other than a toilet are an outrage. Or giving kies and teen-agers -- who falways suffer from "social contagion " -- life altering "gender dysphoria" treatments is a real outrage. Especially since 100% OF ALL MEDICATIONS AND PROCEDURES APPLIED IN THOSE CASES IS OFF-LABEL. NONE OF THEM HAVE EVER BEEN SUBJECTED TO APPROPRIATE MEDICAL RESEARCH AND APPEARED IN PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES. Not a single treatment or drug is approved by the FDA. Without going "off-label", you couldn't give a kid an aspirin if the medical research behind it was similar to the medical research behind all gender-dysphoria treatments for kids. If adults want to kid themselves about their sex by calling it gender, good luck to them. Who cares. But kids shouldn't be able to change their sex before they can drink alcohol. And girls should not have to be subject to boys penises alnd testicles because a boy decides he "feels" like a girl. That kind of stuff, which might fly along the coasts in majority blue states, is anathema to normine living in the rest of the country -- and is a major reason Trumpo was elected in a landslide. BTW, it is also why he made great inroads in every single traditional Democratic voting bloc except college educated women, where the Democrats managed to keep their historic percentages. It's the only group in which their percentages did not go down.
Are you seriously suggesting that the best criteria for public policy is to adopt policies with which a huge majority of the populace disagree and which have been demonstrated to on occasion put women , particularly school age biological girls at proven risk of molestation and rape? Since you label yourself as from SF I am not sure if you really believe the outrageous completely out of the mainstream position which you are advocating or just trolling everyone and wasting our time.
It's no surprise that anti-trans and anti-women ideologies go hand in hand. Using bathroom rights, to allow for the explicit argument that men and women are biological different and discrimination on the basis of sex is allowed. That would support men only spaces, jobs and of course roles in society.
Yeah, I continue to be amazed that leftists don't see this criminal gender fraud is the issue of the century for more than half the country --- and why there is every hope Trump and Trump-lites will hold on to the Trifecta for DECADES.
Absolutely --- if sketchy-looking male prostitutes are invading women's rooms and it's reported, security or police should certainly be called and these individuals be required to identify at least what sex they are and be required to use the bathrooms that match their sex.
That thing that never happens happened again. Here is a news report from ONE DAY AGO:
>According to Arlington (Virginia) police, prosecutors, and Arlington school staff, “Riki Cox” is an alias that registered sex offender Richard Cox used late last year. Late last year, the Arlington County Public Schools (APS) pool staff allowed Cox, a biological male, to use female locker rooms at two high schools that have pools open to the public outside of school hours because Cox claimed he was a transgender woman. APS’s policy allows people to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity if they so choose.
Their opinions on issues are probably very diverse, but what they have in common is the willingness to go along with basically anything Trump wants to do, which is why Nate correctly described Trump as having full control over the party.
Exactly. He’s like Tito keeping Yugoslavia together. When he’s gone it’s going to be prime time viewing watching the Republicans split like the Balkans.
I'm beginning to sense from my time on X that the Gen Z and younger are attracted to more radical conservative messages. I think that could be a future rift too.
Wishcasting. What ties the disparate parts of the modern GOP together is a deep unhappiness with the changes progressives have forced upon American society and a certainty that Democrats aren’t capable of charting a sane or successful pathway forward for the country. Dems seem to be very siloed in terms of how they view the American electorate, something Nate alludes to here. Look at the generic polling today vs in 2018, as well as the decline in Democratic voter registration coupled with a corresponding increase in republican registration since Trump was sworn in. Democrats tell themselves that Trump only won by hoodwinking people about the price of eggs and he would lose if the race were rerun today, which is an egregious exercise in self deception. That kind of magical thinking and fundamental misreading of the American electorate has lead to the indigo blob seriously advancing the idea of President ocasio Cortez or President Gavin Newsom. You guys never, ever learn.
Both parties hate the other party. Trump is successful because he has eliminated dissent in the Republican Party. When he’s gone the internal fight will be epic. When it’s over they’ll refocus their attention on the Democrats. The question is whether or not they will be able to get all of the Trump voters to turn out for whoever wins the internal fight.
It’s a long way off, but I’d bet against it. They’ll only win if the Democrats nominee is another loser.
I think the bigger issue is that Trump is the symptom, not the root cause.
What Trump really signifies is the inflection point of a decades long migration of blue collar workers from the Democrats to the Republican party. That's why educational polarization is so prominent.
If Hispanic blue collar workers follow their white counterparts into the GOP then the Democrats will be in a world of trouble.
I respectfully disagree, though I could be wrong of course. I think the Right hates libs a lot more than vice versa. Their fear that Dems, when in power, will raise taxes and roll out another entitlement keeps them unified.
Think about how Bill Clinton is viewed by the Right today compared with when he was POTUS - he's equally hated now as he was then. GWB, on the other hand, was so hated by liberals for being stupid, for war on Iraq, his handling of Katrina etc., yet now, since he started painting, many liberals have warmed up to him. Even Obama for gods sake! The man was POTUS for 8 years without a hint of personal scandal, and yet he is equally hated on the Right today as he was then.
That is my point. Trump has full control over the party, but Silver's characterization of MAGA's diversity doesn't make any sense considering the enormously broad coalition that Trump has assembled.
So. I’m open to that argument. My experience is that most people left or right don’t hate Clinton, Bush The Younger or Obama. But there are, on both sides, heavily partisan loud voices who will start spitting with anger if you try to make the argument that one or the other of them is not so bad. That’s why I think both sides hate each other equally ( I hate both parties equally), but I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong and there’s an imbalance of hatred.
But I’d argue that attitudes in the moment are more important and in the moment both sides hate each other equally.
That is why the Democratic Party is especially vulnerable to defections within its ranks--for example, minority blue-collar workers following white blue-collar workers into the Republican Party.
Hispanics are disproportionately blue-collar compared to whites, so the magnitude of their shift is perhaps not surprising.
There were defections across the board among minority voters: college-educated, blue-collar, whatever. Some of that boils down to the current unpopularity of the Democratic Party. If you're a Democrat, the troubling phenomenon is blue-collar Hispanic defections, which could signal a long-term realignment.
So it sounds like the candidate should be boldly fiscally liberal, but muted on liberal social issues, perhaps even punch left on wokeness?
Left out of the equation and difficult to quantify is rizz, personal appeal. Bill Clinton overcame long odds, in part, due to his ability to connect. Obama was very charismatic. Dukakis, Kerry, Hillary, and Kamala were decidedly not that charismatic.
Not sure if this is the right conclusion. I would say social liberalism is generally more popular than socialism and high taxes, and I think part of the failure of Biden admin is that it way overestimated the desire for "bold fiscal liberalism". The correct course for a nominee is probably to emphasize issues Dems are more in line with public sentiment like healthcare and abortion that Republicans are way out of step with public opinion. Obviously Harris tried this, but she was weighed down by the unpopularity of Biden admin and her own previous statements.
I don't disagree, but I feel like the voters want some bold new ideas, and playing it safe is just hoping the Republicans mess up enough that we eke out a slim majority. I'm not saying single payer health care necessarily, but while I think Mamdani's ideas are generally dumb as a policy solution, they are nice symbolic gestures that illustrate to voters he gets that affordability is a concern.
But she lost only because a small minority of Bernie voters refused to coalesce around the eventual nominee and vote for her in the general (voted for 3rd party or stayed home). Forecasts were so off they bred complacence - I remember many liberals had started to worry that Hillary would win by such a landslide she will not need liberals and will govern from the center (there was an article in the Times I believe). Bernie bros insisting Bernie would have won in 2016 is just crazy; I for one (a staunch democrat) would have sat that election out if Bernie was the nominee, though it wouldn't have made a difference as I live in California. There are many Democrats who will not vote for a past admirer of Fidel Castro and communism.
I would have hated to have to pick between Sanders and Trump, but in the end I would have gone with the incompetent leftist vs the incompetent fascist.
Replace Trump with any other Republican general election finalist since the Depression and my voting preference would likely have tilted the other way.
I remember there was no article that clearly showed the claim I am making but there were several reasons why she narrowly lost: Comey letter (many articles proving that it was enough to tip the balance), email server coverage, WikiLeaks etc. But some Bernie supporters were VERY upset their candidate did not win the primary, and they blamed rigged elections etc., some even protested at the Democratic convention that year. After all those high emotions, where Hillary was constantly criticized on social media by millennials (mostly men),thinking that a small % of them did not vote for her in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is not that unreasonable. It is hard to prove, but the anger that existed, and demonization of Hillary, right up to the election night was something else. Here are a few articles:
The one below directly addresses the point I am making, but comes to the opposite conclusion, but you can see there is enough uncertainty here that it is possible to come to the conclusion I came to.
Also the D primary forced all of the "women shouldn't be president" D's into Bernie or non-voting positions, and none of those people ended up voting for Clinton or Stein.
I think a man with Hillary's resume squishes Trump like a bug in 2016.
As usual Nate presents a lot of data to mull over, as well as a description of Democratic Party thinking and maneuvering along the way. It's interesting, but I'm left feeling like there's more emphasis on the spicing than the meat.
I'm not going to cover anything like the last 50 years, but maybe the last 10.
Regardless of Hilary Clinton's positioning, she was, and largely remains, an unlikable human being. This contributed to her loss in 2008, when I voted for her in the primaries. I didn't like her, but she reminded me to the student in the class room who always raised the bell curve, tenacious in her understanding of issues and the details, and that's who I wanted. Obama was the "vision guy" a type that I'd worked with, and cleaned up after, many times in my career. He was not who I thought the country needed when GOP deregulation and tax cuts had led the country toward a full blown depression.
But like it or not, political races are very much like beauty pageants. Sure there are people who put much time and thought into their political choices, but they are a minority. Most people spend more time on picking out their wardrobe than investigating issues. They are content for others to tell them what to believe. Hate me for that. I don't care.
Hillary's "basket of deplorables" messaging served to Trump's advantage. Trump is a salesman and a very good one, well trained by Roy Cohn, on how to manipulate every system. He was smooth enough to make a large swath of disaffected Americans, who had been shunted aside by both major parties, believe that he saw them and cared about them. Trump has cult leader skills. Being a sociopath helps with that. Clinton doesn't have those skills, in spades.
Trump was such a chaotic mess during his first administration that people were exhausted by him, and enough people rose from their typical lethargy to boot him out of office in 2020. Even a second rater like Biden, who was almost nobody's first choice, beat Trump. And my reason for voting for Biden, who was my last choice of the Democratic candidates, was simply that he wasn't Trump.
Trump, who's psychological issues make him unable to deal with any sort of loss, went into overdrive after the 2020 loss, manufacturing the "Big Lie" about the election being rigged, gathering his army of grifters, and campaigning for the 2024 election for the next 4 years. Trump never went away, never. Throughout Biden's presidency, Trump campaigned and he kept stroking his supporters.
The Democratic Party acted like it had had a lobotomy. It set itself up to be massacred. Biden should never have been allowed to run for a second term. Even if he wasn't senile, he looked like he was, and political races are beauty pageants.
I agree that Harris was not a good choice in 2020. That choice felt like an "optics" choice. And Biden later kneecapped her by appointing her "Border Czar" without giving her any authority to address the border. She got the blame. That was her chief usefulness early on.
Biden runs for a 2nd term, a monumentally stupid decision, and the Democratic Party (lobotomized) went along with it. Biden self destructs at that debate in June, and still keeps going, further running out the clock. Trump, meanwhile, ignores the entire Republican primary, showing his disdain for the GOP and his confidence that he doesn't actually need them. They need him.
At the last possible moment, Biden steps aside and Harris, famously cautious about making campaign decisions, gets tossed into the lion's den.
Voters, who take more time choosing their wardrobes than studying the issues, buy into the nonsense idea that Trump is "stronger" on economic issues, (two bankruptcies from owning gambling casinos) freaked out by an inflation about whose causes they are clueless, vote for Trump, even after one of the most ludicrous and disgusting (microphone fellatio, "They're eating the dogs"...)campaigns in American history.
And Trump, even after winning, can't get Biden out of his head. Biden lives in Trump's head because Biden beat him fair and square. Biden will always live in Trump's head.
Numbers matter, positions matter, but personalities also matter, and intellectual laziness on the part of voters also matters. Hate me all you want, you who read this. I don't care.
Your comparison of political races to beauty pageants is spot on. There was a study where participants were shown a picture of the two major candidates in a political race (without knowing who they actually were) and asked to instantly pick which one looked more competent. The candidate that they picked won about 70% of the time!
That study has stuck with me because although I knew physical appearance was important in politics, I would have guessed it would be more like 55 or 60 percent that the better-looking candidate would win, not 70. And that's not even taking into account other elements of charisma, like how they speak.
I think physical appearance is a big part of Trump's unlikely ascent to the presidency in 2016. One factor is that is own appearance (especially back then) generally aligns with looking stereotypically competent/successful, but another is that he gave his opponents memorable nicknames that highlighted weaknesses in their appearances. Those nicknames also implied weaknesses in personality or competence. Prominent examples include "Low Energy Jeb", "Little Marco", "Sloppy Chris Christie", and even "Crooked Hillary".
It's sad that it has such a big influence on how people vote, but I guess that's human nature. My understanding is that it's part of a broader phenomenon called the "halo effect".
Interesting. I expect that you're correct. Trump is the superbly trained pupil of Roy Cohn, so manipulating people and systems to his personal advantage is what he does. His history of unethical and criminal behavior doesn't actually matter. It's all about the image that he projects.
The notion that Trump only won because of laziness among American voters is another example of the convenient lies dems tell themselves. I suppose it’s easier to bullshit one’s self than it would be to face up to one supremely inconvenient fact: most Americans aren’t on board with the left’s basic policy goals or much of their value system. Trump losing in 2020 was anomalous, as Covid was the mother of all black swans and by November the country had been through the wringer and would have most likely sent any president packing-although it is interesting that it took Marc Elias coaxing swing state judges to circumvent their state constitutions to implement no excuse mail in balloting for Biden to get elected.
Trump won because the nouveau left in America has lost its mind (and then some). If you want to avoid President JD Vance it’d be wise to practice acknowledging inconvenient truths
The practice of contesting the information that you are constantly fed is pretty rare.
There's a reason that marketing has become such a behemoth. It works. People get fed a load of "facts" that are just tailored information. I had a front row seat to how this works early in my "illustrious" career when I worked primarily on commercials. The amount of carefully crafted pitches, done by gathering a lot of data on how to manipulate people, was eye opening. And it's applied to a lot more than breakfast cereal.
Here's the link to an interesting study on political imaging that was done by Princeton University that was posted above:
And there are those exit polls that found that around 63% of Trump supporters voted the way that they did because they thought Trump would be better for the economy, this about a guy who had gone bankrupt 6 times.
The left certainly didn't pay attention to what voters wanted regarding border security. But the Right isn't paying much attention to the population's concerns either, which is probably why Trump's GOP is working to gerrymander the states their legislatures control, to avoid losing their monopoly on Congress.
And they are counting on SCOTUS to further gut the Voting Rights Act so that they can further marginalize black voters in the South. That case is before the court.
So, I'll stick with my view regarding how negligent the electorate has become, not only because they elected Trump, but because they elected Biden, and Trump before that, etc.
And I'll happily give a kick in the ass to both major political parties for supporting the interests of their major donors over the interests of the population.
In all these analyses and details, I believe you overlook the most important thing about Harris. The Democrats picked a terrible candidate. Think about this: She had an undistinguished carrer as an Attorney General. She was an almost invisible Senator; she was not an initiator or lead sponsor on any significant legislation. Biden picker here as his VP because he promised to pick a woman and the fact she was African American was a bonus. She was smart and a good campainer, but did not have enough oomph to be a good vice president, let alone a president -- she was good, but out of her depth. She was a disaster as a VP. Biden put her in charge of the border, nearly all the press, including friendly press called her a "border czar", even though her mandate was smaller than that. But, the border gotl worse and worse and that was one of the reasons Trump won in a landslide. And the friendly press literally erased all their prior references to her being a czar. She was put in charge of AI, and produced absolute word salad when trying to define what it is. She gave exactly zero press conferences during her candidacy, except to very friendly press near the end. She refused to participate in any open ended conversations, because, IMO, she would do "word salad" and demosntrate her lack of grasp of key issues.
Also, IMO, the Dems were afraid to fire her and get someone else to run. Can you imagine what the impact would be on the Democratic base if they fired a female African American as presiential nominee when she was the "obvious" heir apparent? The fact she was an awful candidate would have been unimportant relative to the fact they fired her.
Harris ran in, and won, several elections: twice for San Francisco DA, twice for California AG and for US Senator. As DA and AG, her record of service was recognized by easy re-election. Notwithstanding the opinions of the chattering classes, the actual voters saw her in action, liked her track record and voted for her again and again. Not only was she undefeated in five elections, three of these were for state-wide office in the largest and most diverse state, approximating the conditions of a nation-wide race. This is not an "awful candidate" nor a token diveristy candidate. This is someone who worked hard, served in office and paid her dues.
Yes, you are correct on all your facts. But she was running for President, not DA or AG.
Was she ever Vice Presidential material? My answer: No
Would she have even been picked for that role if Biden had not promised to select a woman (and got a bonus twofer with an African American woman)? My answer: Unlikely
Technically, her role on the border was: "Her mandate was largely diplomatic, developmental, and strategic: advocating for investment, combating violence and corruption, improving institutional capacity in the Northern Triangle, and coordinating public-private efforts to reduce migration pressures."
Can her "success" in that mandate measureable: MA: No
Was it even an important role in the scheme of things related to immigration? No
Was it mostly symbolic so Biden could give here something to do? Yes
Did she succeed? MA: Who knows? What is "success"
She was a de facto lead policy maker on AI. But this is how she described it: "I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing … first of all, it’s two letters, it means artificial intelligence but ultimately what it is is it’s about machine learning. And so the machine is taught — and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine … what then will be produced …” If this is the way she describes it, doesn't that mean she has no clue about the meanin g of AI? MA: Yes
Did she ever sponsor any significant legislation as a Senator? MA: No
Why did she refuse to do any press conferences during her campaign? MA: I don't know, but I SPECULATE that she has a poor grasp of the big issues she would be asked about, and her managers were afraid to let her deal with open ended questions out of rear of more word salad or lack of detailed understanding of the key issues.
Was she presidential material? MA: Not even close.
Was she up to the job of dealing with Ukraine or the Middle East? Would she have supported Israel in bombing Iran's nuclear facilities? Does she even understand those issues enough to make quick decisions? Would she have been capable or manipulating the parties in the Middle East to get as far as they have currently gotten?
I won't go on. But, in my mind, the only reason to vote for Harris is because any individual voter hates Trump. That's OK with me as I respect all opinions and believe all Americans can vote for whomever they want for whatever reason they want. This entire answer is my opinion of course, but I believe the country understood that she wasn't up to the job and had no chance to get elected, even against Trump.
Now, if you remember Dennis Miller, he'd finish all of his TV programs with a fiercely opiniated rant. And, at the end of each, he'd always say the same thing: “Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.” So, all of the above is my fiercely opinionated perspective on Harris, and I could be wrong. And I respect anyone who gives a thoughtful response, either in agreement or disagreement. Just no "knee jerk" responses, please.
Her undistinguished career as an AG included standing up alone among state AGs for increased penalties after the 2008 mortgage mess.
She turned a $25 B nationwide mostly paperwork settlement backed by 49 AGs into $20B of money in Californian's pockets.
Her border assignment was for a handful of specific countries, and she lowered immigration from those places 80%.
She may not have been a great candidate, but you should at least try fact based arguments rather than right wing echo chamber material you found to cut and paste.
Nate, I appreciate and largely agree with your history, and how it breaks out. The “contract on America” and Newt were hard splits for both sides.
But this comment is a plea for you to address your long promised breakout of how liberals are different than progressives. Its implications for Democratic Party politics are essential. So is distinguishing between true moderates and liberals. Progressives only win on issues when the liberals side with them. We (yes, I’m a liberal and not a progressive) often don’t and then are assumed to be moderates.
Please break it out. My take is that most political analysis misses the role of liberals or mislabels them as either progressives or or moderates depending on the issues.
The last three cycles produced compromises that didn’t work and left everyone unhappy. Come 2028 I hope someone is nominated who is unapologetically centrist and ignores The Groups or, even better, is hostile towards them. Alternatively, if Democrats have to learn by losing to get this leftwing virus out of their system they should nominate AOC. At least then nobody can claim the left was robbed or someone wasn’t leftwing enough. The worst thing to do is to nominate another Biden who’s never liked by the left but tries to please them and winds up unpopular for it.
Parties catch viruses all the time and eventually get over them. Republicans had a right-wing virus from 2009-16. Democrats had one from the 1970s until 1992. Most people afflicted with the virus get over it. Some don't and they go to the other party. That's how it always works. I want Democrats to win and be competitive in as many places as possible and the current arrangement is not conducive to that. If pissing off some leftists is what it takes to win back people in Iowa and the like, sign me up right now.
McCain was nominated in 2008. Yes, in 2012 they suffered from a right-wing virus. That's why Romney ran on the most right-wing platform since Goldwater. Republicans today have a Trump virus, which is different from an ideological virus. Trump doesn't advocate for cutting Medicare and SS, a big change from Paul Ryan.
Regarding Iowa and the like, the Senate is a big deal and so are state level races. I'd like to win those.
As far as progressive ideas that are bad go, I don't care about the dumb woke stuff. I hate it, but it doesn't matter. Here are some bad left-wing ideas that do matter: banning fracking, banning oil drilling, decriminalizing border crossings, giving illegal immigrants health insurance, eliminating private health insurance.
The current Democratic Party is the embodiment of the establishment, the status quo. Who are they going to run in 2028? Gavin Newsom is the most prominent name so far.
I suspect for that reason they will lose in 2028. Newsom is the wrong choice, but the deeper underlying issue is that the party is badly out of touch with the current populist era.
AOC fits nicely from his conclusion, someone who wears the leftist brand proudly. When the primaries come around there are always people that come out of the woodwork that we're not too familiar with, so I suspect some possibility of risings stars against Newsom. Easy to forget we are only 1 year into Trump's presidency, so much can go wrong or right in the next 3 years.
Democrat sympathizers always claim that Nixon adopted a “Southern Strategy” with “racial dog whistles” or the like, and Nate is no exception, but Nate’s own map shows this is bullshit. In 1968, George Wallace won the bulk of the South. Nixon won the West, the Midwest, and the Mid Atlantic states.
In the 1950s and into the 60s, racial segregation and White Supremacy were in fact powerful forces in American politics. But in the late sixties and early seventies, the US had a preference cascade, and segregationism became antiquated. Most alleged “dog whistles” are figments of left wing imagination. On issues of race, the major contending parties argue between implementing anti-White (and Asian) pro-Black racial preferences and color blind individualism. There is effectively no constituency for White Supremacy. Its relatively minor and largely exaggerated return is largely due to the excesses of DEI/BLM/Social Justice ideology.
In any case, no successful Republican presidential candidate from Nixon to Trump won because of Secret Racist Code Words.
I didn’t say he wasn’t a racist; I said that the idea he won in 1968 due to a Southern Strategy of racist code words was bullshit. Which it is. If for no other reason than that Nixon didn’t win most of the South in 1968. George Wallace did.
You're argument is nonsensical and ignores a lot of a facts. Specifically that we KNOW dog whistles were an overt strategy by Republicans:
"Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****." By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****."" - Lee Atwater
How effective it was for Nixon my be worth arguing. But claiming it's a figment of someones imagination means you're incredibly uniformed, or lying.
The essay is wonderful! I was there then, from Nixon and the street demonstration at the '68 convention on --- and I view this as a good summary.
A couple points -- Ted Kennedy never had a word to say about the draft until the Dems deputed him as the senator most in touch with the Youth Movement, they hoped, to simply end the protests in a minute: they stopped the draft, and I hope we NEVER, NEVER have conscription again. Though I suppose we will, since Hegseth has already moved to get women out of the Army: having to draft women is a serious impediment to conscription. Ending the draft did end the protest: we all blew away like smoke. Then they ended the war by refusing to pay for it anymore, which worked.
Gary Hart and Monkey Business was so much fun! They started it up again with Edwards, too, but somehow that was just sort of disgusting: in addition to chasing the woman and child of his affairs while his wife was dying of cancer into a woman's room, he was trying to get a million dollars out of a woman in her 90s. He certainly was a ladies man ----
I wish now I had voted for Gore! I have never voted for a Democrat: well, I voted for McCarthy, but God only knows what he was. But Bush turned out to be such a loser --- of the Iraq War, at least, or maybe it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who lost that war; they really took over Bush's presidency. At the time it seemed very important Bush win in Florida, but now ---- he was such a mess.
As for Woke, it was so MALIGN. I think the essay understates how bad it was. Constant euphemism. I try to avoid all euphemisms now, but we've all stopped talking to each other in person now. Too quarrelsome. The worst Woke was at the end of it, during Covid, when response to the many controversies instantly split between Red and Blue, Comply, Comply!! It was a terrible time. And I blame Fauci: he paid thru NIH for China to develop that virus!!
This post's analysis misses what transpired in congress this decade. Progressives have exclusive control the Democratic Party caucus in both chambers. For example, in Biden's term only Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema were willing to stand up to the progressives. They were ostracized and effectively driven from the Senate. Meanwhile, the three other considered moderates (Brown, Casey, and Tester) all voted with the progressives and that got them voted out of the Senate. Only John Fetterman remains as in congress as a Democrat who will occasionally break with progressives.
Democrats are now only a "big tent" party in that some moderate voters remain because they see the GOP as so bad.
To win the WH, the Democrats need to win moderate swing voters. And to do that they need a more moderate platform. There just aren't enough progressives to win a general election by themselves. I thought Democrats learned this lesson after the1980/1984/1988 landslide loses but apparently history is repeating itself. Here's hoping the realization comes a little quicker this time.
The actual Progressive wing does everything they can to torpedo the D's.
1968 support for the secret plan to end the war and voting for Nixon.
1980 voting for Anderson
2000 voting for Nader
2016 disaffected Bernie voters sitting out or voting Stein
Even when these segments aren't the margin of victory, the D candidates always have to give lip service to these people and their unmoored fiction that the left wing can deliver a national election. Opportunity cost and mixed general election messages don't help.
I think that too often the term "moderate" or "centrist" is used to describe the attitude of a politician as opposed to their actual policy preferences. I appreciate Nate using DW/Nominate (which does have its flaws) instead to try and quantify it.
From the outside, it's hard to tell where moderates/centrists exist these days. There hasn't been a Democrat in decades that could be called even slightly pro-life. Manchin and Sinema were called centrists, but other than the tone of their speeches and their votes preserving filibuster, they didn't deviate from the party line that often. I guess John Fetterman fills that role today? I'll believe that the left doesn't have a stranglehold on the Democrats when there's a significant number of them willing to take more moderate positions and vote that way.
Kennedy killed Carter's plan for national health care, then ran on a more liberal single payer style plan. Carter probably still loses, but Kennedy in the primary and Anderson (28% liberal overall) in the general killed him. Nate mentions Wallace and Perot but Anderson was another important 3rd party item. Reagan won about a third of the states with less than 50% of the vote. Astonishing as it may seem, a big chunk of the left fringe of the D's backed Anderson.
Just after Edwards withdrew in 2008, exit polls showed his supporters split in a way that essentially gave Obama the edge he needed. Edwards' women voters split about 50-50, and his male supporters went 90-10 for Obama. Those male supporters were Obama's margin of victory. The anti-female presidential bias is not a right/left thing.
Finally, if the D's used the Republican primary rules, Bernie would have been a non-issue. The R's have more closed primaries and more winner-take-all states. The D's give a stronger voice to relatively smaller players, which creates a feedback loop. So in actual fact, the D rules were rigged in Sanders favor.
EVERY Democrat in Congress, both House and Senate, and including nominal "independents" Bernie and Angus King, is a co-sponsor of the 2025 Equality Act, which would make gender self-ID instantaneous and unquestionable at all places of "public accommodation" (essentially, any business that serves the public). Any man would be able to enter any women-only space, place, event, etc, at his own personal whim.
That tells me that the "progressives" completely control the Democratic Party.
I suppose you are the person I see wandering around planes looking for the men's room.
Toilets on planes are single person, either sex. Completely different than allowing any man to enter any designated multi-person women's toilet facility at will.
I know you know this. You're just trying to insult and gaslight, because you have no actual argument. Pretty far below the usual level of discourse here, but you do you.
Using bathrooms on a co-ed basis is a no brainer to me. It's like, ok, who cares. But it stops there. Co-ed locker rooms with bilogical men in womens' locker rooms and almost anything other than a toilet are an outrage. Or giving kies and teen-agers -- who falways suffer from "social contagion " -- life altering "gender dysphoria" treatments is a real outrage. Especially since 100% OF ALL MEDICATIONS AND PROCEDURES APPLIED IN THOSE CASES IS OFF-LABEL. NONE OF THEM HAVE EVER BEEN SUBJECTED TO APPROPRIATE MEDICAL RESEARCH AND APPEARED IN PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES. Not a single treatment or drug is approved by the FDA. Without going "off-label", you couldn't give a kid an aspirin if the medical research behind it was similar to the medical research behind all gender-dysphoria treatments for kids. If adults want to kid themselves about their sex by calling it gender, good luck to them. Who cares. But kids shouldn't be able to change their sex before they can drink alcohol. And girls should not have to be subject to boys penises alnd testicles because a boy decides he "feels" like a girl. That kind of stuff, which might fly along the coasts in majority blue states, is anathema to normine living in the rest of the country -- and is a major reason Trumpo was elected in a landslide. BTW, it is also why he made great inroads in every single traditional Democratic voting bloc except college educated women, where the Democrats managed to keep their historic percentages. It's the only group in which their percentages did not go down.
Again, IMO, adults can do whatever they please.
>Using bathrooms on a co-ed basis is a no brainer to me
So says another man.
Plenty of women DO NOT AGREE.
Here is one:
https://substack.com/@justindeschamps/note/c-161188813
Oh good - do let's protect the "few spaces we have to ourselves."
It was always such a strong argument for White only clubs, wasn't it?
Are you seriously suggesting that the best criteria for public policy is now what "plenty of" people say on the internet?
Are you seriously suggesting that the best criteria for public policy is to adopt policies with which a huge majority of the populace disagree and which have been demonstrated to on occasion put women , particularly school age biological girls at proven risk of molestation and rape? Since you label yourself as from SF I am not sure if you really believe the outrageous completely out of the mainstream position which you are advocating or just trolling everyone and wasting our time.
It's no surprise that anti-trans and anti-women ideologies go hand in hand. Using bathroom rights, to allow for the explicit argument that men and women are biological different and discrimination on the basis of sex is allowed. That would support men only spaces, jobs and of course roles in society.
We've moved towards it being ok with women protecting their spaces as long as men get to do the same. They get their bathrooms and we get the rest.
Yeah, I continue to be amazed that leftists don't see this criminal gender fraud is the issue of the century for more than half the country --- and why there is every hope Trump and Trump-lites will hold on to the Trifecta for DECADES.
Using a toilet should require an ID and security to definitively prove who you are. No ID, no bathroom.
Absolutely --- if sketchy-looking male prostitutes are invading women's rooms and it's reported, security or police should certainly be called and these individuals be required to identify at least what sex they are and be required to use the bathrooms that match their sex.
Yup - we should definitely wait until there are solid double blind placebo controlled studies.
Oh wait.
And you doing you is about making up scary stories that only happen in right wing fever dreams.
That thing that never happens happened again. Here is a news report from ONE DAY AGO:
>According to Arlington (Virginia) police, prosecutors, and Arlington school staff, “Riki Cox” is an alias that registered sex offender Richard Cox used late last year. Late last year, the Arlington County Public Schools (APS) pool staff allowed Cox, a biological male, to use female locker rooms at two high schools that have pools open to the public outside of school hours because Cox claimed he was a transgender woman. APS’s policy allows people to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity if they so choose.
https://wjla.com/news/local/-sex-offender-arlington-school-board-girls-locker-mary-kardera-room-richard-cox-aps-transgender-bathroom-virginia-fairfax-county-steve-descano-kevin-davis-police-jeff-mckay-kathleen-clark
So what should we ban because of the Catholic priest issues?
Surely you know of some obvious solution.
Enlighten us.
Ban males in spaces designed as female only, and females in spaces designated as male only.
Marjorie Taylor Green, Elon Musk, RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard. What do they all have in common again?
The idea that the MAGA coalition isn't diverse is crazy. They are, however, extraordinarily united--largely due to a common foe.
Their opinions on issues are probably very diverse, but what they have in common is the willingness to go along with basically anything Trump wants to do, which is why Nate correctly described Trump as having full control over the party.
Exactly. He’s like Tito keeping Yugoslavia together. When he’s gone it’s going to be prime time viewing watching the Republicans split like the Balkans.
I'm beginning to sense from my time on X that the Gen Z and younger are attracted to more radical conservative messages. I think that could be a future rift too.
Wishcasting. What ties the disparate parts of the modern GOP together is a deep unhappiness with the changes progressives have forced upon American society and a certainty that Democrats aren’t capable of charting a sane or successful pathway forward for the country. Dems seem to be very siloed in terms of how they view the American electorate, something Nate alludes to here. Look at the generic polling today vs in 2018, as well as the decline in Democratic voter registration coupled with a corresponding increase in republican registration since Trump was sworn in. Democrats tell themselves that Trump only won by hoodwinking people about the price of eggs and he would lose if the race were rerun today, which is an egregious exercise in self deception. That kind of magical thinking and fundamental misreading of the American electorate has lead to the indigo blob seriously advancing the idea of President ocasio Cortez or President Gavin Newsom. You guys never, ever learn.
I think hate for libs and Democrats is what unifies them, and will continue to do so after Trump leaves. They HATE libs.
Both parties hate the other party. Trump is successful because he has eliminated dissent in the Republican Party. When he’s gone the internal fight will be epic. When it’s over they’ll refocus their attention on the Democrats. The question is whether or not they will be able to get all of the Trump voters to turn out for whoever wins the internal fight.
It’s a long way off, but I’d bet against it. They’ll only win if the Democrats nominee is another loser.
I think the bigger issue is that Trump is the symptom, not the root cause.
What Trump really signifies is the inflection point of a decades long migration of blue collar workers from the Democrats to the Republican party. That's why educational polarization is so prominent.
If Hispanic blue collar workers follow their white counterparts into the GOP then the Democrats will be in a world of trouble.
I respectfully disagree, though I could be wrong of course. I think the Right hates libs a lot more than vice versa. Their fear that Dems, when in power, will raise taxes and roll out another entitlement keeps them unified.
Think about how Bill Clinton is viewed by the Right today compared with when he was POTUS - he's equally hated now as he was then. GWB, on the other hand, was so hated by liberals for being stupid, for war on Iraq, his handling of Katrina etc., yet now, since he started painting, many liberals have warmed up to him. Even Obama for gods sake! The man was POTUS for 8 years without a hint of personal scandal, and yet he is equally hated on the Right today as he was then.
That is my point. Trump has full control over the party, but Silver's characterization of MAGA's diversity doesn't make any sense considering the enormously broad coalition that Trump has assembled.
Three of them, like Trump, used to be Democrats.
So. I’m open to that argument. My experience is that most people left or right don’t hate Clinton, Bush The Younger or Obama. But there are, on both sides, heavily partisan loud voices who will start spitting with anger if you try to make the argument that one or the other of them is not so bad. That’s why I think both sides hate each other equally ( I hate both parties equally), but I’m open to the idea that I’m wrong and there’s an imbalance of hatred.
But I’d argue that attitudes in the moment are more important and in the moment both sides hate each other equally.
Well, however are we to decide when two pollsters or experts disagree?
Ironically enough, the guy who runs this SS has a methodology.
That is why the Democratic Party is especially vulnerable to defections within its ranks--for example, minority blue-collar workers following white blue-collar workers into the Republican Party.
Hispanics are disproportionately blue-collar compared to whites, so the magnitude of their shift is perhaps not surprising.
There were defections across the board among minority voters: college-educated, blue-collar, whatever. Some of that boils down to the current unpopularity of the Democratic Party. If you're a Democrat, the troubling phenomenon is blue-collar Hispanic defections, which could signal a long-term realignment.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-men-drifted-democrats-toward-trump-record-numbers-polls-show-n1246447
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/trump-peeled-away-latino-voters-nationwide-in-2020-a-new-analysis-found.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/20/us/politics/election-hispanics-asians-voting.html
So it sounds like the candidate should be boldly fiscally liberal, but muted on liberal social issues, perhaps even punch left on wokeness?
Left out of the equation and difficult to quantify is rizz, personal appeal. Bill Clinton overcame long odds, in part, due to his ability to connect. Obama was very charismatic. Dukakis, Kerry, Hillary, and Kamala were decidedly not that charismatic.
Not sure if this is the right conclusion. I would say social liberalism is generally more popular than socialism and high taxes, and I think part of the failure of Biden admin is that it way overestimated the desire for "bold fiscal liberalism". The correct course for a nominee is probably to emphasize issues Dems are more in line with public sentiment like healthcare and abortion that Republicans are way out of step with public opinion. Obviously Harris tried this, but she was weighed down by the unpopularity of Biden admin and her own previous statements.
I don't disagree, but I feel like the voters want some bold new ideas, and playing it safe is just hoping the Republicans mess up enough that we eke out a slim majority. I'm not saying single payer health care necessarily, but while I think Mamdani's ideas are generally dumb as a policy solution, they are nice symbolic gestures that illustrate to voters he gets that affordability is a concern.
"The notion that the DNC rigged the primary for Clinton is wrong."
Feels good to hear some sanity on that. Cue all the perpetually aggrieved Sanders supporters that will likely flame at me in the comments.
Let them flame both of us then.
Yeah, and that's legit. But imo the more important part is the sentence I posted.
But she lost only because a small minority of Bernie voters refused to coalesce around the eventual nominee and vote for her in the general (voted for 3rd party or stayed home). Forecasts were so off they bred complacence - I remember many liberals had started to worry that Hillary would win by such a landslide she will not need liberals and will govern from the center (there was an article in the Times I believe). Bernie bros insisting Bernie would have won in 2016 is just crazy; I for one (a staunch democrat) would have sat that election out if Bernie was the nominee, though it wouldn't have made a difference as I live in California. There are many Democrats who will not vote for a past admirer of Fidel Castro and communism.
Ran a bad campaign as her schedule in the last week showed. Too smart by half.
I would have hated to have to pick between Sanders and Trump, but in the end I would have gone with the incompetent leftist vs the incompetent fascist.
Replace Trump with any other Republican general election finalist since the Depression and my voting preference would likely have tilted the other way.
I remember there was no article that clearly showed the claim I am making but there were several reasons why she narrowly lost: Comey letter (many articles proving that it was enough to tip the balance), email server coverage, WikiLeaks etc. But some Bernie supporters were VERY upset their candidate did not win the primary, and they blamed rigged elections etc., some even protested at the Democratic convention that year. After all those high emotions, where Hillary was constantly criticized on social media by millennials (mostly men),thinking that a small % of them did not vote for her in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is not that unreasonable. It is hard to prove, but the anger that existed, and demonization of Hillary, right up to the election night was something else. Here are a few articles:
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/10/06/bernie-sanders/91663418/
The one below directly addresses the point I am making, but comes to the opposite conclusion, but you can see there is enough uncertainty here that it is possible to come to the conclusion I came to.
https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/did-bernie-sanders-cost-hillary-clinton-the-presidency/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanders-Trump_voters
Not definitive, but there is a solid argument.
Yup. Definitely not 100% clear.
Also the D primary forced all of the "women shouldn't be president" D's into Bernie or non-voting positions, and none of those people ended up voting for Clinton or Stein.
I think a man with Hillary's resume squishes Trump like a bug in 2016.
As usual Nate presents a lot of data to mull over, as well as a description of Democratic Party thinking and maneuvering along the way. It's interesting, but I'm left feeling like there's more emphasis on the spicing than the meat.
I'm not going to cover anything like the last 50 years, but maybe the last 10.
Regardless of Hilary Clinton's positioning, she was, and largely remains, an unlikable human being. This contributed to her loss in 2008, when I voted for her in the primaries. I didn't like her, but she reminded me to the student in the class room who always raised the bell curve, tenacious in her understanding of issues and the details, and that's who I wanted. Obama was the "vision guy" a type that I'd worked with, and cleaned up after, many times in my career. He was not who I thought the country needed when GOP deregulation and tax cuts had led the country toward a full blown depression.
But like it or not, political races are very much like beauty pageants. Sure there are people who put much time and thought into their political choices, but they are a minority. Most people spend more time on picking out their wardrobe than investigating issues. They are content for others to tell them what to believe. Hate me for that. I don't care.
Hillary's "basket of deplorables" messaging served to Trump's advantage. Trump is a salesman and a very good one, well trained by Roy Cohn, on how to manipulate every system. He was smooth enough to make a large swath of disaffected Americans, who had been shunted aside by both major parties, believe that he saw them and cared about them. Trump has cult leader skills. Being a sociopath helps with that. Clinton doesn't have those skills, in spades.
Trump was such a chaotic mess during his first administration that people were exhausted by him, and enough people rose from their typical lethargy to boot him out of office in 2020. Even a second rater like Biden, who was almost nobody's first choice, beat Trump. And my reason for voting for Biden, who was my last choice of the Democratic candidates, was simply that he wasn't Trump.
Trump, who's psychological issues make him unable to deal with any sort of loss, went into overdrive after the 2020 loss, manufacturing the "Big Lie" about the election being rigged, gathering his army of grifters, and campaigning for the 2024 election for the next 4 years. Trump never went away, never. Throughout Biden's presidency, Trump campaigned and he kept stroking his supporters.
The Democratic Party acted like it had had a lobotomy. It set itself up to be massacred. Biden should never have been allowed to run for a second term. Even if he wasn't senile, he looked like he was, and political races are beauty pageants.
I agree that Harris was not a good choice in 2020. That choice felt like an "optics" choice. And Biden later kneecapped her by appointing her "Border Czar" without giving her any authority to address the border. She got the blame. That was her chief usefulness early on.
Biden runs for a 2nd term, a monumentally stupid decision, and the Democratic Party (lobotomized) went along with it. Biden self destructs at that debate in June, and still keeps going, further running out the clock. Trump, meanwhile, ignores the entire Republican primary, showing his disdain for the GOP and his confidence that he doesn't actually need them. They need him.
At the last possible moment, Biden steps aside and Harris, famously cautious about making campaign decisions, gets tossed into the lion's den.
Voters, who take more time choosing their wardrobes than studying the issues, buy into the nonsense idea that Trump is "stronger" on economic issues, (two bankruptcies from owning gambling casinos) freaked out by an inflation about whose causes they are clueless, vote for Trump, even after one of the most ludicrous and disgusting (microphone fellatio, "They're eating the dogs"...)campaigns in American history.
And Trump, even after winning, can't get Biden out of his head. Biden lives in Trump's head because Biden beat him fair and square. Biden will always live in Trump's head.
Numbers matter, positions matter, but personalities also matter, and intellectual laziness on the part of voters also matters. Hate me all you want, you who read this. I don't care.
Your comparison of political races to beauty pageants is spot on. There was a study where participants were shown a picture of the two major candidates in a political race (without knowing who they actually were) and asked to instantly pick which one looked more competent. The candidate that they picked won about 70% of the time!
That study has stuck with me because although I knew physical appearance was important in politics, I would have guessed it would be more like 55 or 60 percent that the better-looking candidate would win, not 70. And that's not even taking into account other elements of charisma, like how they speak.
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2007/10/22/determine-election-outcomes-study-says-snap-judgments-are-sufficient
I bookmarked the link, thanks!
I think physical appearance is a big part of Trump's unlikely ascent to the presidency in 2016. One factor is that is own appearance (especially back then) generally aligns with looking stereotypically competent/successful, but another is that he gave his opponents memorable nicknames that highlighted weaknesses in their appearances. Those nicknames also implied weaknesses in personality or competence. Prominent examples include "Low Energy Jeb", "Little Marco", "Sloppy Chris Christie", and even "Crooked Hillary".
It's sad that it has such a big influence on how people vote, but I guess that's human nature. My understanding is that it's part of a broader phenomenon called the "halo effect".
Interesting. I expect that you're correct. Trump is the superbly trained pupil of Roy Cohn, so manipulating people and systems to his personal advantage is what he does. His history of unethical and criminal behavior doesn't actually matter. It's all about the image that he projects.
Well said and deeply articulated Jesse.
The notion that Trump only won because of laziness among American voters is another example of the convenient lies dems tell themselves. I suppose it’s easier to bullshit one’s self than it would be to face up to one supremely inconvenient fact: most Americans aren’t on board with the left’s basic policy goals or much of their value system. Trump losing in 2020 was anomalous, as Covid was the mother of all black swans and by November the country had been through the wringer and would have most likely sent any president packing-although it is interesting that it took Marc Elias coaxing swing state judges to circumvent their state constitutions to implement no excuse mail in balloting for Biden to get elected.
Trump won because the nouveau left in America has lost its mind (and then some). If you want to avoid President JD Vance it’d be wise to practice acknowledging inconvenient truths
For starters regarding your thesis, you should know that I'm not a Democrat.
But more to the point, estimates regarding the percentage of Americans who think critically range from 1% to about 4%
https://www.forbes.com/sites/helenleebouygues/2018/12/10/are-you-doing-enough-critical-thinking-probably-not/
https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-people-are-critical-thinkers
The practice of contesting the information that you are constantly fed is pretty rare.
There's a reason that marketing has become such a behemoth. It works. People get fed a load of "facts" that are just tailored information. I had a front row seat to how this works early in my "illustrious" career when I worked primarily on commercials. The amount of carefully crafted pitches, done by gathering a lot of data on how to manipulate people, was eye opening. And it's applied to a lot more than breakfast cereal.
Here's the link to an interesting study on political imaging that was done by Princeton University that was posted above:
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2007/10/22/determine-election-outcomes-study-says-snap-judgments-are-sufficient
People believe what they are told to believe. Along that line I am reminded of this scene from Citizen Kane:
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/4a72ac86-e7a3-4e3c-b1dc-f9a551a6ab56
And there are those exit polls that found that around 63% of Trump supporters voted the way that they did because they thought Trump would be better for the economy, this about a guy who had gone bankrupt 6 times.
The left certainly didn't pay attention to what voters wanted regarding border security. But the Right isn't paying much attention to the population's concerns either, which is probably why Trump's GOP is working to gerrymander the states their legislatures control, to avoid losing their monopoly on Congress.
And they are counting on SCOTUS to further gut the Voting Rights Act so that they can further marginalize black voters in the South. That case is before the court.
So, I'll stick with my view regarding how negligent the electorate has become, not only because they elected Trump, but because they elected Biden, and Trump before that, etc.
And I'll happily give a kick in the ass to both major political parties for supporting the interests of their major donors over the interests of the population.
In all these analyses and details, I believe you overlook the most important thing about Harris. The Democrats picked a terrible candidate. Think about this: She had an undistinguished carrer as an Attorney General. She was an almost invisible Senator; she was not an initiator or lead sponsor on any significant legislation. Biden picker here as his VP because he promised to pick a woman and the fact she was African American was a bonus. She was smart and a good campainer, but did not have enough oomph to be a good vice president, let alone a president -- she was good, but out of her depth. She was a disaster as a VP. Biden put her in charge of the border, nearly all the press, including friendly press called her a "border czar", even though her mandate was smaller than that. But, the border gotl worse and worse and that was one of the reasons Trump won in a landslide. And the friendly press literally erased all their prior references to her being a czar. She was put in charge of AI, and produced absolute word salad when trying to define what it is. She gave exactly zero press conferences during her candidacy, except to very friendly press near the end. She refused to participate in any open ended conversations, because, IMO, she would do "word salad" and demosntrate her lack of grasp of key issues.
Also, IMO, the Dems were afraid to fire her and get someone else to run. Can you imagine what the impact would be on the Democratic base if they fired a female African American as presiential nominee when she was the "obvious" heir apparent? The fact she was an awful candidate would have been unimportant relative to the fact they fired her.
Harris ran in, and won, several elections: twice for San Francisco DA, twice for California AG and for US Senator. As DA and AG, her record of service was recognized by easy re-election. Notwithstanding the opinions of the chattering classes, the actual voters saw her in action, liked her track record and voted for her again and again. Not only was she undefeated in five elections, three of these were for state-wide office in the largest and most diverse state, approximating the conditions of a nation-wide race. This is not an "awful candidate" nor a token diveristy candidate. This is someone who worked hard, served in office and paid her dues.
Yes, you are correct on all your facts. But she was running for President, not DA or AG.
Was she ever Vice Presidential material? My answer: No
Would she have even been picked for that role if Biden had not promised to select a woman (and got a bonus twofer with an African American woman)? My answer: Unlikely
Technically, her role on the border was: "Her mandate was largely diplomatic, developmental, and strategic: advocating for investment, combating violence and corruption, improving institutional capacity in the Northern Triangle, and coordinating public-private efforts to reduce migration pressures."
Can her "success" in that mandate measureable: MA: No
Was it even an important role in the scheme of things related to immigration? No
Was it mostly symbolic so Biden could give here something to do? Yes
Did she succeed? MA: Who knows? What is "success"
She was a de facto lead policy maker on AI. But this is how she described it: "I think the first part of this issue that should be articulated is AI is kind of a fancy thing … first of all, it’s two letters, it means artificial intelligence but ultimately what it is is it’s about machine learning. And so the machine is taught — and part of the issue here is what information is going into the machine … what then will be produced …” If this is the way she describes it, doesn't that mean she has no clue about the meanin g of AI? MA: Yes
Did she ever sponsor any significant legislation as a Senator? MA: No
Why did she refuse to do any press conferences during her campaign? MA: I don't know, but I SPECULATE that she has a poor grasp of the big issues she would be asked about, and her managers were afraid to let her deal with open ended questions out of rear of more word salad or lack of detailed understanding of the key issues.
Was she presidential material? MA: Not even close.
Was she up to the job of dealing with Ukraine or the Middle East? Would she have supported Israel in bombing Iran's nuclear facilities? Does she even understand those issues enough to make quick decisions? Would she have been capable or manipulating the parties in the Middle East to get as far as they have currently gotten?
I won't go on. But, in my mind, the only reason to vote for Harris is because any individual voter hates Trump. That's OK with me as I respect all opinions and believe all Americans can vote for whomever they want for whatever reason they want. This entire answer is my opinion of course, but I believe the country understood that she wasn't up to the job and had no chance to get elected, even against Trump.
Now, if you remember Dennis Miller, he'd finish all of his TV programs with a fiercely opiniated rant. And, at the end of each, he'd always say the same thing: “Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.” So, all of the above is my fiercely opinionated perspective on Harris, and I could be wrong. And I respect anyone who gives a thoughtful response, either in agreement or disagreement. Just no "knee jerk" responses, please.
Her undistinguished career as an AG included standing up alone among state AGs for increased penalties after the 2008 mortgage mess.
She turned a $25 B nationwide mostly paperwork settlement backed by 49 AGs into $20B of money in Californian's pockets.
Her border assignment was for a handful of specific countries, and she lowered immigration from those places 80%.
She may not have been a great candidate, but you should at least try fact based arguments rather than right wing echo chamber material you found to cut and paste.
Nate, I appreciate and largely agree with your history, and how it breaks out. The “contract on America” and Newt were hard splits for both sides.
But this comment is a plea for you to address your long promised breakout of how liberals are different than progressives. Its implications for Democratic Party politics are essential. So is distinguishing between true moderates and liberals. Progressives only win on issues when the liberals side with them. We (yes, I’m a liberal and not a progressive) often don’t and then are assumed to be moderates.
Please break it out. My take is that most political analysis misses the role of liberals or mislabels them as either progressives or or moderates depending on the issues.
The last three cycles produced compromises that didn’t work and left everyone unhappy. Come 2028 I hope someone is nominated who is unapologetically centrist and ignores The Groups or, even better, is hostile towards them. Alternatively, if Democrats have to learn by losing to get this leftwing virus out of their system they should nominate AOC. At least then nobody can claim the left was robbed or someone wasn’t leftwing enough. The worst thing to do is to nominate another Biden who’s never liked by the left but tries to please them and winds up unpopular for it.
Careful what you wish for. Depending on how the next 3 years go, that could end up with AOC winning.
Parties catch viruses all the time and eventually get over them. Republicans had a right-wing virus from 2009-16. Democrats had one from the 1970s until 1992. Most people afflicted with the virus get over it. Some don't and they go to the other party. That's how it always works. I want Democrats to win and be competitive in as many places as possible and the current arrangement is not conducive to that. If pissing off some leftists is what it takes to win back people in Iowa and the like, sign me up right now.
McCain was nominated in 2008. Yes, in 2012 they suffered from a right-wing virus. That's why Romney ran on the most right-wing platform since Goldwater. Republicans today have a Trump virus, which is different from an ideological virus. Trump doesn't advocate for cutting Medicare and SS, a big change from Paul Ryan.
Regarding Iowa and the like, the Senate is a big deal and so are state level races. I'd like to win those.
As far as progressive ideas that are bad go, I don't care about the dumb woke stuff. I hate it, but it doesn't matter. Here are some bad left-wing ideas that do matter: banning fracking, banning oil drilling, decriminalizing border crossings, giving illegal immigrants health insurance, eliminating private health insurance.
The current Democratic Party is the embodiment of the establishment, the status quo. Who are they going to run in 2028? Gavin Newsom is the most prominent name so far.
I suspect for that reason they will lose in 2028. Newsom is the wrong choice, but the deeper underlying issue is that the party is badly out of touch with the current populist era.
AOC fits nicely from his conclusion, someone who wears the leftist brand proudly. When the primaries come around there are always people that come out of the woodwork that we're not too familiar with, so I suspect some possibility of risings stars against Newsom. Easy to forget we are only 1 year into Trump's presidency, so much can go wrong or right in the next 3 years.
It will be Clinton versus Sanders all over again. The movers and shakers in the DNC are overwhelmingly from Newsom's class.
On the Republican side, by contrast, Trump was elevated by barbarians at the gate.
😝
I keep saying, Trump is not the product of a civil war in the Republican Party. He's the result of an invasion.
Democrat sympathizers always claim that Nixon adopted a “Southern Strategy” with “racial dog whistles” or the like, and Nate is no exception, but Nate’s own map shows this is bullshit. In 1968, George Wallace won the bulk of the South. Nixon won the West, the Midwest, and the Mid Atlantic states.
In the 1950s and into the 60s, racial segregation and White Supremacy were in fact powerful forces in American politics. But in the late sixties and early seventies, the US had a preference cascade, and segregationism became antiquated. Most alleged “dog whistles” are figments of left wing imagination. On issues of race, the major contending parties argue between implementing anti-White (and Asian) pro-Black racial preferences and color blind individualism. There is effectively no constituency for White Supremacy. Its relatively minor and largely exaggerated return is largely due to the excesses of DEI/BLM/Social Justice ideology.
In any case, no successful Republican presidential candidate from Nixon to Trump won because of Secret Racist Code Words.
“it’s all about law and order and the
damn Negro-Puerto Rican groups out there" - Richard Nixon
Don't lie about Nixon's obvious racism mate, it makes you look like one.
I didn’t say he wasn’t a racist; I said that the idea he won in 1968 due to a Southern Strategy of racist code words was bullshit. Which it is. If for no other reason than that Nixon didn’t win most of the South in 1968. George Wallace did.
You're argument is nonsensical and ignores a lot of a facts. Specifically that we KNOW dog whistles were an overt strategy by Republicans:
"Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****." By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****."" - Lee Atwater
How effective it was for Nixon my be worth arguing. But claiming it's a figment of someones imagination means you're incredibly uniformed, or lying.
The essay is wonderful! I was there then, from Nixon and the street demonstration at the '68 convention on --- and I view this as a good summary.
A couple points -- Ted Kennedy never had a word to say about the draft until the Dems deputed him as the senator most in touch with the Youth Movement, they hoped, to simply end the protests in a minute: they stopped the draft, and I hope we NEVER, NEVER have conscription again. Though I suppose we will, since Hegseth has already moved to get women out of the Army: having to draft women is a serious impediment to conscription. Ending the draft did end the protest: we all blew away like smoke. Then they ended the war by refusing to pay for it anymore, which worked.
Gary Hart and Monkey Business was so much fun! They started it up again with Edwards, too, but somehow that was just sort of disgusting: in addition to chasing the woman and child of his affairs while his wife was dying of cancer into a woman's room, he was trying to get a million dollars out of a woman in her 90s. He certainly was a ladies man ----
I wish now I had voted for Gore! I have never voted for a Democrat: well, I voted for McCarthy, but God only knows what he was. But Bush turned out to be such a loser --- of the Iraq War, at least, or maybe it was Cheney and Rumsfeld who lost that war; they really took over Bush's presidency. At the time it seemed very important Bush win in Florida, but now ---- he was such a mess.
As for Woke, it was so MALIGN. I think the essay understates how bad it was. Constant euphemism. I try to avoid all euphemisms now, but we've all stopped talking to each other in person now. Too quarrelsome. The worst Woke was at the end of it, during Covid, when response to the many controversies instantly split between Red and Blue, Comply, Comply!! It was a terrible time. And I blame Fauci: he paid thru NIH for China to develop that virus!!
This post's analysis misses what transpired in congress this decade. Progressives have exclusive control the Democratic Party caucus in both chambers. For example, in Biden's term only Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema were willing to stand up to the progressives. They were ostracized and effectively driven from the Senate. Meanwhile, the three other considered moderates (Brown, Casey, and Tester) all voted with the progressives and that got them voted out of the Senate. Only John Fetterman remains as in congress as a Democrat who will occasionally break with progressives.
Democrats are now only a "big tent" party in that some moderate voters remain because they see the GOP as so bad.
To win the WH, the Democrats need to win moderate swing voters. And to do that they need a more moderate platform. There just aren't enough progressives to win a general election by themselves. I thought Democrats learned this lesson after the1980/1984/1988 landslide loses but apparently history is repeating itself. Here's hoping the realization comes a little quicker this time.
The actual Progressive wing does everything they can to torpedo the D's.
1968 support for the secret plan to end the war and voting for Nixon.
1980 voting for Anderson
2000 voting for Nader
2016 disaffected Bernie voters sitting out or voting Stein
Even when these segments aren't the margin of victory, the D candidates always have to give lip service to these people and their unmoored fiction that the left wing can deliver a national election. Opportunity cost and mixed general election messages don't help.
I think that too often the term "moderate" or "centrist" is used to describe the attitude of a politician as opposed to their actual policy preferences. I appreciate Nate using DW/Nominate (which does have its flaws) instead to try and quantify it.
From the outside, it's hard to tell where moderates/centrists exist these days. There hasn't been a Democrat in decades that could be called even slightly pro-life. Manchin and Sinema were called centrists, but other than the tone of their speeches and their votes preserving filibuster, they didn't deviate from the party line that often. I guess John Fetterman fills that role today? I'll believe that the left doesn't have a stranglehold on the Democrats when there's a significant number of them willing to take more moderate positions and vote that way.
Three minor additions.
Kennedy killed Carter's plan for national health care, then ran on a more liberal single payer style plan. Carter probably still loses, but Kennedy in the primary and Anderson (28% liberal overall) in the general killed him. Nate mentions Wallace and Perot but Anderson was another important 3rd party item. Reagan won about a third of the states with less than 50% of the vote. Astonishing as it may seem, a big chunk of the left fringe of the D's backed Anderson.
Just after Edwards withdrew in 2008, exit polls showed his supporters split in a way that essentially gave Obama the edge he needed. Edwards' women voters split about 50-50, and his male supporters went 90-10 for Obama. Those male supporters were Obama's margin of victory. The anti-female presidential bias is not a right/left thing.
Finally, if the D's used the Republican primary rules, Bernie would have been a non-issue. The R's have more closed primaries and more winner-take-all states. The D's give a stronger voice to relatively smaller players, which creates a feedback loop. So in actual fact, the D rules were rigged in Sanders favor.
Always a great read, Nate. Thanks for that.