USA as a society is mentally ill, where sociopathy is often seen as a virtue. For instance denying poor people health care and food, denying pregnant women with potentially lethal complications the right to abortion. Allowing (white) people to kill (black) people without reason based on stand your ground rules. Refusing stricter gun rules despite countless school shootings. Denying workers a living wage. The list of sociopathy permeating US society goes on and on.

Now I know that despite this, about half the population see the problems. There are also Americans that fight this, and are world class people. But the other half, somehow confuse Trump’s sociopathy with strength, and admire him for it. Yes this is how it is in USA, sociopathy is widely not only accepted but admired, people want Trump to hurt people, the poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. Many Americans want all these people to suffer, for no other reason than their mere existence. Somehow this is OK to even extend to women in general too! As Trump is clearly a major misogynist.

If you are a normal well functioning person, it’s near impossible to grasp that such hate can be this widespread, and Trump is fueling it, and before him Republicans have been fueling it for decades.

This makes all the hateful illegal stuff Trump does nearly irrelevant, people simply don’t care, his followers just want to see the people they hate burn. It’s not that Trump isn’t called out at times, it’s just that it doesn’t really make a difference.

Because the kind of people who run CNN and other staples of traditional media are the same people who covered for people like Jimmy Savile.

Mark Thompson is Chairman and CEO of CNN. Here’s some blurbs from his Wikipedia, the Savile one being the most salacious.

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In September 2010, Thompson acknowledged some of the BBC’s previous political bias, which he said he had witnessed early in his career. He stated: “In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people’s personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left”. He added: “the organisation did struggle then with impartiality”.

Fucking news to me, mate.

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Although Thompson departed the BBC before public exposure of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and is not noted in the BBC chronology of the unfolding coverage, Thompson faced questions about his role in the events around Savile’s actions and BBC coverage of them. According to a New York Times review, Thompson denied knowing of a BBC Newsnight programme on accusations against Savile before it was dropped soon after Savile’s death in October 2011.

Literally everyone around Savile is fucking trash.

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In a 4 February 2024 investigation by The Guardian, some CNN staff blamed their channel’s newly appointed director Mark Thompson for what they described as biased reporting of the Israel–Hamas war. The staff criticized their network’s coverage of the war, charging that it had promoted Israeli propaganda, and gave more attention to Israeli suffering, and the Israeli narrative of the war. One staffer claimed that this bias was systematic and institutionalized, as many journalists’ stories were forced to be cleared by channel’s Jerusalem bureau before publication. Staffers claimed that statements by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were rarely reported on, while Israeli statements were taken at face value. A CNN spokesperson denied the charges of bias.

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That’s to say nothing about the pro-Trump head of Discovery (which owns CNN) David Zaslav slobbing this guys knob.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav shared, “I am confident he is exactly the leader we need to take the helm of CNN at this pivotal time.”

Thompson was also formerly at the New York Times, another publication that has been swinging to the right. However, if you check out the Lifestyle section of the NYT, you quickly realize why, because it’s aimed at rich fucks with a second house in the Hamptons.

It’s literally in their short-term-financial-interest to get Trump. They don’t give a damn about long-term-interests at all.

honestly aside from explicitly right wing outlets, I don’t see any particular bias against harris. most outlets will almost alway criticize trump on everything while most of the time they praise harris and sometimes they criticise her on her more progression policies (because most of the media tilts fiscal conservative). it’s rather more of a perceptions of the audience thing. trump has done so many outlandish shit that now most of his bullshit gets filtered out as noise.

also i don’t wanna be mean but the question “Why does it feel standards are much higher for Harris than Trump?” sounds like it’s coming from an agitated"vote blue no matter who" democrat who is baffled about why would people not vote for the obviously better candidate.

there are a lot of reasons as you said “this race is STILL either 50/50 or tilt Trump”. maybe it’s because she’s black or female and there are a lot of racist and misogynists out there, maybe it’s because of the electoral college, maybe it’s because of the hold the MAGA cult has over its members, or maybe it’s because harris is refusing to stop arming and helping a genocide and that is turning people off.

the Harris campaign right now can only change one of these factors. even if you plan on voting, lie on the polls and organise and protest against the genocide because if enough people do this to force the hand of the Harris campaign then it wouldn’t be a close race at all.

Because apparently half of the active voters in this country are either greedy corporate cunts, wealthy sociopaths, MAGA morons, authoritarian Christian ideologue crazies, psuedo-intellectual “centrists”/independents that somehow conflate basic human respect for minorities and outright fascism as “both sides are the same”, or some combination thereof. Those type of people are the type that think the ends always justify the means and that the ends they want is a US that looks like a cross between A Handmaid’s Tale, Atlas Shrugged, and modern day Russia. It is one of the most disheartening realizations of my adult life to learn that so many of my fellow Americans are fucking vile people.

Do keep in mind, that roughly half of voters is not the same as roughly half of Americans. The highest turnout of voting eligible people in the last century was only 66.6% in 2020. Basically every Trump nut votes. It is there entire reason for being these days, to support and vote for Trump. And in 2020, Trump only got 46.9% of the popular vote, i.e. only 33.03% of the US voting eligible actually cast a vote for Trump. The rest of us are either actively trying to stop Trump or are at least not actively supporting him. The absolute BEST thing we can do as a country is to bump those numbers up. There is no excuse for 1 in 3 people to not vote, leaving another 1 in 3 people to have disproportionate power over everyone else’s lives. Complacency and apathy or counting on enough others to do their civic duty so you don’t have to is how Trump wins again. Vote and make every single person you know go vote too. Tell them to register. Tell them to vote early if that is more convenient for them. Whatever. Just go vote.

Update: The second best thing you can do is vote for state and federal epresentatives and leaders that will advocate for election reforms like joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) and/or abolishing the electoral college, fighting Gerrymandering, establishing new, more fair and representative voting systems (Ranked Choice, Approval, Proportional, etc.), term limits, etc. The goal is for representative government is to actually represent the popular will of their voters. It absolutely does NOT do that right now. That should be our first and greatest goal for our government.

Black. Female.

The president isn’t in charge of COVID. States are in charge of COVID. Pandemics are handled by the states with help from the federal government. BLM protest are once again state issues. I’m not sure why so many Americans don’t understand how the government is run. Presidents are not dictators. They are limited by the constitution and laws.

No why is the split so close? Harris isn’t a good candidate. She’s wildly unpopular and has been for years. He policies are horrible and the average American doesn’t want them. They are the opposite of what Americans want.

Biden has always been fairly unpopular. I’ve always thought the guy was an idiot but he isn’t far left. He fairly moderate to Leaning a little right.

We also have a large red/blue divide in this country and presidents are picked by the EC.

Trump is a horrible candidate but things ran well when he was in office. People will remember that.

The short version is we are running two awful candidates and that’s why the elections are close.

Because, on Trump’s side, it’s a full blown cult.

Trump can literally poop his pants on national tv and eat a mouthful of shit and his acolytes would clap in unison

However, most people not deranged enough to worship a politician could/would be turned off if that politician, Kamala on our scenario, blatantly lies or makes fun of a disable person or rapes someone

Bigotry and idiocy

you’re asking why fascists and leftists have different standards and morals?

It’s the same when it comes to any other countries. The right always gets away with corruption because it’s expected. Whereas the left has a higher moral standpoint so it is being accused of hypocrisy and things get blown out proportion even if small scale corruption occurs. For example in UK the previous government were giving jobs and contracts to friends and family all the time and nobody cried about it. It became accepted. The new left of centre government comes in and gives a temporary pass to a donor and suddenly it’s a huge scandal…

It’s the same if you care for the environment and ever took a taxi somewhere, or a vegetarian or vegan and have shoes made out of leather. Sure you are doing better than everyone else to help but you are still the devil and worse than everyone else somehow…

I’m going to offer an answer because the top responses are either bad or just totally miss the mark. The later responses are just thoughtless kneejerk drivel. It’s worth asking and addressing this question because it’s impact on electoralism are very material, and it’s not for no reason that you made your observation; it’s also not necessarily a bad thing that some politicians might be held to a higher standard than others.

The question is:

Why is Kamala being held to a higher standard is the question.

But “higher” than what?

Was Joe Biden being held to a “higher” standard? Do Democrats in general get held to “higher” standards? Rotate the question and it’s “Why do we hold politicians to standards?” Are Republicans held to any kind of standards?

First, I think we need to focus on on if politicians are being held to standards by their voters. I won’t be addressing any kind of cross party criticism in that I want to focus in on the issue of “potential voters” and if those voters hold a candidate that there is some chance they might vote for to some standards ( or litmus, whatever. The first step will be to address if voters hold politicians to standards (not yours or mine necessarily, but the voters own standards).

Second, I’ll address the “higher-ness” of these standards. Are they relative or absolute? Are the candidate or party specific? Do they change?

Finally, I’ll address the impacts of this and what it has done over the previous several election cycles.

I think we can look at the recent case of Joe Bidens candidacy to address if Harris is unique in being held to a standard. Joe Biden started campaigning in earnest in around October/ November 2023. This came at the same time as the horrible October 7th massacre that galvanized world support for Israel in the face of a terrorist threat. Joe Biden had historically been the most oro-isralli politician of any party, long before his bid for even vice president.

Relatively quickly after the massacre it was clear that Israel was in no way operating in good faith for their purported goal of recovering hostages. It was obvious that they were targeting journalists and iad workers, that there bombing was indiscriminate and focused on population centers and infrastructure for maximum destruction, and that this was in support of the broader colonial mission that Israel has been in since it’s inception.

Because of this, during the primary process, a movement of voters set a standard: that they could not vote for Joe Biden in good conscience based on the manner in which the US was relating to and supporting Israels now obvious extermination policy regarding Gaza. Biden failed that standard with regards to the Undecided movement, and it had cost him the election long before his disasterous debate performance. Joe Biden had been floundering in the polls well before that debate. Because of this, Biden lost his position as candidate, explicitly because the voters had a standard to which the candidate did not meet.

Democratic voters are not the only ones who hold standards for their politicians. Consider the case of a post DJT electoral landscape for Republicans. A Republican candidate basically could not get through a primary not towing the MAGA line (even if this hurt their chances later in the election. So even if they are not your or mine standards, Republicans too are held to standards by their voters (if even we find those standards abhorrent). It’s important to understand that in fact these voters do have standards, they just aren’t your standards, and they do hold their politicians to them.

To conclude section one: all politicians get held to standards. One of the most important politicians of the modern era just had his career ended by not meeting some of them. Both bases of voters have standards which are different and unique to that bae, and both bases hold their candidates to them accordingly.

Now we come to the question of “higher-ness”. Do bases hold these officials to standards equally? Or is there some sliding scale or uniqueness into the way things are applied. I plan on withholding discussion if the consequences of this to the final section, but I am not disregarding it’s importance.

In 2008, Barack Obama led one of the most historic campaigns of all time, under the twin banners of “Hope” and “Change”. The iconography of Obama’s 2008 campaign has and will continue to represent a high water mark for political symbolism and its use in electoralism. Barrack ran as a left-wing populist and won his presidency accordingly. However, once in office, Obama struck a decidedly more rightwing/ centrist stance, effectively governing from the center right. His principal legislation was a Heritage Foundation piece of legislation, a lift and shift of what Romney had implemented in Massachusetts, the ACA, effectively ensconcing private control of health care in the US. While voters did give Obama his second term, there was a distinct feeling of a bait and switch from the populist times of 2008 Obama to the 2012 technocratic, neoliberal approach with which he governed.

This set the stage for 2016, where the demand for “hope and change” was now stronger than ever. Obama has failed to deliver in his messaging and this created opportunities for both right wing and lefty wing populist candidates: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The voter recognized that they had not held Obama to a sufficiently high standard, and because of this, they raised the bar (each group according to their own principles). On the left we saw purity tests around no corporate pac money and a wide suite of progressive litmus. On the right we saw “america first” and isolationism. Both the left and the right bases established a higher standard. However, due to reasons behind the scope of this discussion, only the right were able to effectively hold their candidate to that now higher standard (their standards, internally defined). Leaving the era of technocracy and neoliberalism, it was the candidate held to a higher standard that won that election.

Now examine 2020. Now firmly in the populist era, it was a race on both the left and the right to meet the associated higher standards now established by voters. The Democratic candidates had maybe the most progressive across the board suite of policies ever. And likewise in the right, excepting that they be regressive polocies. Both suites representative of the now higher standards required by their associated blocs. This time however, the more established political players had caught the buzz and responded accordingly. While the DnC was ratfucky as ever, Biden did adopt almost all of those higher standard policy positions to gather those voters into his coalition. His campaign identified the higher standard, held themselves to it, and they won.

Now we have the opportunity to draw some conclusions. There is a “higherness” to standards but they are not necessarily specific to politicians so much as the demographics and voting blocs those politicians draw from. Standards have changed and increased in scrutiny. Standards are also bloc specific, so it doesn’t make sense to compare standards across blocs: why a progressive chooses to vote or not vote and why a conservative chooses to vote or not vote are wildly different motivating concerns.

Do standards matter? Objectively yes. Holding candidates to a “higher standard” has represented a winning strategy for voters for the previous 20 years. While those standards are relative depending on which voting block you are courting, the general rule has been that the candidate coming closest to a higher standard wins. This is largely due to a shift away from the kind of technocratic allure of neoliberalism and the general shift towards populism we’ve seen in the past 20 years: it is distinctly the case that we reside in a new political hedgemony.

Because of the, the prior generation politics of “we know better. just elect the “best” and that should do” has died, and been replaced by stronger willed voters who have specific demands of their politicians. Those politicians who can read and come closest to those demands are the most likely to win: this is an age of populism. Both the MAGA and progressive movement didn’t their roots in the technocratic neoliberal approaches emphasizing credentials and expertise over the will of the voter. This was effectively the political hedgemony of the US from about 1967-1978 until 2000-2012. That was the era of technocratic neoliberalism, which has been fully replaced with populism of two distinct variants (which is typical in populist eras).

The idea that voters shouldn’t hold their politicians to standards and should just vote for “the one who knows best” is a residual trapping of a previous hedgemony, and extends to almost all aspects of political life and policy.

Holding politicians to higher has also been a demonstrably effective strategy for getting them into office. In the current political hedgemony, the politician held to and able to meet a higher standard typically wins. In this way a “higher standard” benefits both the politician and the electorate. By extending a higher standard for Harris, we’re making her a more electable candidate. It doesn’t hurt her to be held to a higher standard so long as she strives to meet that standard. It’s good for her as a candidate and good for her electorate in that they get closer to accomplishing their political goals.

They are trying to break through the misinformation being fed to Republicans. And trying to ensure anyone on the fence otherwise doesn’t have any excuses.

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Because we all know what trump is.

Can’t believe you are asking this now. In the 70s, I don’t believe any of these yokels would have been elected. Lauren Beaubert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Trump, they’ve all done things and said things that are so far over the line, it isn’t even funny. Nixon? Please, he would be small potatoes today.

Why? Gerrymandering. Social Media. Lack of critical thinking skills. A sense of hopelessness. Apathy. Billionaire brainwashing. The list goes on. The strange thing is, conservatives want to go back to the way things were. For them that means when women had to go to back alleys to get abortions, when gays were stoned, when blacks weren’t allowed to vote. For me it means when people didn’t justify these ridiculous notions, but instead just said, “No!”