No Stupid Questions

It is the way of Dems vs GOP.

And Fox essentially being a GOP mouthpiece.

"See! She's not perfect, so you cant criticize trump for any of his flaws or you are a hypocrite!"

All politicians are the same! Our quarterback is cooler than your girl! Go Red team!

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 the media, which supplies political "information" to the masses (a) wants to sensationalize things for viewership/ratings and (b) is generally owned by extremely right/conservative/Republican entities and will not allow it to be a fair representation between the two candidates.

And more than that the MAGA side doesn't campaign on or care about political policy because their base doesn't know or care about policy, they campaign on hate and dirt and smear. So you could explain all the awesome policy of the other side until your throat is sore, they won't care because policy is not their concern.

It's funny to see the latest moanfest from Trump, claiming no-fair because he spent $100m campaigning against Biden and now that's all a waste. That's the thing. He/they aren't campaigning for issues or policy, they are fighting against an individual. It's all they know how to do and all their base really cares about.

Because Trump

Might be her skin color, might be her gender, might be misogyny, or it might be racism.

Because the media is running the same game they did with Hillary Clinton playing "hardball" when in reality theyre chums.

Part of the issue is the push by many left-wing voters to get actually progressive politics on the table after years of alternating between regressives and complacent centrists* that prefer making small concessions to the right over big steps to the left. They don't want another presidency marked by lukewarm promises kept poorly. They're tallying up all the ways in which Harris still isn't as good as she ough to be.

For Trumpers, he is good enough. He is everything they want: A public role model enabling them to be an absolutely shameless asshat.

The complexity arises when people advocate voting for a third party instead. By and large, no third party has the traction to beat the Republicans. You'd need to get the entire Dem voterbase and then some. If that fails, you've split the non-Rep voterbase and the enabling asshat gets the plurality. On the other hand, there's a risk that leaning too far left in the attempt to keep the progressive voters may lose the centrist* voters, which is a gamble whether that will end up a net positive. Harris has a tough job: walking a political tightrope, particularly if it's consistently being tugged at by people.

And there are good reasons to tug on that rope. You'll find some in these comments: Settling for "Good enough" doesn't help getting actual change. For the ultra-rich, on the other hand, progressive policies are a detriment, so they'll want to tug it the other way. The left doesn't want to cede ground and keeps pulling. The centrists* that don't like Trump but also fear dramatic change pull her to the other side again. The "centrists"** pull just to see her fall.

And that's exciting! That's an actual conflict of ideologies! That's her having to work for her voters' approval! You'll see the complaints flying left and right, see her try to keep an ever-shifting balance, see drama and tension! People love drama and tension. Corporate media loves drama and tension because it gets attention, clicks, revenue, all that. "Assholes still support Asshole" just isn't as interesting as " criticises Kamala for , calls her ".

Also, splitting the Dem voterbase serves the corporate executives and shareholders that want the right-wing tax breaks and erosion of worker protections because it makes them even richer. That's probably not a coincidence.

*Centrist as in "I don't want things to radically change", not as in "I think both parties are equally bad, so I'll sow dissent in the Dem voterbase, pretend that I'm not helping Trump with that and get to feel superior to both".

** The latter group of the above footnote. It doesn't really matter whether they're intentional agents of disunity or idealists that care more about voting with their heart than the actual outcome. The result is the same: At best, they've achieved nothing. At worst, they've contributed to Trump's victory.

Please do not make this another 2016, and assume Kamila will win.

The Russian bots are out in full force to pacify voters that "they have this in the bag". This is an indication that the only way we lose is by not voting. And the sentiment is changing, I see calls to vote less and less now, and comments assuming Kamila has already won more and more.

It's not over till it's over.

What I didn't see in the reactions yet is that a lot of Americans do not want any government involvement at all. Save for things that are supposedly written down in the Bible. The Republican party is providing just that, anti-establishment, anti-intellectual and don't forget: anti-minority. Just people being tough and dare to support the party who will turn the clock back to when times were perceived to be better. Same sentiment is present in Europe by the way, like it was a century ago.

Because we can't mock Trump and their supporters if Kamala fumbles. As long as she doesn't fumbled we can mock them with impunity