Good. Fuckem. Live in fear, and hopefully, in a supermax in the near future.
She’d better start at 150%, going out the gate guns blazing, sights focused on being louder than the Republicans are used to.
The Dems are too soft spoken; they need to be more fierce, especially against the trump party of the last few years.
I hate to engage in stereotype, but I really hope Kamala Harris plays up the black woman trope of being vocal and adamant about calling out the bullshit they know everyone can see. We’ve had too many white male presidents who embody the white male trope of failing upwards.
I think in this case it would be flexing her DA skills.
That would be really interesting and fun to watch. But cue the “You see this angry black woman 🖐️, typical black woman, we all know it 🫲🫱, totally unhinged👌, imagine the damage she would do, clearly 🫲🫱 unfit to be president.”
You say that like this isn’t the game plan no matter what Harris does. Why concern yourself with what Republicans will do when you already know it will be the option only a huge piece of shit would pick?
The hands really sold it for me holy shit that’s hilariously awful.
I don’t think that kind of response will sway any voters toward Trump who were otherwise undecided, and might push more black Trump voters (I doubt there are many of them left) to switch to supporting Kamala instead
There is an astounding number of religious black Trump voters. It’s disheartening.
Man, I hope he falls back into his victim role and can’t get out anymore. 100% of this man is charisma for some reason.
Paywall
LOn the evening of Super Tuesday, March 5, shortly before Donald Trump effectively ended the Republican primary and earned a general-election rematch with President Joe Biden, I asked the co-managers of Trump’s presidential campaign what they feared most about Biden.
“Honestly, it’s less him,” Chris LaCivita told me. “And more—”
“Institutional Democrats,” Susie Wiles said, finishing her partner’s thought.
It was a revealing exchange, and a theme we would revisit frequently. The Democratic Party, Wiles and LaCivita would tell me in conversations over the coming months, was a machine—well organized and well financed, with a record of support from the low-propensity voters who turn out every four years in presidential contests. Ordinarily, they explained, Democrats would have structural superiority in a race like this one. But something was holding the party back: Biden.
LaCivita and Wiles expected the campaign’s narrative to be controlled by Democrats from the beginning: Trump, after all, had sabotaged the peaceful transition of power after the 2020 election, incited an attack on the U.S. Capitol, and, more recently, faced numerous criminal prosecutions and the possibility of jail time. And yet Biden offered an opening. Already the oldest president in American history, he began to show signs of rapid deterioration in 2023. This would make the campaign a game of survival more than skill, each candidate needing to convince voters that he was less disqualified than his opponent.
Read: Trump is planning for a landslide win
In the race to clear historically low hurdles, Trump began pulling ahead. Polls showed him making unprecedented gains with those low-propensity demographics, specifically Black and Hispanic voters—not because of anything he was doing particularly well, but because of apathy and disillusionment within the Democratic base. As far back as springtime, the numbers told a straightforward story: Biden was not going to win. Democrats could only look on, powerless, as the president denied the party’s young bench—and its organizational machine—a chance to change the narrative.
“I don’t think Joe Biden has a ton of advantages,” Wiles told me on Super Tuesday. “But I do think Democrats do.”
She and LaCivita were right to worry.
Biden’s departure from the presidential race this afternoon—hours after his top surrogates had insisted that he would carry on—is the culmination of a remarkable pressure campaign, launched after his calamitous June 27 debate performance and aimed at pushing the president into retirement. On the Republican side, it caps a frenetic four-month stretch in which Trump’s campaign went from cocky about Biden’s deficiencies to fearful of his ouster to stunned at the sudden letter from Biden doing the thing Republicans thought he’d never do.
Republicans I spoke with today, some of them still hungover from celebrating what felt to many like a victory-night celebration in Milwaukee, registered shock at the news of Biden’s departure. Party officials had left town believing the race was all but over. Now they were confronting the reality of reimagining a campaign—one that had been optimized, in every way, to defeat Biden—against a new and unknown challenger. “So, we are forced to spend time and money on fighting Crooked Joe Biden, he polls badly after having a terrible debate, and quits the race,” a clearly peeved Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. “Now we have to start all over again.”
For months, in talking with Wiles and LaCivita, I was struck by their concern about the potential of a dramatic switch—Democratic leaders pushing out Biden in favor of a younger nominee. They told me that Trump’s campaign was readying contingency plans and studying the weaknesses of would-be alternatives, beginning with Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time of the debate, however, they believed that Democrats’ window had all but closed. Even in the immediate aftermath—as Democratic officials openly called for Biden to quit—Wiles and LaCivita were betting on the status quo. More than anything, Trump’s allies believed that the president’s stubborn Irish ego wouldn’t let him back out of a fight with a man he despised.
But they couldn’t take any chances. Two weeks ago, according to a campaign source who spoke with me on the condition of anonymity, Trump’s pollster Tony Fabrizio went into the field to begin testing the outcomes of a Harris-versus-Trump matchup. These surveys, conducted across several battleground states, represented the most concrete step taken to prepare for the possibility of a new adversary. Still, with the polling a tightly held secret—I couldn’t verify the results—there were no outward signs of Trump’s operation expecting a reset. When convention speakers reached out to the GOP nominee’s campaign, gauging whether to hedge their speeches with attacks on Harris, they were told to keep the focus on Biden.
Read: Biden’s greatest strengths proved his undoing
In many ways, the convention scene was one of a party peaking too early. Campaigns are marathons measured by changes in momentum and narrative, and Republicans in Milwaukee reveled in what felt like a three-week winning streak, dating back to the debate, in which the daily churn of insider gossip focused ever more on Democratic fatalism and Trump’s seeming inevitability. No Republican I spoke with could remember a longer stretch of uninterrupted forward propulsion. And with Biden appearing to dig in, they left Milwaukee believing that this run of luck might never end.
The president’s abrupt exit dashed any such fantasy. Suddenly, Republicans who had boasted last week about expanding the electoral map—pushing into Minnesota and Virginia and other decidedly blue areas—were fretting about the possibility of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro or Arizona Senator Mark Kelly joining the Democratic ticket, partnering with Harris to put back into play key battlegrounds that just 24 hours earlier seemed to be out of reach.
Given the historic volatility of this campaign—Trump survived an assassination attempt just last weekend—there’s no guarantee that Harris will ultimately succeed Biden atop the ticket. The Trump campaign certainly believes she will—understandably so, given the rapid consolidation of Democratic officials around her following Biden’s announcement—and blasted out a statement Sunday afternoon that tied Harris to her unpopular boss. “Kamala Harris is just as much of [a] joke as Biden is,” Wiles and LaCivita said in a statement. “Harris will be even WORSE for the people of our Nation than Joe Biden. Harris has been the Enabler in Chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two.”
This is the essence of what Trump’s campaign believes—that any Democrat who picks up the party’s banner will inherit the baggage that made Biden unelectable. Republicans will point to historic inflation, millions of illegal border crossings, and geopolitical chaos from Eastern Europe to the Middle East as evidence that the entire Democratic Party has failed the American people. “We’ve talked about strength versus weakness, success versus failure,” LaCivita told me before the convention, summarizing the campaign’s strategic vision for the race. “The great thing about that messaging is that it’s not just unique to Joe Biden.”
But messaging is a secondary concern for Democrats. What they need first is a messenger.
It’s true that Harris will struggle to shed some policy-related criticisms; her appointment early in her vice presidency to handle the southern border, in fact, could make her even more vulnerable to immigration-related attacks than Biden was. It’s also true, however, that policy criticisms aren’t what made Biden unelectable in the eyes of most Americans. In an evenly divided and exceedingly polarized nation, Biden lost ground—with his party’s base as well as with independents—because he was perceived to be too old and infirm to serve another four years in office.
Harris is neither of those things. At 59 years old, she is two decades younger than Trump and will have no trouble keeping up with him on the campaign trail or the debate stage. She is also a former prosecutor who, if anything, is known for being too tough on crime. (Trump allies told me they plan to assault her left flank with accusations of Harris over-incarcerating young men of color when she was California’s attorney general.) At the very least, Trump’s lieutenants realize, Harris’s promotion will provide a desperately needed jolt to Democrats nationwide in the form of fundraising, volunteerism, and enthusiasm. Whatever her flaws as a politician—Harris ran a dreadful primary campaign for president in 2020, marked by organizational infighting and awkward sound bites—she does not possess the one flaw that proved insurmountable for Biden.
Read: Trump versus the coconut-pilled
Trump’s campaign insists that nothing has changed. Wiles and LaCivita are telling their team that given the obstacles Trump has already overcome—prosecutions, a conviction, an assassination attempt that nearly killed him—a new nominee for the Democrats is just another log on the 2024 inferno.
But they know it’s more than that. They know that from the moment they partnered with Trump, everything they intended for this campaign—
the messaging, the advertising, the microtargeting, the ground game, the mail pieces, the digital engagement, the social-media maneuvers—was designed to defeat Joe Biden. Even the selection of Ohio’s Senator J. D. Vance as Trump’s running mate, campaign officials acknowledged, was something of a luxury meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter.
The mentality of this Trump campaign, LaCivita once told me, is to spend every day on offense. The team wants to shape the pace and substance of every news cycle and force Democrats to react, ensuring that key battles are fought on the GOP’s chosen terrain. It worked so well that Biden was ruined before his party’s convention. Now the Trump operation is vowing to destroy Harris—if, in fact, she becomes the nominee—in much the same way.
And yet, for a campaign that went to bed Saturday believing that it would dictate the terms of the election every day until November 5, Sunday brought an unfamiliar feeling of powerlessness. For the first time in a long time, Trump does not control the narrative of 2024.
All those young women who didn’t want to choose between old white guys now have a choice: someone who stands up for choice.
And you’re going to have to debate a prosecutor.
You’re going to look so weak and whiny either way.
You just had your best month.
It’s all downhill from here.
And someday, not soon, but sooner than you want, you’re going to hear more Guilty verdicts.
And despite the bandage on your ear, you’re going to hear that loud clang when the cell door shuts.
Best of all, you’ll be on the hard, small side of that door.
Alone.
I’m amused at the notion that Trump’s “best month” includes getting shot at. I hope you’re right and that all the rest of his months are worse than that!
Trump getting shot is the literal high point of his campaign. There will not be another event that had so much potential to turn his campaign around. If that demented diaper shitting fucknugget can’t even get a sympathetic bump from getting a ballistic ear piercing, his campaign is doomed. Especially since his rhetoric change didn’t last 20 minutes.
I don’t think anyone honestly believes he was shot.
His ear would be fucking gone.
He got it scratched and as unhealthy and old as he is, he has to be on blood thinners. A small scratch blleds like crazy, and the majority of his voters are probably on blood thinners so they know
I don’t think anyone honestly believes he was shot.
THAT is known propaganda being pushed by Russian and Chinese bots.
So the only real question is…which are you?
Kindly refer to community rule #3.
I’m aware of that Rule but in this case there’s actual research showing that this is disinformation being intentionally pushed by known bad actors.
I’ll remove the offending 2nd sentence but it doesn’t change anything.
Please explain to me what you think happened that day.
Piece of glass shrapnel hit his ear.
He scratched he’d his ear, I just said that in more detail…
What part are you coming infused about?
So he scratches his ear and a guy behind him drops dead. Wow, Trump really is a god.
You think a bullet passed thru his ear and killed someone?
I thought it was confirmed he was only grazed by a glass shard from a teleprompter, not the actual bullet?
I’ve seen rear video of the podium when he was shot. Neither teleprompter made a bobble
That was reported by the police initially to two news agencies that have since retracted the articles.
This is just nitpicking. Being barely grazed still falls under the overarching umbrella of “gunshot wound”, even if it doesn’t conjure the same mental image as we’d normally have.
If a soldier on a battlefield gets barely nicked and goes “I think I got shot!” nobody is going to argue about the details.
The weakest point of the Trump campaign is Trump himself. He’s a known quantity, and given the biggest shake-up in the last 40 years of presidential campaigns, he wasn’t able to keep up the “unity” facade for a single speech. Just a poor and certainly beatable politician.
someone who stands up for choice.
The someone who failed to codify roe when he had a majority and has done fuckall except campaign on it since?
debate a prosecutor.
Trump’s staff would never agree to such a debate, they have to know his brain is nearly as mushy as Biden’s. Then again, I’m usually only surprised by malice or incompetence, which isn’t exactly in short supply over there.
It’s all downhill from here.
The dems barely scraped by in 2020, and that’s with everyone thinking they’re gonna get the most progressive president since FDR.
Instead they got an end to covid protections, quadrupling child poverty, more immigrants arrested than Trump, a genocide, and kids beaten up for protesting that genocide, each of which will decrease turnout among democratic constituencies.
Best of all, you’ll be on the hard, small side of that door.
When you were a kid, how many years did you watch scooby doo before figuring out that the monster is always some guy with a mask?
We been hearing this story for literally 10 years at this point. It always plays out the same, trump is either found innocent or gets a slap on the wrist and it has no effect on the right-wing’s political influence.
If they were gonna lock him up to stop him from campaigning as effectively, the time to do it was months ago
“Awfully skittish, Toombs.”
Truly, this copium gives me even more hopium. Thank you.
Anyways bystanders observe the immediate tactical pivot to sowing apathy and defeatism.
I have to say I was against replacing Biden, but seeing how salty some of the want-to-kill-America crowd is getting about it, I am starting to warm significantly to Harris
I was pro replacing Biden two years ago, and anti replacing him now. This is a disaster, and I hope Harris can pull it together. It is exactly what Trump and the Republicans wanted.
But I am encouraged by the first steps her campaign has taken. It only makes me angrier at Biden, though.
I was pro replacing Biden up until about Thursday of last week, and then I sorta resolved myself to him staying around. On Friday and Saturday I was hopeful that he’d get some kinda boost from something, somewhere, but I didn’t have any ideas as to what that would be.
When he announced he wasn’t going to be running yesterday I was a bit stunned. I wanted to take a slow approach to processing what was going on.
After reading what I’ve read today, I’m genuinely excited for a Harris / ??? ticket. I think she probably dropped out of the race so early in 2020 because she was going to be given this opportunity in 2024 if she dropped 2020. Looks like it’s working out now. In retrospect, and putting the pieces together today, I don’t think Biden was ever going to be the 2024 candidate; but that the strategy was to wait to make the switch until after the RNC. In hindsight, I am actually approving of what the Democrats are doing for once and not embarrassed that they’re too conservative, or rolling over.
My only issue with replacing Biden is that the libs will have a stab-in-the-back myth or some other story to tell themselves instead of “Triangulating our policies to be as dogshit as possible without passing the republicans depresses voter turnout”
My only issue with replacing Biden is
Not true, I am extremely confident that if I look over your history I can find some instance of some reason why Harris is an unsuitable replacement
the libs will have a stab-in-the-back myth or some other story to tell themselves
No idea what you’re even talking about
“Triangulating our policies to be as dogshit as possible without passing the republicans depresses voter turnout"
I need to make up a little song incorporating half a trillion dollars spent on climate change, massive corporate tax increases, higher wages for working people, and a stronger NLRB backstopping all these union gains from the last few years. I’ve literally typed the list so many times that my brain starts to glaze over and get bored before I can finish typing it.
Honestly, that’s part of why I didn’t want to replace Biden with Harris, is that Biden was inarguably a step forward for people who exist in the non-millionaire world, which our system doesn’t produce all that often, and I was reluctant to let him go.
Not true, I am extremely confident that if I look over your history I can find some instance of some reason why Harris is an unsuitable replacement
I mean I’ve called her copmala and been horrified at her saying she believed Tara Reid at a debate, and then accepting VP because “It was a debate”, but next to the '94 crime bill guy, she looks like a prison abolitionist, and a rapist’s VP is still an improvement to the rapist himself.
No idea what you’re even talking about
You haven’t seen all the articles pissed off at the dems and the news for turning on Biden? Hell even here on Lemmy there were people that way. Even though electorally, only the 65+ “don’t take my car-keys” constituency showed greater preference for Biden than kamala.
I’ve literally typed the list so many times that my brain starts to glaze over and get bored before I can finish typing it.
Just put together the bullet points and let ChatGPT do the rest.
Eh, I actually tried that at one point, because the mods got mad at me for copy-pasting a long and detailed list of things with citations that Biden had done, on every one of those arguments whenever someone would ask what Biden has ever done for the average American. I wasn’t happy with the results though. I more or less just resigned myself to typing out the whole list in Jesus-Christ-not-this-shit-again short summary list format.
Thank you very much for taking the time and the trouble and for making the rest of us a bit better informed.
failed to codify roe when he
mushy as Biden’s
Looks like somebody didn’t get the updated script yet.
mushy as Biden’s
My point is that Trump’s team isn’t gonna agree to a debate unless they’re wildly incompetent at their job, since they have to know Trump’s brain only looks functional next to Biden, and now Biden is out of the picture.
Let me know if you have any other issues with your reading comprehension.
Thanks, but I’ll pass on any comprehension tips from a guy who thinks Kamala was ever in a position to codify Roe.
Everyone thinking we’d get the most progressive president since FDR?! What are you smoking. I don’t know a single progressive that thought Biden was a progressive
Oh my lord. That was beautiful.
Kamala does seem like the type that would go hard on those fuckers if she gets in. Lets hope.
As hard as she went on the prisoners she refused to release when their time was up? Or as hard as she did on truancy?
Bad Bot
Ad hom attacks because you can’t justify her record?
Reading this gave me good feels, thanks for the morning endorphins.
Should we review her record as a prosecutor?
As Putin would have it, it shall be done
And you’re going to have to debate a prosecutor.
Everyone seems really enthusiastic about the prospect of another debate, but I don’t think Trump agrees to another debate. Why would he?
It’s already on the books for Sept 10. If Donny turns tail, Kamala just gets an open platform with the whole country watching to lay out her platform and point out Trump isn’t there because he is incapable of forming a plan he can stand up and defend.
It’s a win-win for her, no matter what he does. His only hope is to play the game and not look like a fool…. Is that possible?
Harris just needs to tell everyone he’s afraid to debate her.
His ego won’t take it.
He should be afraid. Whatever fear he may have, it’s probably not enough. Sleepy Ramblin’ Don is no match for Harris! He’s afraid of powerful black women. He’s too chicken to take her on and too inadequate. He knows it. We know it. Poor weak stupid Don. Sad!
Especially if they lean into the race/gender aspects. Can you imagine how frothed up his base would be at the notion that he’s scared to debate a black woman?
Yeah, he won’t. The question is how much and in what way he bluffs. I’m sure his campaign is calculating how long he can wait to cancel before the debate time, without TV stations running the time slot anyway with just Harris.
I’d like to see it personally. But you’re right, it might not happen, he’s already whining that he won’t do it unless the venue is changed from. ABC to Fox News. We’ll see what happens though.
Ego.
