Honestly. I don’t give a fuck at this point. Just give me a D who can get to 270. Fuck the republican traitor filth.
People are begging for that D. Just give them the D!
What’s 270?
The number of electoral votes needed to win the presidency
Electoral college minimum majority to win the election.
The only number that matters. Unfortunately, the number of people that want a President doesn’t matter in our goofy, slave-era Electoral College.
The number of electoral college votes to win. Each state has a number of votes based on the census population data.
270 is half the EC.
It’s the amount of people the U.S who want to vote for Kamala Harris.
That’s sort of the whole deal - we’re all looking for who can get us there the best (at least those of us arguing in good faith)
They Harris Trump wins she is a fucking horrible choice. Yall forget how many independents are sitting on the fence. Which means a lot of them still can’t choose (which should say a lot) No way she can beat Trump.
I still can’t fathom how the fuck anyone is an independent anymore. Too lazy to vote, yes. Have no idea who your party’s candidate is? Sure. Don’t know which party to vote for? No way in hell.
Looking at voting data, almost no one is really independent. The vast majority of people who register independent almost always vote down party lines for one party, and they just don’t want to label themselves democrat or republican.
I’m registered independent. If we had options, I would have changed that to vote in the democratic primaries, and I considered changing it to vote uncommitted.
Although I align more closely with progressive democrats, serious question, where do I fit if what I believe in most strongly is a Cooperative Economy and an alternative measure of GDP?
For good measure for those interested:
a sort of mathematical proof cooperation works better for, not only everyone but, the individual than competition and acting in one’s own self interest (aka capitalism).
Economy for the Common Good (one alternative measure of GDP) explained. Starts around 7:00 minutes in.
I am familiar with the concept of the cooperative economy
You vote in local elections. You look for people with more progressive platforms and you put in the work to get them known. Even if they don’t necessarily want what you want, but their presence would move the overton window in your favor, you help them. I also work with people who want to scrap FPTP voting too. Even if we hard disagree on most issues, something like that is worth working together for. The US is very right wing, very corporatist, and very out of touch with anything not in their social bubble. This is going to take generations of work. Until then, if you are progressively aligned, you only, currently, have one real option at the federal level. Not voting for them doesn’t really hurt them, personally, but it will hurt a lot of people not in charge if the regressive party takes power.
And who knows, might have to pick-up a rifle at some point.
Which is why I don’t understand why the Democrats seem to so heavily target these mythical independents. Feels like the Republicans have completely stopped catering to anyone other than their base, meanwhile Democrats seem to ignore their base or compromise their own values for voters that don’t even exist. To me it’s the strongest argument for the whole theory of controlled opposition, even if I don’t really believe in that.
It is because our elections are not won by large margins. The difference between winning and losing is often decided less than 3% of the vote. While people who register for them, are basically locked in, with more nuance I am not getting into now, there still is about 3 percent of independent voters that do seem to vacillate between parties. With independent voters making up 42% of registered voters that amount can win, or lose, them the election.
Ok so 3% of the 42% of independent voters are truly undecided. Why spend the effort on them, vs actually motivating the roughly 50% of your base + independents who are actually Democrats that just don’t show up.
It feels like by doggedly pursuing this tiny fraction of 3% undecided voters, they disillusion a much higher percentage of their own already locked in supporters from actually showing up. If they spent their efforts on targeting supporters that just don’t vote, could they get 5% more votes? 10? 15?
Time and time again it feels that the side that wins isn’t the one that flipped a vote, but rather the side that was more excited and engaged. Someone the Republicans seem to have figured out and work heavily towards.
It is a lot harder to get a large percent of your voting base behind a single person when it is the de facto party for anyone left of autocratic, right wing, authoritarianism. Meanwhile a republican can just belligerently spout bigotry, play a “strong man” leader, and pay lip service to theocrats, and a small handful of single issues, and activate a base who will vote for them like it is a religious decree.
It is that simple. Roughly 1/3 of the population want fascism, or something is the same wheelhouse. A little more do not necessarily want that, but are unconcerned with it happening as long as they get to own a gun, or whatever their single issue may be. Everyone who thinks this is bad is stuck with the democrats, and most people are to physically comfortable to truly risk anything for the large systemic changes needed to fix this. At least not the will to sustain it for the multiple generations it will take to see the fruits of that labor.
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In the thumbnail… is she wearing a tan suit?
Oh yes.
This would be awesome.It was a white suit that she spilled Dijon mustard on.
You can already smell the indignation Fox News is cooking up
Elitist af
Imagine if they caught her with her feet on the desk! Gasp! Horror! Shock!
Was she doing a latte salute at the time?
Imagine if she ran with aoc.
Would be cool, but 1) doubt they would do a ticket with two women, unfortunately. This is already a massive gambit, they will need to do everything they can to keep/get more votes, and imo, that means a man (preferably with name recognition) for VP pick.
And, 2) VP is a toothless, essentially useless position. I think it would be a mistake to take AOC away from her home district for 4 to 8 years just for her to do nothing meaningful. We need her in our legislative branch right now.
AOC’s district is dark blue. It won’t effect the votes much. It would raise AOCs profile if she has ambitions for POTUS but that’s so many hypotheticals.
The most immediate impact is that it would motivate the base. Dems need voter turnout to win. 2 women lashing the Republicans over abortion rights is a winner imo on top of AOCs popularity with the base. There are sound reasons for it. Not saying I think it’s a good idea though.
She is a unique voice in Congress that cannot just be replaced by some generic Democrat.
I would feel absolutely terrible to doom her to the position of VP. Nobody of her talents, charisma, convictions, etc. should ever be made to become irrelevant as a VP. It’s a curse.
Trump is elected: we descend into a fascist hellhole. A woman of color is elected, they probably start a civil war. We are fucked.
Nah. Those greasy fucks would get obliterated.
You sure about that when a metric shitton of cops and military support Trump?
the US armed forces would never organize against the majority of civilians.
Produce some data that argues in your favor and I’ll consider worrying. I don’t think the MAGAts can organize a militia that would rival even the DC police.
It’s not the unorganized yokels I’m worried about, but all the Trumpers already embedded in our forces. It’s a thing for fascists to infect agencies and organizations able to legally dish out violence.
Sorry if I’m not as confident in the institutions of the US as everybody else.
I think Jan 6th mostly deflated that risk. The police might stir some shit but most service people have a pretty strong pride in us being a democracy. Trump has shown he doesn’t respect the democratic process and so a coup is unlikely.
A woman of color is elected, they probably start a civil war. We are fucked.
I’m not scared of Y’all Qaeda. Let them fucking try.
Is it sad that to be a “good” president, all one has to do is beat trump at the polls (ok the electoral college), and then do nothing else?
A great president would beat trump then roll back the immunity ruling (somehow ;) ) codify roe v Wade, and resign.
Why would they resign and present an undue opportunity for the far right to come to power again?
Would make the vice the president, who then could/would pardon the resignee, making anything the resignee did an official act, and if not then the pardon is the official act.
Yeah… you’re right. I’m an exhausted idiot who is too tired to think straight.
What are you on about ?
Why are you dragging the goalposts down the field ?
Why the fuck would or should anyone who could achieve those things resign?
I kinda wanna see someone paint the White House in tie dye. White is so…. Boring.
Is it sad that to be a “good” president, all one has to do is beat trump at the polls (ok the electoral college), and then do nothing else?
Democrats barely even have that much ambition.
Can these fucking articles actually link to the data? I appreciate including the sampling information but right now I really want to see the actual questions being asked because push-polling absolutely has been used by some of the other outlets.
Okay I found the poll and it’s fucking awful…
https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/July-2024-W1-topline.pdf
For Approve, Disapprove, Undecided, Null they have:
Harris: 30, 49, 20, 1
Newsom: 17, 31, 51, 1
Whitmer: 15, 21, 64, 1
Harris clearly has the best name recognition but 49% disapproval is insanely high. And they didn’t include any other potential candidates like AOC, Warren, or Whitehouse.
How the hell is 30% a majority
Isn’t AOC too young anyway?
Nope, she’ll be old enough for the inauguration and that’s all that matters.
A new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Democrats believe Kamala Harris would do a good job in the top slot. About 2 in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another 2 in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.
The undecided can be convinced during the campaign.
But I doubt I’ll start thinking Kamala would be a good president…
I do think that she’ll be able to beat Trump in the election at least. Which is better than Joe.
Exactly. I’m pretty sure she’s a psychopath with a bunch of ties to some horrible people, but it beats the other psychopath who has a bunch of ties to horrible people that specifically want to kill me for the variety of ways in which I am not a suitable barefoot and pregnant housewife. Also she’s not aggressively geriatric with a stiff gait and a vacant stare and could just be completely bodied by catching a common cold.
What has she done to make you feel she is a psychopath?
psychopath
/sī′kə-păth″/
noun
- A person who engages repeatedly in criminal and antisocial behavior without remorse or empathy for those victimized.
- A person with a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse. Such an individual may be especially prone to violent and criminal offenses.
- A person diagnosed with antisocial or dissocial personality disorder.
I don’t know the thoughts of the other user and idk if this makes her a psychopath, but she did oversee an effort to deny prisoners parole just to keep them in California’s prisoner firefighter program to combat wildfires.
The program itself is fairly repugnant to begin with, as the prisoners don’t really have a choice in the matter, it’s tantamount to slavery, and her trying to keep people locked up to bolster it is vile. While California needed more firefighters to combat their wild fire issues, I don’t think slavery is the right solution.
Does that make her a psychopath? I’m not sure. Our definition of anti-social behavior is fairly restricted to what is legal and what isn’t and what she did was legal. But it damn sure is without empathy or remorse and, in a just world, promoting slavery would be considered antisocial behavior, in my humble opinion.
Slavery
promoting slavery would be considered antisocial behaviour
Slavery as a punishment for crime is legal as per the american constitution. Which absolutely vile, but america refuses to change their bit of paper.
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution?wprov=sfti1
Is that what sentencing typically involves, terms of slavery? I.e you are to serve X years at Y penitentiary? Does it need to be more specific or is that good enough for Y to “loan” out to do whatever?
I do not understand what you are asking?
Slavery as a punishment for a crime is enshrined in the constitution.
Thats all.
I’m just wondering if, during sentencing, slavery is already being part of the punishment, or of it has to be tacked on separately or explicitly. I.e are convicts being sentenced to slavery, explicitly, or do they have a choice in any of the slavery stuff? I’m asking about what is actually happening today.
Source?
So you don’t have to wait 40 minutes again, I googled:
Kamala firefighter prison
And got a whole bunch of results…
The intransigence of this legal work resulted in the presiding judges in the case giving serious consideration to holding the state in contempt of court. Observers worried that the behavior of Harris’s office had undermined the very ability of federal judges to enforce their legal orders at the state level, pushing the federal court system to the brink of a constitutional crisis. This extreme resistance to a Supreme Court ruling was done to prevent the release of fewer than 5,000 nonviolent offenders, whom multiple courts had cleared as presenting next to no risk of recidivism or threat to public safety.
Despite a straightforward directive from the Supreme Court to identify prisoners for release over a two-year period, upholding a 2009 ruling that mandated the same action over the same timeline, the state spent the majority of that period seesawing back and forth between dubious legal filings and flagrant disregard. By early 2013, it became clear that the state had no intention to comply, leading to a series of surprisingly combative exchanges.
https://prospect.org/justice/how-kamala-harris-fought-to-keep-nonviolent-prisoners-locked-up/
Especially with Lemmy being so much smaller, you really shouldn’t just wait for someone to do it for you. “Teach a man to fish” and all that.
That article says Harris was acting on behalf of Govenor Jerry Brown as defense attorney. So just like OJ Simpson’s lawyers had to defend him because that’s their job regardless of their feelings. Lawyers can’t make decisions for their clients. They just argue on their behalf in court.
The call to relocate the overpopulated prisoners to the firecamps was not made by Harris but other lawyers that worked in the same office. They only suggested it as a temporary solution after the Supreme Court wouldn’t accept their solution to build another prison to address the overpopulation.
The Supreme Court suggested Govenor Jerry Brown release nonviolent prisoners to address the overpopulation. To be clear, this includes sex offenders, white collar criminals and arsonists just to name a few “non-violent” crimes.
Any decisions Harris made in this role were her job as a lawyer defending the previous attorney general’s decisions Govenor Jerry Brown. At least that’s what the article says. I can’t verify any of the claims because I don’t see any citations for them. But maybe that’s because I read it on mobile.
AGs are elected in California. She wasn’t a Jerry Brown employee.
You can’t just say “source?” at me like I’m some kind of search engine. We are two people having a conversation. Why not look around yourself before barking a command at another human? Do you talk like this to people in real life? This isn’t reddit, this isn’t debate club, I’m not doing that shit here.
Look something up, find out how I misremembered details of an event from years ago. Tell me the nuance I’ve missed. Notice the true elements and mention how you find them disturbing, but it’s not as bad as my fallable brain recalled. Yanno, like how people talk? Jeez!
No. If you make a claim, you back it up or get disregarded. It’s that simple. This is how we prevent misinformation from being spread. Stop being indignant over being lazy/irresponsible.
I mean, there’s asking politely after specifying what you would like a source for…
Or you could reply to a paragraph of text with:
Source?
And hope the person both guesses what you’re asking for and puts the time in to Google something for you and provide the link.
Asking nicely is more likely to get the help you’re asking for.
So you made it up. Got it
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I want to point out that psychopathy is a colloquial term, not a clinical one. The most popular set of criteria, the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised, is not empirically reliable or valid. Its creator Robert Hare has made a lucrative career out of convincing the world (and the prison system) that psychopaths are Definitely Real. The PCL-R is used to justify harsher punishments and longer prison sentences, and it’s completely made up.
Honestly at this point I just assume by default that of all politicians at that level. They’re all basically evil its just a matter of sorting out which ones are evil in ways that will hurt me more or less.
Also psychopath isn’t a clinical or legal term in modern usage, which is the only situation in which the linguistic prescriptivism you’re advocating for makes sense.
Yeah, “not 20 years past retirement age” is a pretty low bar to clear, but at least we did it.
One of the things that I think does go for her is that she’s been a part of a team that has actually done some amazing things, even with the Republican courts (SCOTUS and other) actively combatting them. How much of the development and running of that team has she been involved with? Maybe more than normal with a president halfway in the retirement home, but maybe not at all either. If her influence and proximity to the cabinet has done or taught her anything meaningful then we need more of that. He may be old, but he and his team have had a lot of wins.
The undecided can be convinced during the campaign.
What campaign? The election is in 3.5 months. Every day that Biden doesn’t step down is one less day for Harris to start ramping up her campaign efforts.
Also, please someone do a poll of the undecided who have strong feelings towards…
- women
- minorities
- prosecutors
Although most may fall firmly in the Trump camp, I’m betting there are some undecided who think that women absolutely should not be president.
Not to mention waffling Republicans may be more incentivized to vote if the Democrat isn’t an old white dude.
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49% disapproval rating…ye gods that’s high. Pick literally anyone else. Even Biden yeesh
I’d pay big money to see a prosecutor debate a criminal.
I am voting party not person this election.
Get the fuck on board. We gonna out party that cult.
Ah, a distinction without a difference.
Ah, a thought-terminating cliche.
⁷
A “thought-terminating” cliché based in sound logic. We could all hope more logical dilemmas that were just as solvable.On further study, It’s more than a cliché if one at all. -In fact I’d argue the common label “A distinction without a difference”. Is a particular logical fallacy no better than if TheReturnOfPEB had used a strawman, non sequitur, an Appeal to Fear, etc… to make a logical statement. To wit they are not acting logically.
I think she’d be shit, but I would still vote for her over Trump if that’s literally the only other option, because as bad she may be it’d still be better than Trump.
And I would love to watch her smear the crap out of Trump at a debate.
No chance Trump debates again if it’s against Harris. He’s way too scared of a gasp woman making him look bad.
I’d love to see her or AOC. They’d both leave him gasping and eviscerated.
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You know it wouldn’t change anything so why waste the time?
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She’s probably the centrist dem to balance his social democracy platform while getting nominated.
U funny
He tried to legalize weed and make higher education free. He’s Bernie Sanders-Lite.
LOL
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Based on what I’ve seen most people could make a good president if they pick good folks to give them advice and don’t act like douchebags.
At this point, a sack of potatoes would make a good president.
rolls for deception
I’m at this point, but unironically. Maybe we should reset back to what the president was always meant to be: a figurehead. Take away any unilateral decision making capabilities. They’re only really supposed to have the bully pulpit.
Just a UK guy here, but she does seem like a pretty sensible swap. I know there’s some controversy around her because of her time in the police system, but I haven’t heard anything bad about her at all during her time as VP, she’s basically been off the radar (compare that shit to Pence).
A couple good speeches here and there, some reasonable policies to offer people, and Biden’s endorsement, and you’ve got a really solid replacement.
Yeah, it’s not like it takes a lot to beat trump
We just keep running terrible candidates against him
No kidding. People are acting like we need to be finely tuned to capture Republican votes to beat him, but he’s lost every election after the first and has substantial losses within his own party. There are more Democrats than Republicans, and the statewide candidates are winning in swing states. We just need to not put up a train wreck and stop alienating traditional Democratic voting blocks. People don’t actually like Trump.
There was some chaos in her office in the initial days, if I recall, that may have left a bad impression. But I think that’s not too unusual and can be overcome.
😴
