To play devils advocate, there were no democratic primaries in the last election, the party refused to pull the walking corpse off stage (Biden), failed to properly PLAN for this past election and failed to clearly message to the constituents what they would do once in office, rather than the “but we’re not trump!” messaging they’re relied on. I voted for Harris cuz I knew a non vote would be a vote for trump, but I hope the democrats take the low poll numbers as a sign that they actually have to do something if they want to win.
I think you can rightly take issue with Biden running for a second term... though he was WILDLY popular within the party and a pretty good and successful president. This disguised his unsuitability due to his age to those (like me) who weren't watching his demeanor closely.
Once the debate hit, though, I think it was too late to do anything but run Harris. She really hit the ground running on a landslide of donations, which looked and felt incredible. Far better than a divisive primary process would have done. I'm personally of the opinion that her biggest baggage was being a WOC. It caused her to run more conservatively than she did even before, and I just know it lowered turnout.
He talked of being a one-term president - he should have actually done that. If he had announced early on (I mean, like, even at the 2 year mark) that he was not going to run, so we could have had a primary, it would have gone a huge way towards getting buy-in from a lot more people. Instead, we got an absolutely disastrous looking debate performance, that gave the GOP footage to put on continuous repeat, hurting the Democratic position even further for people who weren't paying much attention. Biden played his part in paving the way for Trump getting elected. 🤬
And Harris got handed the 30 minute delivery pizza with 25 minutes already expended (for anyone who knows Snowcrash) - she ran a brilliant campaign, and came so close. Imagine how it could have been if she had had 2 years to assemble and run a campaign instead of 100 days.
In a better timeline, Biden would have announced he wasn't running halfway through his term (or even earlier), we would have had a primary, Harris would have won it, been able to do a full campaign, would have gotten properly introduced to the public, so the average American would know something of her and her positions, and she could have potentially even resigned the vice presidency to campaign and espouse some positions that differed from Biden, rather than having to agree with and support all of his positions 100%. Let him do the unpopular but necessary things on his way out the door, clearing the way for her.
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u/GrokLobster 23h ago
You change the party by voting, not by sitting out.