Why is Kamala Harris keeping pace in a race that seems 50/50 at this point?
After all, shouldn’t she be losing badly? She’s part of the Biden administration, and by most metrics they’ve done a lousy job compared to Trump’s track record. She doesn’t speak well, especially when unscripted. She has an off-putting personality to a lot of people. She doesn’t have viewpoint consistency and can’t explain her many flip-flops.
Nevertheless, the race is a toss-up. Here’s my list of the reasons why:
(1) The vast majority of people still vote party line, and the country is pretty evenly split in that regard. I’m not talking about party registration, which is a different matter because many many people who pretty much always vote party line nevertheless register as Independents.
(2) The MSM is a huge factor and shapes public perceptions for the Democrat.
(3) In line with #2 and the Democrats’ message for the last eight years, Trump has been so successfully demonized that a great great many people would vote for literally anyone who would run against him.
(4) Abortion is still a huge issue and Kamala is its champion. This attracts many people who are essentially one-issue voters.
(5) Identity politics, in which Kamala Harris is a twofer: female and black. And her exact percentage of blackness in the genetic sense is unimportant. She is black enough.
(6) Kamala Harris is also relatively young, and looks good for her age. Trump is getting pretty old now, even though he’s very mentally alert. His choice of a young whippersnapper like Vance is good in that regard, but there is still a big age gap between Trump and Harris.
(7) Harris represents herself as an agent of change, which seems ludicrous to me since she’s been vice president for almost four years. But I think there are voters who buy it. After all, she’s never been president before. Biden has, and Trump has. And although Obama beat her at becoming the first black president, she would be the first female president, which also represents something fresh and new to a lot of people.
We don’t know the actual state of the race. Polling is frequently agenda driven and at best unreliable. The same media that assured us Biden was as sharp as a tack now pushes the polling info. We’ll find out.
I think the reverse is true, with all the money, all the endorsements, practically every major mid and large newpaper and tv station, ‘why isn’t she 50 points ahead’
Kamala Harris represents bureaucracy and elite consensus: they’re not voting for her, they’re voting for the System. That’s why they pivoted to her on a dime and would do the same if she dropped out tomorrow and they stuck someone else in there.
Also, the polling is false. Polling companies are for-profit entities, and the general public are not the paying customers, and there are no rewards or punishments for accuracy. Polls are conducted according to very detailed instructions from the paying customers (often media organizations). The instructions can run up to 50 pages and specify which zip codes to poll, which ages, ethnicities, party affiliations, etc. In a free and fair race measured by statistically sound polls, the two candidates would NOT be running neck and neck. Kamala is significantly behind, and can’t win without “irregularities.”
That said, all your points are good, and the race is still closer than it should be given the weakness of the candidate, the policy platform, the track record, etc.
I can’t fully agree with “(2)” since MSM had been steadily dropping in ratings over the years, and right-wing media (RWM?) has been growing.
The others are agreeable – especially “(4)”. Melania Trump seems to have jumped in with both feet on the abortion issue tho, and makes a strong case for pro-abortion. Upset a lot of anti-abortionists, but they are pretty much biting their tongues—forced to bite their tongues, IMHO.
Over the past few days have seen some talk about DEMs internal polls showing Harris is doing poorly enough that they are worried. One article said (Paraphrasing here…) something like the DEMs are throwing out all kinds of Oct surprises but nothing is sticking, and that they would probably increase the throws.
That suggests to me that they have no real ‘October Surprise’ in their pocket.
Hurricane Helene may hurt them with Harris, but I don’t think it will hurt them in the Congressional races…
The election is close, but probably not as close as the polls suggest. The pro-Democrat bias may be worse this year than it was in 2016 and 2020. By my reckoning, polls conducted in the final week before election day were biased against Trump by an average of 1.7 points and 3.6 points, respectively. My estimate for 2020 is consistent with a report by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, which found that polls conducted within 2 weeks of election day 2020 erred in favor of Biden by an average of 3.9 points (https://aapor.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/AAPOR-Task-Force-on-2020-Pre-Election-Polling_Report-FNL.pdf).
Karmi:
I disagree. I have noticed for years that people can rate the MSM very low in reliability and yet be HIGHLY influenced by it without realizing it. The subject is not always (maybe not even usually) aware of the effects of propaganda.
Plus, every election I read about how the internal polls show this or that. Sometimes that ends up being the case and sometimes not.
neo – good point…
The national popular vote is very close, but that’s not how we decide the winner. The winner is decided by how effective the democrats are at cheating in the toss-up states.
Because 50% of the population is on the low side of the intelligence bell curve. And a significant fraction are at less than 1 sigma. Of course, given that so many leftists are on the supposed high side of the curve, maybe my argument is moot.
Is there an emotional/logic bell curve?
(8). There needs to be a public perception it is close so that the fraud with vote by mail /late counts on election night in blue counties/cities called Philly, Milwaukee, Fulton county GA, Raleigh/durham, maricopa az, Las Vegas NV, Detroit, will not seem so obvious.
“Because 50% of the population is on the low side of the intelligence bell curve. And a significant fraction are at less than 1 sigma. Of course, given that so many leftists are on the supposed high side of the curve, maybe my argument is moot.”
I think it less a matter of IQ than a dearth of common sense among the low-info dem voters. As for so many leftists being on the supposed high side of the curve… let us not forget Orwell’s trenchant observation of them, “There are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.”
Being smart is more often about being able to rationalize rather than being able to reason. But if even if people reason correctly, they have different values, and so the same set of facts and correct logic will lead them to different results.
To really be able to reason rightly, you have to continually look for things that might prove your position wrong rather than just rack up things that support it. Very few people have any desire to put work into potentially proving themselves wrong.
At this point, it feels like more energy will go into making Trump’s life hell if he’s elected than is going into electing Harris.
Kamala’s womanness counts for a lot more than her blackness. We’ve had one black president and will have others, but we haven’t had a woman yet. Both sex and race have been muted this year. It’s not like 2008 or 2016 when people were talking a lot about electing a black or female president. Democrats want to make those big issues, but people who aren’t already fully behind Harris don’t really care.
People do tend to pick up things from the media subliminally or by osmosis. That may be one reason why Democrats are so ferocious about going after their enemies and Republicans hold back. Part of that is just decency (or maybe weakness), but Democrats get a double dose of partisanship from the mainstream media and sources further left, while what Republicans get from right wing media is diluted by the attitudes disseminated by the MSM.
I believe the polls are manipulated and the media, even Fox and NewsMax, want the polls to be close because it gets them eyeballs. They do all they can to gin up excitement over such a “close race.”
In spite of all the points Neo raises, and they’re good ones, I don’t think it’s that close. Inflation and the border are still the main issues. Harris has not said or done anything to provide her solutions for those two issues. Even Oprah looked skeptical when she hosted a special for Harris. And there’s her abject failure to respond to the devastation of Helene.
That said, if the RNC can’t actually deliver on its plans to stop the cheating inn the swing states, it could be close.
I think Jeff and former legislator above have it about correct. They (the Dems, the media, the deep state cabal) will keep the polls fairly close so that on election eve, election morning, and into the next few days the mail-in ballots and other magically discovered votes will be able to overcome the polling margin they’ve established.
If the pollsters have been doing their ostensible jobs, then they should have been improving their polling to eliminate or reduce the overestimation of the Dem vote. I think it would be risky to assume the same disparity between vote and polls that existed in 2020. (Do we all remember the “unskewed polls” of 2008 and 2012?)
If they have not done this, it’s either because they can’t figure out how to do it, or they don’t want to do it. A good explanation for “don’t wanna” would be “no one wants to pay that much.”
I’ve never been able to find out what exactly internal polls are doing differently that they should be more reliable but I expect they misled Clinton in 2016. That aside, if a candidate is paying for an accurate poll they plan to use for strategy, I can see that being different from a poll a media organization is paying for to write “horse race” stories about. It should be more difficult and more expensive to poll more reliably.
I haven’t a clue what motivates people. I can say that street-level Democrats are indifferent to accomplishment when assessing candidates.
==
If you review the biographies of notable Democratic presidential candidates in the last 50 years, you discover that most have earned their living in electoral politics and lobbying. There have been a number of lawyers, but they generally had an ordinary solo practice or a berth in a small partnership they pursued for a single digit span of years. Two of the three who made it to the ten year mark in law (Hellary and John Edwards) are known crooks. The only ones who worked in business were Bob Kerrey, Paul Simon, and Jimmy Carter. Wesley Clark was in the military. Howard Dean was a small town GP.
==
Now look at their ticket this year. Both have been government employees since about 1990. Both earned their keep in venues (the courts, the public schools) which function poorly.
I didn’t think Trump had a snowball chance in hell of winning in 2016, and neither did the polls.
Anecdotally, on X there is a desperation that I sense from “team kammie” commentary from influencers and celebrities. Mostly it’s the usual “look how (fill in the blank) Trump is” but nothing on Kamala’s actual policies, just feel-good happy place nonsense.
David Muir reportedly lost 1,000,000 viewers after the POTUS debate.
Taylor Swift reportedly lost 2 million subscribers from a music app after her Harris endorsement.
The dock strike didn’t just organically get delayed out of an obligation to the economy.
Inflation is still a thorn in everyone’s wallet.
Trafalgar which is perhaps the best has a few point advantage
Reason number one is the identity of the GOP nominee.
Concerned Conservative returns with his usual.
test
Concerned Conservative™
CC™
works
Because Trump gained votes in 2020 over 2016, it is predicted he will get even more this election. Kamala will need to get more votes + ballots than Biden got last time to win. In fact, she will need more votes + ballots than any candidate in history to beat Trump. The stakes for the Globalist American Empire, and its minions in the Administrative Deep State/CIA, cannot be overstated. This is a battle for them to keep up their efforts at world hegemony that they’ve maintained and built on since 1992 with the fall of the Soviet Union. They didn’t expect was how successful Putin would be at changing Russia from an ‘easy pickings’, bankrupt, Communist command economy into a modern economic powerhouse. Trump, and his supporters want to stop the ‘perpetual war machine’ and direct those resources more productively. The ‘friendly’ polling organizations are oversampling Democrats to make it look competitive and the Propaganda Press has its ‘marching orders’. This is a test of how much influence/mind control the Deep State has. If they can install this non-entity/no substance candidate, they can continue to try world domination. They installed a non-natural born candidate with a tranny ‘wife’ in 2008. They installed an elderly man with advanced dementia and an international influence peddling ring in 2020 so we know that they are good at it. The Deep State has spent the last 35 years heavily investing the Executive Branch with new and wider ranging powers and were freaked out when Trump unexpectedly won in 2016. Because he was new to the ways of Inside Washington, they were able to keep him off-balance his first term. Now that Trump knows what he is up against, they can’t let him have that power again. Now their only goal is to keep non-compliant Trump out of the Oval Office.
Remember, ‘they’ don’t need to convince you to like Kamala Harris, ‘they’ just need to convince you that ‘others’ do so that the steal is believable.
This is the most savage political alliance I’ve ever seen.
–“Elon Musk at Trump rally in Butler, PA: FULL SPEECH”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asoq00GQ3BA
We’ve got some Smart People on our side.
The line of Democrats from Obama to Biden to Harris to Walz is like running the video of Human Evolution backwards.
Call me naive, but I don’t think it’s actually a toss-up at this point. I think pollsters are again understating Trump’s support. Not intentionally. Much like in both 2016 and 2020, I think there’s a significant ‘shy Trumper’ factor. And why wouldn’t there be, given the amount of vitriol directed a Trump’s supporters by almost every major social, civil, corporate and religious institution in America.
If the election is even remotely fair, I think Trump will win the popular vote this time, and by 2-3%. I further think he’ll take every single single state as well as one surprise (likely New Hampshire or Virginia).
*If* the election is even remotely fair…
In 2016 Hilary was farther ahead in the polls at this time against Trump.
We know how that turned out.
We’ve also got Biden/Harris helping Trump win North Carolina and Georgia. Thanks B/H!
Call me naive, but I don’t think it’s actually a toss-up at this point. I think pollsters are again understating Trump’s support.
Ackler:
Count me in!
@ Niketas > “Kamala Harris represents bureaucracy and elite consensus: they’re not voting for her, they’re voting for the System.”
Or as Glenn Greenwald put it: The permanent unelected machine runs the government.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/1686059475925995535.jpg?w=1024
Deja vu all over again from August:
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6359828117112
Glenn Greenwald: Realize how unusual and disturbing this Kamala Harris situation is — Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald highlights how the American people ‘know nothing’ about what Vice President Kamala Harris’ views are on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’
Glenn, like Matt Taibbi (one cannot stress this enough) is a liberal Democrat, not a Trump voter.
When it comes to rules of thumb and presidential elections, as Pennsylvania goes and as Catholics go, so goes the nation.
https://x.com/CatholicVote/status/1842694136740434390
Revisiting the scene of his attempted assassination, Trump called for a moment of silence at today’s rally in Butler, PA. Then an opera singer came out and sang “Ave Maria.”
That was a moment. Trump may have sealed his 2024 victory right there.
For me polling shot themselves in the foot in 2016, Hildabeast had it in the bag until around 12:30 am Pennsylvania was called for Trump.
The problem now is Pennsylvania won’t be called for days after like in 2020 until the Democrats find enough votes to beat him.
That Trump even has a chance with the Democrats Propaganda Ministry running 24/7 interference is actually a miracle.
Oh, and while in Pa, been working in Delaware a lot last couple months. I see all kinds of political signs all over for state races, though most for Democrats and some for independents. And the one thing I have yet to see is 1 sign for Harris or Trump, not 1. Either its against law, no one wants to put their neck out, or they are so part of the Biden machine they would never vote for Trump but are not voting for Harris except to stop Trump.
I note I wrote on September 15
Predicting the electoral success of DJ T. in November.
– [ ] Taylor Swift endorsement will mean nothing
– [ ] The debate will fade into the background and will not move the polls in KH favor
– [ ] Most of the Democratic ads are featuring Republican positions on almost all issues except abortion. Ads for president and Senate all focus on tax cuts, strong borders, reducing inflation, bread and butter, middle-class issues, a strong military, etc. many of the Democratic ads look like, they were written by Republicans for Republicans. It suggests that this electoral year the issues favor Republicans very strongly and that many Democrats are trying to run into that territory.
– [ ] The switcheroo from Biden to Harris will ultimately be seen as being clumsy and ineffective. I suspect a lot of exit polls will show more people than expected did not like how that played out. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are lots of disaffected Biden voters who feel they voted for him and then their vote didn’t matter because the party just decided to pull a switch. The ones who are pulled, may show a disproportionate number voted for Trump. But a lot of them will sit out the election and so won’t be part of exit polls.
– [ ] I don’t see a lot of energy amongst friends who I know are hard-core Democrats. In previous elections there was clearly a lot of energy for their candidate. Right now, I know a lot of people who simply wanna tune out the news. I’m sure they’ll still vote Democratic, but this lack of energy seems palpable to me and I suspect goes beyond my social circle.
– [ ] I think exit polls will show that more Americans than expected have significant concerns about the Ukraine war and the amount of money we’re sending to it. I wonder if there’ll be a backlash at some point with the idea that the Biden administration should’ve prevented the whole mess in the first place, but that they were so ineffective, Putin thought he had a green light. I suspect will see some of that exit polling if the questions are asked.
– [ ] I suspect that exit polling, if the questions are asked, will also reveal concerns in the public about the way we exited Afghanistan.
– [ ] I suspect that exit polling will reveal that lots of voters felt they really didn’t know much about what Harris would do as president and that the strategy to keep her out of the media eyes ended up being a bad strategy compared to Biden. While Biden was out of media site in 2 at least there was the excuse of Covid plus the fact that Biden has been in the public eye for nearly 40 years at the time of the election. He had already been vice president for eight years and knew who he was. Although Harris has been vice president for over three years, she’s largely been a non-entity and hasn’t identified herself in much of anyway.
– [ ] I suspect that exit polling will reveal that while a large chunk of the American population disapproves of DJ T’s, personality and boorishness, they realize they’re not inviting him to a tea party. They want someone tough to run the country.
– [ ] I suspect that lots of Americans in exit polling will indicate that they think the country is in very bad shape and that we could be in for a lot of trouble, which is why they would hold their nose and vote for DJT.
– [ ] Americans want fracking
– [ ] Americans don’t trust the Democrats on the border and the border will be a major issue in the election.
– [ ] Americans are concerned that they still don’t know the story of Covid and are angry around all the dissembling.
– [ ] Americans are disgusted with the state of major institutions and feel the people who run these institutions are simply incompetent and or corrupt. They want to clean house and they want institutions they can trust.
Another factor is that the economy seems, at least superficially, to be humming along. The stock market is roaring, unemployment is on the low side, and a lot of voters naively think that will continue and don’t want to change horses now. The reality down in the trenches is different, of course, as more Americans are stuck working part-time or in multiple jobs, and illegal immigrants are overrunning their communities. But a lot of voters are not directly affected by those things and are complacent.
“Another factor…” (continued)…
“The Number of Illegal Aliens Dumped Into Swing States Is Jaw-Dropping“—
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2024/10/04/the-number-of-illegal-aliens-dumped-into-swing-states-is-jawdropping-n2645729
H/T Instapundit.
Opening grafs:
Karol Markowicz writes well and is a clear thinker. I’m passing this along with my recommendation. Pass it to your Jewish Democrat friends.
/https://karolmarkowicz.substack.com/p/i-have-spent-the-last-year-angry?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2240635&post_id=149876586&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=32xrcq&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email/
Didn’t the polls, at this point in 1980, say it was too close to call?
I don’t actually believe that’ll repeat. But I’m not sure I trust them that much. Also, we are not quite close enough to the vote for the polling companies to have to worry about looking bad. In two weeks that’ll be a factor.
there is no way Kamala has 50% support. No one is going to any of her rallies – at most she has a few hundred, contrasted to the tens of thousands that attend Trump’s rallies. The fact that the media and polling companies are in Kamala’s corner does not mean that translate into popular or voter support. Plus conservatives mostly do not answer pollsters, and if they do, they are not likely to answer truthfully because they distrust them. I do know that my Democrat friends have been VERY quiet on social media lately, indicating even they are not excited about Kamala.
It’s easy.They just want to keep it close enough to cover planned cheating. Will it work?
Just because Trump is elected he would still be a long way from being “in” office. First you have the time between election and inauguration, Second Trump poses a threat to their existence, they have completely forgotten that they work for us.
Citizen Free Press has become one of my regular check sites throughout the day (H/T Kate – as replacement for Drudge). It has two links up at the moment showing positive Betting Odds movement for Trump:
Polymarket – showing Trump has moved ahead at 50.8% compared to Harris at 48.4%.
Interactive Polls – shows Polymarket’s breakdown of PA (Trump 56% v Harris 44%), AZ (Trump 63% v 37%), GA (Trump 63% v 37%), and NC (Trump 61% v Harris 39%).
Not sure what the standard polling sites are saying (after their 2016, 2020, & 2022 results – I have moved to Betting Odds), but am seeing positive movements from Betting Odds sites. Am new at this but Polymarket seems to be a big player.
RealClearPolling Betting Odds has shown a steady rise by Trump from Harris 52.4% v Trump 46.3% on 9/23 to Harris 49.4% v Trump 49.1% on 10/5.
Another favorite that also stays up-to-date is Election Betting Odds (John Stossel) and Trump is finally closing in there also – with Harris 50.3% v Trump 49.1%. Another site shows Trump now Tied after being down fairly big.
Will be disappointed with whoever wins this year, but still follow for whatever reason…
Glenn Reynolds has a column on this topic. He calls it the Schrodinger’s Election:
__________________________________
My gut, for what (very little) it’s worth is that this election feels a lot more like 2016 than 2020. On election day that year, a lefty colleague asked me what I thought, and I said that if you went with the polls it would be a Clinton win, but that there was a pretty big “fuck you” factor out there that I didn’t think the polls captured. (Interestingly, she agreed). Helen, meanwhile, was sure Trump would win.
This year I think the “fuck you” factor is much higher than 2016, and the polls less favorable to Harris than they were to Clinton. On the other hand Helen [Glenn Reynolds’s wife] is pessimistic; she thinks it will be decided by cheating.
https://instapundit.substack.com/p/schrodingers-election?r=9bg2k&triedRedirect=true
__________________________________
I believe Trump wins a fair election hands down. And even with some margin of fraud.
But maybe the Dems, the Deep State and media have things wired enough to drag nonentities like Harris/Walz across the finishing line. However, they don’t look as sure of that outcome as some conservatives appear to be.
This reminds me of why Constantine the Great moved the Capital of the Roman empire.
Didnt it happen by default after 476
https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1842943603661996123
More of that stability she has brought
https://x.com/visegrad24/status/1843031760998969568
Also many similarities to the ” Great Peasant Revolt” of 1381.
To a great extent Miquel. The Empire had a brief resurgence, but they got to worrying about the nature of the Trinity and sort of took their eye off the ball.
About this time the empire had a bad bad internal corruption problem and a bad bad illegal immigrants problem.
The first empire lasted 1000 years ball park although probably by the 3rd century it was falling apart same for the second rome ball park
How long did greek democracy last about 200 years
I don’t know if I agree with Reynolds. After all, Trump lost the PV by 2.8 million in 2016 (yet managed to get 70k votes in just the right places to win the EC), and then lost the PV by around 7 million in 2020 (yet managed to lose 40k votes in just the right places to lose the EC). He’s also the only modern President who’s never had a day above water in his approval/disapproval ratings.
He’s held far fewer rallies in 2024 than he did in 2016, and to those who watch side by side viewings, there’s no question that he’s lost a step or two. That’s no conspiracy: age catches up to all of us. Could he still pull a surprise out of his sleeve? Sure. A lot fewer people expect another 2016, that’s all.
“No one is going to any of her rallies…”
As though throngs attended Decent Joe’s rallies in 2020.
It’s the same playbook, then as now.
The Democrats were so confident in 2020 that Biden could hibernate in his basement.
For all intents and purposes, Harris is doing the same.
In 2020, Biden could make any goofy gaffe that inspired him (or didn’t).
Same for Harris—just replace “gaffe” with “word salad”!
In the lead up to 2020, you had the Democratic Party’s street thugs causing mayhem and chaos in the cities—all for the “benefit of humanity”.
This time around it’s the pro-Palestinian “River-to-the-Sea” goons…going at it for the greater good (of having Israel disappear).
They sure were confident in 2020.
They sure are confident now.
(“Harris” can even afford to basically ignore Hurricane Helene and the cities and the border and inflation and everything else…and they’re that confident.)
So…WHY is it that they’re so confident?
Ole brittania has a similar problem currently and of course in western oceania
They sure were confident in 2020.
They sure are confident now.
–Barry Meislin
If they were so confident in 2024, they wouldn’t have had to replace Joey B.
I believe they saw the writing on the wall and set him up to fail early enough in the cycle to bring in a replacement.
Mark Kelley, former astronaut and current US Senator AZ, was supposed to be Obama’s pick and I’m sure he would have been better than kackling Kamala.
However, Joey B. effed them back by immediately endorsing Harris, rather than allowing Obama & Co. pick their idea of a better candidate.
If they were so confident in 2024, Obama wouldn’t have waited five days to endorse Harris.
But now they are committed to Harris/Walz, for better or worse, and I think they are as nervous as we are.
Triggernometry, Melanie Phillips, “Israel wants to make this the last war“, (1:06:07): https://youtu.be/lpylVjt-jwQ
Not sure of that.
Replacing one blithering idiot with another blithering idiot sounds like “confidence” to me.
Ditto for replacing one malicious marionette with another.
I think that’s why they were/are so flat-out angry at Nate Silver wailing and gnashing his teeth in public about Harris’s “numbers”. Sitting on the ground in his designer sackcloth, heaping cinders and ashes on his numbers-filled noggin. In public. Getting in all the papers.
What is this BS?? Has the man no faith??
(To be sure, in a normal election cycle, Silver would surely be right…but the last “normal” election cycle may well have been 2016…and there is NO WAY the Democrats will allow THAT to happen again.)
OMMV…
I think they’re pretty confident with very good reason: even if they can’t harvest or selectively count the ballots as they wish, they have Hawaiian judges, and they have Harris herself presiding over the electoral vote counting, they can expect swing state electoral slates to be challenged by friendly NGOs and Dems in Congress, and a friendly media to generate all kinds of excuses and cover for what they are doing. Failing that, an insurrection in the Capitol like at Trump’s inauguration.
The Left always projects; everything they accuse Trump of doing is what they are ready to do.
Replacing one blithering idiot with another blithering idiot sounds like “confidence” to me.
You’re ignoring the question.
If they are so confident and the idiot doesn’t matter, why replace him/her in the first place?
@huxley:If they are so confident and the idiot doesn’t matter, why replace him/her in the first place?
They were not confident that he could credibly fill the role of the Presidency before the public, in my opinion, and that’s why they forced him out. He was obviously and publicly unable to play his part in the game. It wasn’t that they couldn’t harvest enough ballots to get him elected. It wasn’t that the Deep State wasn’t going to do what they wanted with him as a rubber stamp. It was that no one had confidence Biden could fool a critical mass of the public that he was in charge.
Everyone supporting him turned on a dime to Kamala Harris and will do again if somehow she’s replaced. They’re electing the System, but the System has to look credible.
Simply because blithering idiot number 1’s very public deterioration made it impossible to hide the fact that instead of the decent, experienced, genial gent—quite possibly the best president in American history!—that the Democrats and their manipulative, mendacious Media hacks were selling 24/7, Joe Biden was, in fact—indisputably—a pathetic, bumbling, stumbling mannequin.
(Even despite the WH/Pravda Press’s extraordinary non-stop efforts to deny and disguise this.)
Obama delayed, believing he could continue propping Biden up for as long as necessary with whatever combination of helium, formaldehyde and bennies he’d been using up to that point but in the end…it just wasn’t possible.
Not even for the Miracle Worker(TM)…
The Left always projects; everything they accuse Trump of doing is what they are ready to do.
This is the most sickening thing. They have usurped and subverted the Rule of Law, while simultaneously convincing many many people [without evidence] that Trump is an Existential Threat to Our Democracy.
@ fantome – nice list of things to consider.
Add this one:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13930903/Democrat-Evan-Barker-celebrities-billionaires-lobbyists-Kamala-Harris.html
Lots more at the link.
I was reading one of the stories about how SNL has finally decided it’s okay to mock the Democrats, mostly focused on Walz, and one of the commenters suggested that his story (as in fictional) about being in Tiananmen when the tanks ran over the protestors almost required putting him in the Dukakis tank from 1988.
So another commenter AI’d that right up.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN6c75aMi-kvrFzd34CYpiVRUmAfEUPzOnZAud66TaIJT5a8lDmi0kaa0od91BpHA?key=OEVGd2pzb3NjaXo2X1h6cFhUUTBocmEzNjdSUUxR
The story of the original story and picture, for those who missed it.
Slanted toward the Democrat, of course.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/the-photo-op-that-tanked
The whole “Biden” / Democratic Party / Mainstream Corrupt Media “ETHIC” in a Nutz shell:
“Tim Walz says ‘I don’t think people care’ when confronted with history of misstatements on Fox News”—
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13930265/tim-walz-misstatements-fox-news-interview-election.html
Opening Graf:
..as the grotesque, but successful, demonisation of DJT continues…
Related:
“‘Underwater’ in North Carolina …and Michigan“—
http://jewishworldreview.com/1024/steyn100724.php
H/T Powerline blog.
Just for grins, folks; among your Kamal-supporting acquaintances and friends, how many would call for or support the total abandonment of one or more of the First Ten Amendments if the subject were someone whose politics annoyed them?
Niketas wrote,
“To really be able to reason rightly, you have to continually look for things that might prove your position wrong rather than just rack up things that support it. Very few people have any desire to put work into potentially proving themselves wrong.”
I agree about putting in the work, I’m not even sure it’s laziness, I think some people just aren’t very curious.
However, I don’t think one has to have an interest in proving oneself wrong. Being sufficiently focused on efficiency, or optimization would be enough. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
Niketas appears to have a background in Physics. Newton himself, even Einstein, would likely be somewhat shocked at what the current model states is going on at the sub-atomic level. But they would be open to accepting the current model based on the quantity of experiments that have been run that support it over Newton’s model.
Leftists have a view of the world, and human nature, and political systems. We all do. It’s just that every time an experiment is run based on their assumptions the data do not support their theories. I think most all of us, especially the changers here, picked up on that pattern. It turns out humans need challenges. Handing them the necessities of life like the Eloi in Wells’ “Time Machine” results in a populace about as robust as the Eloi in Wells’ “Time Machine.” It turns out humans need competition to thrive. It turns out gender differences are hard coded into our DNA. It turns out continually asking children how they feel, and if they are OK creates anxiety in children, rather than confidence…
The problem with Leftists is they don’t connect the failures of the real world examples where their theories are tried with evidence that the world actually functions much differently than they believe. Human nature and DNA at the “sub-atomic level” cannot be altered no matter how hard we try to vote or legislate it away.
Art Deco wrote,
“Now look at their ticket this year. Both have been government employees since about 1990. Both earned their keep in venues (the courts, the public schools) which function poorly.”
And the big ideas Harris and Walz worked to enact and enable have yielded horrendous results. Harris’ record as California’s AG is abysmal. As border czar she made the border worse. Is there a Governor who did worse during COVID and George Floyd than Tim Walz? The former crown jewel of his state, Minneapolis/St. Paul is a shell of what it was before he took office. The men he led in Minnesota’s National Guard accuse him of abandoning them.
But because, as Art Deco points out, Harris and Walz did these things as government employees they bear no impact from the damage implementing their plans wrought.
@ Rufus > “The problem with Leftists is they don’t connect the failures of the real world examples where their theories are tried with evidence that the world actually functions much differently than they believe.”
Indeed.
Which is why they depend on philosophies and idealogies that deny any kind of objective truth can even exist.
Thanks for the thoughtful pondering – one of your best.
Also very true, of the entire Administrative State and most elected officials as well: “But because, as Art Deco points out, Harris and Walz did these things as government employees they bear no impact from the damage implementing their plans wrought.”
@ Rufus > “It turns out humans need competition to thrive.”
So once we evolved the natural and learned characteristics to become the apex hunter, then the only animal that presented a real challenge was another human. We evolved the abilities to sense fraud and free riders in others, and to loath it.
Perhaps we even evolved Sowell’s two visions as a means to help ensure a reason for continued competition.
It is probably a stretch to suggest that the Neanderthals lost out to homo sapiens due to a failure to also evolve such a competitive dichotomy, but who knows ???
They were around for a pretty long time.