“I hope that you will forgive me if I’m a little angry that we are indifferent to his erratic behavior, his obvious mental decline, his history as a convicted felon, a known slum lord, a predator found liable for sexual abuse — all of this while we pick apart Kamala’s answers from interviews that he doesn’t even have the courage to do, y’all,” she said.
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/26/nx-s1-5166173/michelle-obama-kamala-harris-donald-trump-abortion
A big part of this election is winning the Obama-Trump-Biden swing voter over to Kamala again. How do you get a mushy moderate with ambivalent feelings toward the two major parties to take your side?
Kamala’s strategy is to raise her own profile by going on interviews and presenting herself as an appealing replacement for Biden. Trump’s strategy is to host large events and wait for his statements to be reported by the constantly-trying-to-sound-neutral national media.
But I think we’re past the point of talking about how candidates present themselves. If you were turned off by Trump’s ramblings or his white nationalism or his Elon fetish, you’d have showed up for Kamala on the first day of early voting. If you can’t stomach Kamala’s brand of market liberalism and her progressive stance on LGBTQ/Abortion issues, you’d have mailed in your vote for Trump a week ago.
What do you say to someone who is still reachable, but not yet committed, as a voter? “Um… actually, the media is being very unfair to my candidate”? No shit. Western media doesn’t exist to be fair, it exists to make money. What else have you got?
Western media doesn’t exist to be fair, it exists to make money.
This is so, so true and goes both ways. People are like, “why doesn’t The Media refute Trump’s lies” or “they’re not promoting Harris’s policies!”
Even the most left/progressive media still exists to generate clicks and views. You can’t expect them to defend Democracy when you’re too lazy to.
You can’t expect them to defend Democracy when you’re too lazy to.
I don’t expect any single news journal to “Defend Democracy”, because I’m not sure what that would even look like? But I will say, I get much better and more reliable press from journals that run fewer ads. The Texas Tribune and the Houston Landing are far and away better than the Houston Chronicle, which is constantly swarming my screen with banner ads and feeding a river of pop-ups into uBlock.
But, I guess, if you just want to hear good news about Democrats, tune into a podcast that’s produced by a bunch of Dem campaign staffers. Pod Save America has been around for nearly a decade. The Daily Kos has been around since the first Bush term. You can get media that’s nothing but “Dems Good, Repubs Bad” if you want it. I don’t know how this defends democracy, but it does appear to be a thing some folks on here want.
The promise of fascism coming from the right. I believe they’ve talked on this too.
If that’s not enough to sway them then nothing could. That’s that. Was it worth the effort? To fend off fascism, yes.
The promise of fascism coming from the right.
There’s plenty of fascism at the center. That’s a big part of the problem with the current system. Liz Cheney and Eric Adams and Joe Manchin aren’t your friends.
If that’s not enough to sway them then nothing could.
Calling the other party “Hitler” isn’t new to this election. Republicans were smearing the internet with Obama/Hitler mashups straight back to his primary run against Hillary. If simply pointing and calling your opponent a fascist could cost them the election, nobody would ever win.
This is entirely dishonest. We’ve all heard trumps rhetoric. We know exactly his intentions because he has spoken them aloud. There is no comparison to Trump and any other person involved in US politics outside of maybe a David Duke type.
There is no comparison to Trump
There are tons of comparisons. That’s the whole fucking problem. It’s not just Trump standing at a podium, alone and out on the fringe, saying shit nobody else agrees with. He is surrounded by like-minded fascist fucks.
The Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis and Sarah Huckabee types. The old school Pat Buchanans and Duncan Hunters. The newer Matt Gaetz and Mike Johnson and Chip Roy and Laura Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene types. The Dinesh D’Souzas and Charlie Kirks and Candice Owens.
And I wish that was all of them. You’ve got guys like Eric Adams, in New York, who has adopted all of Trump’s rhetoric and applied it to his own campaign for mayor. You’ve got billionaires like Musk and Thiel and Bill Akman, who flirt with both parties as its convenient, while pushing the most reactionary and vulgar fascist ideologies. You’ve got the Cheneys and the Bill Kristols and the assorted other Lincoln Project goons, who haven’t changed one lick from their 2004 era heyday, but have found a perch in the Democratic Party after being booted from the GOP for criticizing Dear Leader Trump from the right.
maybe a David Duke type
Way more common in American politics than you want to admit. The entire Gulf Coast and much of the Midwest is flush with them.
The man literally tried to overthrow an election you fucking psychopath.
Damn. Someone should put him in jail for that.
Cheney started two pointless wars that got nearly a million people killed and left nearly every single person affected worse off except for Raytheon executives and maybe the Taliban.
Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott have enacted extreme transphobic policies. Abbott made it so that if you know a trans person receiving care and don’t rat them out to the cops, you could face legal consequences yourself - and he diverted resources from underfunded and overworked social workers away from kids facing actual abuse to breaking up loving and supportive families.
These people have had direct material impacts on the lives of everyday people - they have even had a direct material impact on me, personally. January 6th didn’t. It’s bad sure, but it’s not so much worse than the rest of the conservative platform that Trump is uniquely evil or that anyone who doesn’t see it that way is a “fucking psychopath.”
January 6th wasn’t even the worst thing he’s done, not by a longshot. Like, at least use his COVID response or immigration as your go-to example, like, something that directly affected everyday people and not just politicians.
It’s called “sane-washing” where our “liberal news media” (you know, the one that’s owned by six corporations) covers up Donald Trump’s fuck-ups or re-writes them as subtle genius.
Meanwhile Harris has to not make a single mistake, no matter how small.
Volunteer! https://go.kamalaharris.com/
its one thing to ask voting against the orange buffoon but volunteer for a flip-flop genocider ?
is there no shame left in our political system ?
No, there’s not. Liberals have fully gone mask off and are outright stating that defending their way of life is worth whatever genocide they actively choose to commit.
It’s honestly shocking living in 1930s Germany when liberals decided to support far right ideology out of fear for themselves.
So wait, you want the fascist to get elected so we can genocide harder? Or where else would this be going?
There is no worse evil than genocide. You cannot lesser evil your way out of being responsible for a genocide you’re committing. It is never the less evil choice. You’ve hit rock bottom. There’s no where else anyone can go.
I’m not going to vote for genocide. I’m not going to endorse it, fund it, or rubber stamp it out of a sense if self preservation because quite frankly that’s a pathetic excuse that only the most pathetic scum sucking coward would use.
I would rather neither fascist be elected, that the American public use their collective power to demand both parties remove themselves and a nation wide vote be held for non genocidal candidates.
But since that’s not an option and this vote truly does not matter to anyone with humanity, I chose to vote third party early, and I’ll be helping my local mutual aid networks prepare a little extra since they enemies of either a Harris or trump government.
oh thank god we have a option for softer genocide. god bless kamala for promising the kids in gaza few more years of hunger, dead parents, burning hospitals and finally sniper bullet in head or blown to pieces from bomb made & gifted by us.
once in a lifetime opportunity for us to secure a place in hell with just a vote, easy peasy.
whatever genocide they actively choose to commit.
I’m pretty sure it’s Trump that’s going to choose to commit genocides against brown and queer people. His supporters and the people behind him sure seem into the idea.
Yes that’s the second part of the second sentence little one, thank you for satirically being an example of said mask off liberal.
I am a “sad mask off liberal” because I don’t want a genocide to be committed against queer and brown people?
Does that mean you do?
Oh, sorry, I thought you were voting Harris.
I’m glad to hear you’re not voting for the genocide of brown and queer people.
So were you able to go all the way and pick de la Cruz or did you have to settle for stein thanks to dem election interference yet agai
Oh, you’re one of those people who lied after Roe got struck down about how Hillary Clinton would have picked the same sort of justices and struck Roe down.
Only one group of people has promised genocide. It isn’t Harris. You know this, so I’m not sure why you’re lying about it.
Asking about her administration’s stance on the issues isn’t wanting to be “dazzled”. It’s wanting to be informed.
Asking for defunding of genocide is also apparently the “dazzle” that’s too much.
I think they think Donald Trump is the standard. It’s important to remember that he isn’t. That’s an easy comparison, and some roadkill wins that contest. Being better than the worst isn’t enough of a selling point. 2016 proved that. Be better.
Being better than the worst isn’t enough
Be better.
Lol
2016 proved that
2016 proved that Trump would be a fucking disaster, and waiting for your perfect candidate will never happen, and probably wouldn’t win with the majority of Americans anyway.
I think it’s just that people act where their actions have effects. Making Kamala a better Kamala is something that could happen. Trump, by contrast, is immune to feedback and improvement, so nobody tries. So Trump is left to poop his pants and Kamala gets the entire world’s feedback firehosed at her.
how is this a meme ? like is there some hidden joke about harris dazzling us with the promises of continuing the genocide, increase fracking and bring anti-immigrants policies ?
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I voted party for socialism and liberation and you can too!
They’re running Claudia de la Cruz on a platform of Palestinian statehood and an end to arms shipments to israel.
If you never asked Harris to dazzle you, only to show even the smallest sign of intent to end the genocide she’s party to, why not vote for a candidate that has consistently been anti genocide this whole time!
I would love to signal for PSL but unfortunately I have to vote
As long as you don’t live in Alaska, Nevada, Montana, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Georgia or Pennsylvania you can signal for psl when you vote!
You are complaining about the wrong people. If you are upset that Trump’s supporters don’t care then yeah that’s the problem of a cult of personality.
Ð self proclaimed lefties ðat insist on being angrier about ð dems being soft on Israel ðan ðey are about Trump now openly admitting he’s provoking ðem to be even less open to ceasefire talks under ð pretense ðat he’ll let ðem off ð leash.
ngl i just downvote when I see those stupid symbols now, not decoding that
Me too. I said this in another thread- there are a significant number of people on Lemmy who only know English as a second language and this is pretty close to trolling those people. It’s just plain rude if nothing else.
Obnoxious, but fwiw, “ð” is used in Icelandic for “th”.
In Old English too, which is why this user is using that and other symbols no longer used in English.
They did the same thing with Biden.
It’s probably related to the phenomenon called “gish gallop”. It’s when someone outputs a ton of falsehoods and other junk very frequently, and other more rational individuals have to refute all those claims and pseudo arguments, look up sources, look up what’s true and what’s false, and so on. There’s an asymmetry in effort - it’s much easier and way faster for the trolls to spit out junk, falsehoods, misleading content, misleading memes, false claims, and so on, than it is to refute those and gather facts, and to do that, you also have to be very careful to make it accurate or else the listeners might go “boo that’s wrong as well, they both suck!”
And then there’s the phenomenon that even bad advertisement is advertisement. Someone whose name keeps coming up, such as Trump, because that name is constantly all over the news, each and every day, must be very important since the name is repeated so much. This automatically “elevates” that person in the minds of some voters, even though the reason for his constant mention is purely negative. So the more reports about Trump’s weird ramblings, the more he is automatically advertised.
I think it’s like a combination of such unfortunate phenomenons. The result is that real politicians have to be accurate, careful, constantly maintain a professional attitude, and carefully counter Trump’s weird claims, while Trump can just continue to spit out hostile nonsense all the time, which is so much easier.
I’m not sure what can be done against such strategies other than education and media literacy, which is probably becoming weaker over time in society. You don’t vote for proven anti-constitutional fascists, ever. If you do, you’ll always be much worse off than if you hadn’t. Even when the alternatives might also not look great overall… it should be your moral duty to always vote for the least-worst option, which means NOT Trump.
~1930ish Germany made such mistakes. Don’t repeat them. You’re now at ~100 years later and are supposed to learn from grave historic mistakes. So please show that you are actually wiser than the people ~100 years ago and don’t vote for proven fascists.
I’ve had to deal with people who are very vocally pro Trump lately and talk about him like he’s an unfairly persecuted hero. I’m long past the point of trying to reason and simply dismiss them for being fools. There’s no way they’ll change their minds after all these years of seeing him do awful things and ignoring it.
I don’t know if there’s a word for this, but when someone fails constantly, successes are noteworthy. When someone succeeds constantly, failures are noteworthy.
Edit: I wanted to add that it’s weird that the result is one side is judged on their best and the other is judged on their worst… and centrists are still 50/50 on them.
This is the fucked up part. I had to listen to a gaggle of middle-aged white ladies at work spend an hour talking up how Kamala’s campaign is a disaster, tAmPoN tIm lying about his son being near a shooting and how vance was so polite and cordial during the debate, picking apart “lies” like Walz doesn’t even know how to use guns…
…meanwhile the orange turd and the couch-fucker have been spewing off endless amounts of lies and hate including the pet-eating illegal immigrants in Ohio, the state we currently live in. And one of them had to “explain” what gerrymandering is and why they should vote to keep it in place in Ohio.
Harris whole career is a mistake. There’s nothing inspirational about a prosecutor turned genocider.
Trump only exists because the dems offer nothing much better. They could’ve beat this guy with Bernie, Michelle, etc. They chose a genocidal cop instead.
Don’t blame me for that. Voting in my state doesn’t even matter.
There’s no local races in your state? No bills, amendments, or measures to vote on? House or Senate races, nothing? k
I think it’s probably better to not encourage someone like this to vote.
Hahaha fair point
“Votink does not matter tovarisch, I do not even bother and nobody should my fellow American youth, do you know what I be saying my dog?”
Yeah? How many people has she killed?
How many people has she asked to kill?
You’re a genocidal mistake if we use your logic
She’s asked Israel for a ceasefire publicly, you’ve just trash talked on Lemmy and ignored her requests for a ceasefire
You’re sitting here on Lemmy, you should be out there at Gaza.
It sure is easy to do a better job behind a computer screen. If you aren’t genocidal, prove it by going out there and fighting
Voting in my state doesn’t even matter.
please please for a 3rd party. we need to show that the people want an alternative to these child murdering parasites and the data to show for it it. its a long fight and even it doesn’t get to 5%, getting closer to it will be a step in the right direction.
No, a better short term goal is to get away from the First Past the Post system. Something like STAR voting. Those third parties would benefit themselves by working towards better voting systems locally.
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