From the Article:
For weeks following Joe Biden’s disastrous performance, his campaign publicly maintained the illusion that he was still well-positioned to defeat Donald Trump. Privately, they knew otherwise. As Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau revealed days after the election:
After the debate, the Biden people told us that the polls were fine, and Biden was still the strongest candidate. They were privately telling reporters, at the time, that Kamala Harris couldn’t win. […] Then we find out, when the Biden campaign becomes the Harris campaign, that the Biden campaign’s own internal polling, at the time when they were telling us he was the strongest candidate, showed that Donald Trump was going to win 400 electoral votes.
The implications of this are staggering, and it should be treated as a massive scandal.
The campaign was fine. Americans are the problem. They’re too ignorant.
If we’re going to blame this ignorance on anyone we might consider blaming the media. Odd how we aren’t seeing a lot of articles from the media saying the media failing to give information to people about how bad Trump is. But linked above is something from the media blaming a political campaign for not doing their jobs for them.
Still not doing any introspection about waiting until after the election to explain why Trump’s “economic plan” will be a disaster, huh? Didn’t bother to explain anything about what causes inflation. Wouldn’t want people to think it’s something to do with it being a free market, and not caused by the government. Nope, it’s up to the campaigns to explain economics to people in 30 second TV spots.
So the media will continue blame the Democrats for all the problems, while wondering “why couldn’t the democrats win the election”? Must be the democrats fault! It’s like we’ve always been saying, it’s always their fault! We should never think about what the effect of us blaming one party for everything might be.
But mostly it was just Americans taking democracy for granted. Don’t know what you got until you’ve lost it I guess.
The campaign was complete garbage, though. In a Rolling Stone article, it details on how many advisors and Democratic party operatives were begging her campaign to not bring in Liz Cheney because any gains would essentially be eclipsed by other Democratic voters that otherwise stayed home.
A Democratic strategist says they warned key Harris surrogates and top-level officials at the Democratic National Committee that campaigning with Liz Cheney […] was highly unlikely to motivate any new swing voters, and risked dissuading already-despondent, infrequent Democratic voters who had supported Biden in 2020
I also understand that your main points are on how political commentators and news anchors on TV chose not to encourage Harris to tackle issues on the economy, but an Atlantic article essentially tells us that Harris torpedoed her anti-big business rhetoric when she brought in her brother-in-law into the campaign itself.
While Harris was stuck defending the Biden economy, and hobbled by lingering anger over inflation, attacking Big Business allowed her to go on the offense. Then, quite suddenly, this strain of populism disappeared. One Biden aide told me that Harris steered away from such hard-edged messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer
Honestly, how big of a role does media have in swaying her campaign into talking about important issues (such as the economy, like you pointed out) if she willingly chose to ignore the easiest slam dunks her campaign had?
Well, they couldn’t tell the truth and risk a more liberal candidate.
I honestly have a hard time believing it was ideology and not the good, old fashioned inability of boomers to let go of power.
Edit: Not talking about the Democratic establishment. Speaking specifically about Biden refusing to step down until it was too late.
Biden is silent gen, the generation before boomers.
But yeah all the old politicians clinging to the levers of power because they’re selfish is a part of what has led us to this point.
It’s not even just old politicians, it’s every aspect of society, at least that’s my experience
You’d have a hard time believing a lot then, because that’s what actual voters were saying. If Harris had been more left-leaning in appearance, they wouldn’t have even captured the shift they did grab.
Clearly she didn’t support genocide hard enough or get the endorsement of enough Cheneys.
For your liking.
To anyone reading Ensign’s comment and downvoting, their claim is essentially an already established fact. Rolling Stone put out an article after the election saying that the Harris campaigned intentionally ignored Democratic party insiders and their advice and polling data against bringing the Cheneys on board.
A Democratic strategist says they warned key Harris surrogates and top-level officials at the Democratic National Committee that campaigning with Liz Cheney — and making the campaign’s closing argument about how many Republicans were supporting Harris — was highly unlikely to motivate any new swing voters, and risked dissuading already-despondent, infrequent Democratic voters who had supported Biden in 2020.
“We were told, basically, to get lost, no thank you,” says the operative.
Nah the article makes it clear the Democratic leadership has been captured by corporate executives who have a vested interest in not giving the working class an inch.
It’s hard to truly know what went on behind the scenes, but there was a large amount of common disdain for Biden staying in the race after “we beat Medicare” - anyone who hadn’t already been clued into his cognitive decline was suddenly confronted with that reality, and people knew he was a clear loser at that point.
For Biden the floor only fell out beneath him after Nancy Pelosi and the donor class publicly announced they wanted Joe out NOW that the DNC/Biden camp realized the gig was up.
Yet, under his leadership, Minnesota passed some of the most ambitious progressive legislation in the country, including a child tax credit, universal free school meals, and free tuition at public colleges for families earning under $80,000 per year. Walz also delivered major labor victories, including paid family and medical leave and worker protections like banning non-compete clauses and anti-union captive audience meetings.
Nooooo Democrats ignore working peoplllllle! They’re terrible for the underserved!! Everyone knows that that’s why they looooossst!!
Turns out when economy bad stupid people vote out the incumbent.
Also white and Latino men have masculinity issues that prevent them from voting for women.
Ain’t that the truth. Fuck.
Even more so for a black woman.
I heard she’s an indian black woman
And the weed.
they’ll try to run the exact same plan in 2028 if we let them. Its all they know how to do.
