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As much as I'd like to celebrate, I can only think about how the attitude was the same regarding Hillary, and we all saw how that turned out. Fingers crossed.
People hated Hillary though. I know everyone who liked her wanted to say it was sexism but the Clinton's are fucking crooks. I don't like that Kamala put a bunch of people in prison for weed but there isn't any evidence that she killed people for political gain.
Hell, Hillary even kept Henry Kissinger around while campaigning Somehow thinking that was a good idea? Basically a hello America, look at this war criminal I am good friends with, let me talk at length about how amazing this war criminal is. To say she was out of touch would be a bit of an understatement.
To be fair, Kissinger was pretty amazing at being a war criminal.
100%. Fuck political dynasties.
Yeah. Lot of misogynists out there.
It's the truth, though... If trump could beat out Hillary, Kamala stands no chance in hell.
Edit: Quit reading into this. It's an opinion based on observation. It's fine if you disagree and want to tell me why I'm wrong. I welcome that. But assuming I'm pro-trump or anti-harris because of this comment is an assumption you shouldn't be making. I said nothing to indicate support for either.
The energy around Clinton was different, even most dems weren't thrilled with Hillary and she was unpopular with undecided voters, meanwhile we know and have seen the threat that is Trump, and Harris is fairing better so far.
We'll see of course, but it's not as similar as it might seem if you're just saying "Woman vs Trump is the same"
I agree. Doesn't feel the same at all to me. Kamala is a likeable person and candidate.
Also Waltz was a great pick for VP
I wish you were joking.
Why? Clarify for me, I've only seen relatively good things about him.
This is from a more detailed comment I made:
"Tim waltz (and family) finances. Facts: Tim owns no stock, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs. He owns no real estate, investment property, or otherwise (neither does his wife). He also has no 401k, IRA, or any retirement fund. His net worth is estimated to be 115,000$ to 330,000$. All this is not great, considering he's 60(ish?) nearing retirement. the average net worth for congresspeople and senators is around $1 million. His only legitimate source of income is his pension.
Pros or cons, we can decide for ourselves if all this makes him a better candidate for VP or not. We can make some assumptions, and one assumption I can make is that waltz personally seems to be financially ignorant.
There are other pros and cons about Waltz, but as far as finances, Tim Waltz is a scrub. And I think that these facts are very important when considering electing him into a position where he's at the controls for financial decisions for an ENTIRE country... whatever side you lean toward, all this should be concerning."
There are reasons, but what sticks out to me is that he seems financially illiterate. Neither he nor his wife own a home or any other assets. He owns no business. No stocks, bonds, securities, 401K or investments anywhere. Waltz ownz nothing... None of this is bad, necessarily, if you're a regular citizen, but I'd want/expect someone running for Vice President to be more financially savvy.
Tim waltz is a scrub
That all seems like positives to me 🤷♂️ no incentives to misue the power for personal gain in any of those particular subjects.
We've got enough mega wealthy in government imo.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/06/tim-walz-policy-record-guide-00172844
Seems like a lot of positives to me, but absolutely willing to hear anything else you might have in mind.
100%. I was so disgusted with how the democrats shoved Bernie under the rug that I voted 3rd party. I also had a small glimmer of hope that Trump would tack left on at least a few things. I won't be making that mistake again.
Are you me?
It didn't help that I knew several left leaning people who don't really get politics and voted for Trump "for the meme" not thinking he'd actually win... Dumb dumb lol
Yeah. Don’t get caught out by the fact that 74 million people voted for him last time tho. I’ve always been a fairly 3rd party leaning voter, but no more.
Well we've certainly reached hell to find out.
I already have popcorn. Have had it going non stop for years.
Wouldn't be sure:
Circumstances are different, and I don't think people were specifically excited over Hilary. I think some were excited about "a" woman candidate, but not really Clinton in particular.
FTFY
I disagree a little bit. If Biden had dropped out earlier, we would have a proper Democratic primary season and to have some other politicians run and make a case for themselves. It feels like Kamala Harris was appointed to be the successor. Of course she would still need to win the general election, but I still feel uneasy that within the party, there was no democratic process.
True, but given the timing of when he did drop out, Harris is about as close to approximating a democratic choice as they could manage. She at least was on the ticket in the 2020 election so people did technically vote for her as VP in 2020, with everyone knowing that an 80 year old man becoming incapacitated would mean she would be president. They are at least following the succession as was voted for. Any other person would have absolutely been a "coronation" of sorts on that timescale.
While you may say "but people don't really pay too much attention to the VP", I'd say that Palin tanked McCain's chances by being obviously unfit for office.
I will note the idea Harris was picked at the 2020 primaries is bunk, people don't vote on a President/VP ticket then(though that would be an interesting system). Harris was picked by Biden, and while she was on the 2020 ticket in the national election it's impossible to say how many people she swayed.
I don't think she's perfect, but unlike Hillary at least Harris was picked by circumstance, even if unfortunate circumstance, not appointed years in advance like Hillary was. (Hillary had been intending to go for it after she gained some political experience and Bill's scandal faded. Al Gore was supposed to carry the democrats, but that didn't work out, and JFK Jr who was being courted for a 2004 run died in a plane crash in 1999, so they had to work with John Kerry which didn't go well. Then Hillary was ready and initially had party favor, but Obama came in like a locomotive without brakes: All the DNC's horses and all the RNCs men couldn't stop Obama in 08, no my friend)
Also that second to last point isn't 100%, but there's a lot of rumor and evidence to suggest the plan at the end of Clinton's term was to bring in Gore, and then either when he lost or ran out his terms JFK Jr. was to be the next guy in line. Him dying and Al Gore losing put them in a tough spot in 2004.
It's kinda funny because Harris was kinda seen as a non-starter for a while as the VP, even among leftists, feels like that feeling has changed recently though.
I will say it still wasn't very democratic, they could have done some kinds of snap elections if they really cared, but they don't lol.
There's no way they could have pulled off any vaguely credible election from scratch with about a months warning.
You really think that wouldn't be possible in 2024? I think it would have been a huge undertaking for sure, but damn would it have given a lot of potential goodwill 🤷♂️
My point was the timing. It wasn't good for any other candidates but the incumbent.
Even if we did voted for Harris as VP, that was 4 years ago. Democracy is not just about a one-time voting, but having regular elections every 4 years. I may have voted for Harris as the VP as part of the ticket, but I should be allowed to change my mind 4 years later to vote for someone else.
One of my biggest gripes about our two-party system is the lack of competition within both parties. Every 4 years, we are presented with candidates from each respective party and then we're asked choose the "lesser of the two evils". It sucks.
Overconfident is an understatement. I remember people thinking that Trump was the end of the Republican party, some people actually said that the party would be forced to disband after their crushing defeat in 2016.
Even many Democrats didn't like Hillary, but the idea of Trump winning was outright laughable to many. I think that combination of "I don't want to vote for her" and "there's no way she can lose" left a lot of people at home twiddling their thumbs instead of going out to vote.
Even putting that aside, the "bad" was also underestimated.
So Trump gets 4 years before we can vote him out, he's bad, but how bad could it be.
Folks didn't think about the number of supreme court justices that would go over.
Folks certainly didn't expect January 6th to go down the way it did and for there to be lingering aftermath of "if we win again, we will overtly rig the system to prevent losing again".
So I hope people view the stakes as higher and the GOP as more dangerous than people would have guessed in 2016.
I know a lot of people who assumed she would win and later claimed their lack of voting is because of incorrect polls. Very frustrating to hear.
I heard many frustrating narratives after low t "won" in 2016. Things like "Democrats are just as bad" (so they voted for Stein or stayed at home), Hillary was gonna take all the gunz, didn't like her laugh/wouldn't want to have a beer with her, some fell for low t's ridiculous talk about what he was going to do for parents (tax credit and/or some child daycare).
Most exasperating of all were the types that were like "ACA is not perfect, therefore I'm gonna vote for the guy that will fix it". 🤦♂️
Still got the 5th most votes of any presidential candidate ever. (1st is Biden 2020 and 2nd is Trump 2020, 3rd is 08 Obama, 4th is 2012 Obama)
Hilary lost because she sucked major ass. I didn't vote in 2016 because fuck political dynasties, and the DNC did everything it could to prevent Bernie from getting the nomination, which unfortunately worked. Being less young and stupid, I probably would have voted for her if I were in 2016 again. I would have hated it though, just as I would have hated voting for Biden but would have done so. I'm not particularly excited about Kamala but she's definitely a lot more palatable with SO much more appeal than Hillary or Biden had.
The stupid thing was that they didn't need to do their dirty tricks. The things like what DWS in Arizona were well after Bernie was mathematically out of the running. I'm a Bernie fan and I voted for him in the primaries in California, but he lost on Super Tuesday (well before CA and AZ voted). He failed to capture the votes and was not really in contention.
I think Hilary lost for three reasons. 1. Republicans had their smear machine running on her for over a decade. Propaganda works. 2. Her public speaking persona was bad. I heard her speak in a more normal conversation and she sounded smart, articulate, and hitting all the right points. I was impressed. But her speech giving persona was bad and came across as snobbish. 3. Sexism. It's not THE reason she lost, but I think there was and is a vein of that running through America. "What if it's her time of the month and she has her finger on the big red button?" "Blood coming out of her whatever", etc.
I think time has proven out that she would have been a 10x better president than Trump. Just like Gore would have been 10x better than Bush. So much less death, so much better policy. If they'd been elected, the world would be a different place today. (Stupid undemocratic electoral college system)
The vast right wing conspiracy literally had decades to create a false narrative around Hillary, though.
"Time" is the greatest clarifier. This narrative you're talking about isn't made from lies about Hillary. It is about things that were called called lies at first, but then, over time, were proven to be correct. But by they time they were proven correct, hardly anyone cared about it anymore, the focus had shifted to other topics, and the MSM hardly reported on it.