That was a legitimate weak point. Trump said no tax on tips and she just added that same plan to her platform instead of calling out that i.) Trump was not going to follow through and ii.) raising the minimum wage is much better than removing the tax on tips.
How the F does Trump get away with “concepts of a plan” while she should have the exact metrics in place for a very complex new policy. Are you seriously claiming that she would have attracted more voters if only she had been more precise about how to solve price gouging?
Can you give an example of Kamala saying that? I know Biden did, but I am pretty sure the campaign attempted to avoid this messaging.
I don’t understand. There is no strategy to pass legislation with a hostile (read GOP) congress. Should she only have campaigned on plans that the GOP agrees on?
Building new homes was part of the campaign plan right?
I agree… but it apparently works. Somehow people vote for the person who is now on a 9 year long continuous campaign. I remember he had a campaign rally 3 months into his presidency. Would love for it to be different, but there are simply no penalties for running forever campaigns.
Point me to a moment during the last campaign that Kamala promoted identity politics. The very most important thing we should do is to nit listen to pundits.
A reverse tea-party movement. That could work. We were laughing when the tea party started because it seemingly broke GOP unity, but they managed to shift the Overton window so far to the right that the GOP now is the tea party, and Dems are GOP lite. Reversing that trend is extremely necessary.
Obama campaigned on a platform of change. He promised healthcare and (very importantly at that time) to pull troops from Iraq/Afghanistan. His campaign was very aspirational, even if his first term in office was not. That campaign won in Indiana and Ohio, to give an idea of the popularity of these ideas. Biden won by a very small nr of voters in the swing states running against a (at that time) very unpopular president.
I wonder if it would have been better for her to step down as VP when accepting the nomination. As a VP she couldn’t distinguish herself at all.
I agree with you that the Biden/Harris approach to economics is dead. There are virtually no voters left in the middle, so shifting to the right doesn’t help the Democrats like it used to. I also think the policies you propose will help a significant share of voters.
The bigger issue is communication. If these policies aid a significant part of voters, how can we convince them of this in the face of the right wing propaganda machine? That battle is as important as the policy platform, and it’s a very tricky challenge to overcome.
Another worry I have is that the Trump government will be more evil and less like a shitshow than his previous stint. Unfortunately, I think many voters will get behind evil stuff like rounding up migrants if it’s done in an organised manner.
Yes indeed call me a skeptic, but I do not trust my bones (or any other body part that’s not my brain). Bones and their feelings are the target of charlatans and populist (like Trump).
As you rightfully note the relationship between federal economic policy and economic outcomes is complex and it’s not easy to tease apart cause and effect. Having said that Democrats have through history presided over MUCH better economic outcomes than Republicans, and Biden is no exception. Yet, voters consistently believe that (generic) Republicans are better for the economy than generic Democrats.
Inflation is really one of these things where people find out much later that the problem is fixed. For instance, Biden inherited a high inflation regime which baked in about 10-15 percent price increases before he could do anything to stop it. By the time he brought inflation down, prices had increased by something like 20 percent. Inflation has now been brought down to 2-3 percent, but most people will simply observe that prices are 20 percent higher than when he started.
Another big issue is counterfactual reasoning. US inflation was lower than in other developed countries, but people only notice that it was higher than they were used to.
In a nutshell, policy is really complicated. You do not feel the consequences of good policy in your bones.
Just a few years ago this generation was walking out of schools to protest our lack of action against climate change. The shift is crazy.
To me the main takeaway is that I live in a completely separate reality from most voters. I would have voted on a dead dog over Trump. He is mean, narcissistic and never shows any empathy. On top of that he is clearly losing his wits. If a majority of voters prefers a candidate like this, is even enthusiastic to vote for him, what can you do?
I also know that Lemmy skews left, but I think we have to face the fact that most voters have no ability to empathise with those worse off. There is no left wing politics without empathy and solidarity. What most of us here want is dead.
And then 2 years pass, and they have completely who banned porn, and why it’s the mistake of Democrats.
Ironically I think policy support would have been much easier had we put boots on the ground right away. There was initially enormous support for Ukraine, and sending out own soldiers would have given voters a continued vested interest in the war.
Not saying the outcome would have been better, and there is always the threat of nuclear war. However, it would totally changed the course and focus of elections, and my impression is that voters like it when politicians take risks, even if it doesn’t pan out (and even if it’s suicidally stupid).
She backed a plan to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/kamala-harris-says-us-must-raise-federal-minimum-wage-2024-10-21/
The much bigger issue I see is that policy choices are simply not communicated by the media. Half of this discussion complains about Kamala not adopting policies that were in fact in her platform. Only stories about the horse race and Trump outrage make the news (even in this community which is supposed to focus on policies). How can you get your message across in such a media environment?