- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
Summary
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has criticized the Harris-Walz 2024 presidential campaign for playing it too “safe,” saying they should have held more in-person events and town halls.
In a Politico interview, Walz—known for labeling Trump and Vance as “weird”—blamed their cautious approach partly on the abbreviated 107-day campaign timeline after Harris became the nominee in August.
Using football terminology, he said Democrats were in a “prevent defense” when “we never had anything to lose, because I don’t think we were ever ahead.”
While acknowledging his share of responsibility for the loss, Walz is returning to the national spotlight and didn’t rule out a 2028 presidential run, saying, “I’m not saying no.”
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I am convinced 'Murica generally is too racist to vote a black person into office. Obama was only voted into office because he is an extremely charismatic and charming person. So much so that he was voted into office in spite of being black. Kamala is neither charismatic nor charming. Also, there is sexism and she’s a woman.
Too safe? No, they were too center.
I was just thinking earlier today that I miss Tim Walz. Walz 2028!
Gee who would have thought that completely ignoring the anti-war/genocide crowd and courting the CHENEYS “moderate Republicans” while keeping absolutely silent about Medicare for all and touting a “keep America lethal” platform would have backfired for one of the least popular politicians ever who was just anointed as the presidential candidate without any sort of primary at all. I’m so confused!
Maybe they should copy what Bernie Sanders is doing. He’s not even running and packing out town hall meetings. Who knew being against oligarchs, authoritarians, corporate cronyism and for the middle class would appeal to people?
True, they needed to expose themselves to more assassination attempts.
Easy to say when it’s all over, but I still think they’re wrong.
They should try not being fake as fuck.
They’ll never learn. It’s the same thing every election cycle.
Surely the Democrats will stop moving to the center now that they understand that they weren’t properly addressing the needs of the people… right? right?
I’m sure the Dems will finally start supporting trans people, and will intervene as states like Texas make our existence illegal. I’m sure that there will be investigations into systemic issues with the police both being used against transgender people and the fact that our murders are often not investigated. I’m sure that the Dems will advocate for trans people to have protections in their employment and housing. We totally aren’t disposable minorities who’s support is wanted, but not enough to recognize us as human beings.
People on the left screamed this as soon as they took over from sleeping baby joe. We said “PLEASE put some OOMPH into it! Stop regurgitating Corporate Dems platitudes!”
And people in the republican-adjacent wing of the party told them to shut up.
Because they’re paid to be the opposition, and thats it. Anything more means trouble for them.
They just don’t get it. The game has changed, people are used to high energy fast paced delivery from social media. A presidential candidate needs to be engaging and deliver a super condensed message that’s shareable. I don’t know anybody in my personal life that was excited Kamala was running and I’m from the bay area.
Granted Biden withdrawing so close to the election left them without much time to strategize, I don’t see them really playing it too differently. The legacy Dems are old and corrupt, they don’t understand that being cozy with corporations is gross and that we want fiery new blood. They’ll probably continue doing the same shit, playing the same old games until it’s too late.
The legacy Dems are old and corrupt, they don’t understand that being cozy with corporations is gross and that we want fiery new blood.
They understand perfectly well. It’s just that being corporate hacks and cronies is more profitable.
Well, they tried social media with calling Harris a “brat” because some popstar did. Well turns out having millionaire and billionaire capitalist artists embrace you does not rally people. Turns out people are more sensible than thinking “hey this musician i like said i should vote for this one. Guess that is all i need”. Also i found this kind of endorsement seeking quite insulting as it shows how little intelligence they expect of their voters.
No wonder Showman, TV show host won elections, even Krasnov Trump’s FBI director is conspiracy theorist with a radio host and commentator as deputy director.
They THOUGHT they were doing all the things you listed, because they paid “top dollar” for “top democratic strategists”. The whole system the Dems run on is rotten to the core. It all needs to be thrown out
Exactly, these clowns hired the same types of people who barely pull off wins despite being the majority party. They’re really good at collecting money and paying themselves, but really shit at winning.
The right has been stacking the deck, blatantly, for thirty fucking years. I’m a big fan of awarding electrical college points based on congressional districts. All of a sudden those cities in deeply red states get a voice.
I am hopeful that this next cycle the progressives that actually want to do something will break free from institutionalized/leadership of the party of democrats.
Not hopeful they will receive that opportunity again though.
Fuck both of them. Only a progressive will go far in the party
I like progressive politics as well, but the fact of the matter is that we need centrist Dems/independents that will caucus with Democrats, ones that can win in swing states and districts, and while they may not entirely align with our goals it’s at least a step in the right direction. It’s going to take decades to undo the damage done by Republicans, and the unfortunate truth is that Americans saw Kamala as more extreme left than Trump extreme right (education seems to be a major issue) Democrats need a majority before any realistic change can happen. People are dumb, but that’s where we’re at, I don’t want to sound resigned or accepting of this situation, just realistic.
I like progressive politics as well, but
but the paragraph of centrist apologia that followed this indicates that this is less than truthful.
the fact of the matter is that we need centrist Dems/independents that will caucus with Democrats, ones that can win in swing states and districts, and while they may not entirely align with our goals it’s at least a step in the right direction.
“Vote blue no matter who” has always meant “vote republican-lite and shut up.” The last time centrists didn’t get 100% of everything they wanted, they formed a PAC to get McCain elected.
Americans saw Kamala as more extreme left than Trump extreme right
No, trumpists who were never going to vote for a democrat saw her that way. centrists loved how far to the right she was.
Democrats need a majority before any realistic change can happen.
We gave them a majority and as always they found enough no votes. No more excuses. They can gum up the works right now. They won’t.
lol
I guess “dismissive” is about as civil as centrists get.
You purposely misconstrued everything I said, claimed I’m not actually progressive when you don’t know a thing about what I stand for. Why would I bother doing anything but laugh?
You pulled a [half a sentence of shit I don’t believe] but [long paragraph of shit I actually do believe].
You never engaged me in good faith, you immediately just tried to dunk on me. You aren’t at all interested in having an actual dialogue, and I’m certain I’m more ideologically progressive than you, I’m just realistic about the situation, and scared about the future my daughter is going to have to endure, so excuse me for understanding that change is incremental, and being pragmatic.
Originally I was just trying to express that the Democratic Party is an incredibly broad coalition, especially compared to Republicans. To hold majorities in the House and the Senate appealing to swing voters with blue dog type Dems, is absolutely a good thing. Like Marie Glusencamp Perez (even though she voted to censure Al Green, which I do not like) I’d rather have them than Nazi fascists like Joe Kent.
The other point I was trying to make, was that according to some polling Donald Trump was seen as more moderate than Kamala. Right wing propaganda is extremely effective and, people who are perceived as more moderate tend to win presidential elections.
Anyway feel free to downvote me, and reply with a bad faith dunk.
I’m sure this time it will work 🫠
By all means, don’t participate until your perfect candidate comes along.
Theres ‘not perfect’ and then theres participating in a genocide. The fact that those look the same to you does not speak well of you.
Anyone who belittles criticism with that “perfect candidate” shit has their perfect candidate already.
Walz is pretty progressive, much more so than Harris.
Not enough though
I think the Harris-Walz campaign was just a touch too genocide-y rather than “safe”
But Trump was even more genocide-y and he won. Americans just really like genocide.
That’s quite literally what his side have wanted for decades and have basically openly said that, so of course he did well with that stance
Meanwhile the Democrats are the ones pretending to be the non-monstrous option while openly being monstrous
It should be clear why it hurts one side more than the other: one side literally doesn’t fucking have standards
Were there a lot of people who just wanted a little?
I see you’re getting downvoted for criticiszing genocide. Looks like the hasbara are still getting paid to astroturf lemmy and reddit to make it look like the zionist cause is more than 1% of the voters. So at least we have some semblance of normalcy.
One problem the DNC has is that they keep throwing boring ass lawyers into a game that isn’t about law. It’s about being a face the country knows to run the government.
You need charisma, you need to appeal to people, and you need to be human. Obama did this perfectly. Bill Clinton had it in him. Biden at least had such a long record in politics he could wing it his first term. I don’t know how he managed to win, but he did.
Clinton, while being a lawyer, had already been the governor of Arkansas. Meaning he had the experience being that executive. He could convince people to work beyond their own interests. Al Gore, we all know, won the 2000 presidential election, but the supreme court let everything get fucked up.
Kerry? Never stood a chance. Hilary? No chance. Kamala? As much as we needed her to win, she was unappealing to stupid people.
Lawyers, by nature of their career, have to read and understand the most boring ass shit and then convince others that the boring ass text supports their side of the case. That means a lot of them are boring people.
You wanna know why Walz is popular? He fucking loves football. He can connect to highschool students. IDK about you, but if you’ve ever met high schoolers, they aren’t the brightest, and bored easily. He’s progressive, but he won’t shove it in someone’s face to be more righteous. Not many people can do that.
To win an election, you have to excite people. Trump, despite his rhetoric clearly being terrifying, was, unfortunately, exciting.
Biden won because he wasn’t trump. Simple as that.
This is pretty much all true. Except for…
One problem the DNC has is that they keep throwing boring ass lawyers into a game that isn’t about law
The DNC wasn’t making the decisions. The Harris campaign was.
Kerry? Never stood a chance. Hilary? No chance. Kamala? As much as we needed her to win, she was unappealing to stupid people.
Somewhat true. But Hillary could have won if she had simply mixed in a few bearded Biker types in the background crowd as prominently as all the Muslim women. But these candidates were the mistakes of the voters, not the DNC.
To win an election, you have to excite people. Trump, despite his rhetoric clearly being terrifying, was, unfortunately, exciting.
I change the channel whenever Traitorapist Trump talks so that he never gets a full sentence out. Still do. I don’t want to hear one more lie.
But you and I aren’t the person Trump is trying to excite.
It’s the 25% of Americans that equate critical thought with torture. That is the chunk of people you can’t reason with. So you have to have a way for them to care at all. Unloading garbage nonsense that has the occasional inflammatory rhetoric is exciting.
Talking about football? Not exciting to me, but these 25% of Americans? You better bet your ass they like it. They like beer and they like the idea of not having to worry about finances as well.
Unloading garbage nonsense that has the occasional inflammatory rhetoric is exciting.
Oh I agree that the #1 problem is that Harris needed to use way more aggressive rhetoric against Traitorapist Trump.
I mean, I agree with you, but this is also a huge problem. This is why you have someone who pretended to be a successful businessman on TV as a president now. I really miss the days when boring but competent people could run a country.
It’s far easier to have a better candidate than change how 80 million people think.
Is this a problem of how people think, or is it a problem of what sells views in newspapers (and that media companies are too rich)?
Boring yet competent people don’t get elected in a country with mass media. They just don’t get coverage, so people don’t know they’re there.
As example, look at the first televised presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon. Kennedy was young and inexperienced, but let them put makeup on him for the debate. Nixon had more experience but looked like a sweaty mess on TV. This helped Kennedy a lot.
That ship sailed with the first TV debates, tbh. I watched the Carter-Reagan debate and it wasn’t a contest. I hate Reagan’s dumb fucking face, that bastard fucked America up for forty plus years and set us on the track we’re on, but he ate Jimmy Carter alive and went back for seconds. They weren’t even playing the same sport. Carter, a Nuclear Engineer, was up there delivering a university lecture about why he should be the president, and Reagan went up there, turned on the actor, and gave America the best cigarette ad it had ever seen.
Obama covered both lawyer and entertaining. He also had an appeal similar to Reagan, confident and comforting during uncertain times. The conservative media made politics entertaining, now we have entertainers as politicians and I can’t get on board with that
It’s not something we are going to change anytime soon. Far too many people to change to counter that.
Instead, we need candidates like Walz, who have a brain on their shoulders, and have a way to excite outside of putting on a show.
Bernie Sanders was another example of it. AoC is as well.
The old guard (both literal and figurative) need to get the fuck out of the way for the AOC’s and Crockett’s who will actually speak to power instead of cowering in the corners.
The other big problem is that politics have become such a negative impact on people’s lives in the US that regular people don’t want to run for office anymore, which is what we really need.
It’s to the point that I might prefer either a direct democracy with no representatives at all or electing reps via a lottery system. Most of the people with the desire to run for office, and all but a handful of those with the characteristics necessary to wade through the muck of special interests and campaign finance to actually get in office, are the kind of people you want as far away from power as possible.
Test potential politicians for mental illnesses and make sure they have empathy etc. Make them do mandatory counselling. I mean, counsellors and mental health workers have to do this because they’re working with vulnerable people, but politicians don’t??? Their decisions affect everyone, including vulnerable people.
i don’t love the implication here that politicians are corrupt due to mental illness. they can be perfectly average mentally and still be corrupt because corruption is an innate and ever-present exploit of human psychology. empathetic people can be mistaken of where to place their empathy. mentally ill people can be a better option for a public office than someone else who is neurotypical, it all comes down to their platform and record of reliability. disability should not be mutually exclusive with ability to govern.
Power corrupts, yes, but you must see it in your life, and certainly if you’ve ever had dealings with the police or been mistreated by a teacher at school… Not all but some people in those roles are doing it precisely because they get a kick out of misusing their power, often when people are vulnerable and so can’t defend themselves.
This is a character flaw at a minimum but can be part of a mental illness. I don’t think the line is so definite between mental illness or health. People can have traits of illness without enough dysfunction to be diagnosed with the illness.
Disability which is incompatible with kindness, understanding, decency etc should not be allowed power over people, especially vulnerable people. Most people who were ill and were decent would not want to be in a position where they could harm people. Cluster B’s and such wouldn’t care. If they don’t care (consistently), then they shouldn’t be in a position of power over people. There are plenty of other jobs.
Looking at trump in particular the reliance on voters being good judges of character has to end, which means there must be a mechanism in place to prevent people like trump ever getting near power.
i think the second we open up the avenue for certain character traits to be banned from public office, it opens up a new avenue and mechanism for oppressive government bodies to prevent their opponents from gaining power against them. Who gets to decide what traits count as disqualifying? what measures do we use to identify who has met this threshold? where and how could someone be treated for these in order to gain back eligibility? how difficult would it be to change these rules if they were incorrect? how hard would it be for a bad actor to change these rules for their own gain? how much money would be spent on this and the lawsuits that return from it?
I’d guess a council of psychologists would administer their own tests under lie detector, perhaps a yearly lottery from an eligible pool of reputable and experienced specialists, maybe also other renowned experts. No positions being permanent could eliminate some problems. The difficult part would be deciding where the lines are drawn. Someone like trump should be easy to disqualify without any testing, just from his widely reported past record of scams, fraud etc.
Imagine a young Putin, whose service record is largely secret, not much other history to go off, who doesn’t give away much, surely has information about past testing and is very smart.
So it’s not going to be 100% reliable, just a tool to hopefully improve the situation. It could begin with disqualification being reserved for only the worst, and then record how candidates perform vs predictions and readjust as necessary.
As to treatment, its impossible to say, it really depends on the individual to know if it’s even possible. Also whether its a good idea to let candidates repeat what are essentially aptitude tests which they could cheat.
If anyone is subject to oppressive government scrutiny it should be politicians.
i think it would be infinitely simpler to just ban the actions you don’t want people to do and a better mechanism to enforce it than to try and police the amorphous qualities of their character and behavior. Like, our problem here is that the executive branch has been granted too much power by congress, corporations are treated like people and can vote with their dollars, and congress + the supreme court have no mechanism to enforce laws against the executive branch. If the system was actually segregated enough in duties and insulated from capital, it would be immune to the effects of someone even as bad as trump. It would also prevent all of the false positives and the mechanisms for abuse that would open when we start calling people ineligible for innate and immeasurable qualities.
Impossible. You can’t have tests like that for candidates or voters. You just end up reinventing literacy tests.
People working in psychiatry are judged in this way, but not politicians? Politicians have way more responsibility over people’s lives. They should be under maximum scrutiny and we should be as sure as we can be that they’re the best of us, including morally. We already make them have health checks.
Not to mention the eugenicism this would ignite.
How so? Bad eggs would be simply rejected.
The eugenicism is because of the tests; not the politicians.
You think this would work because you assume we could write such tests with such accuracy as to evade bias (or that such requirement for testing wouldn’t be exploited by opportunists to place metrics much more aligned with whom said opportunists would like to eradicate).
I’d point out that you say the tests should test for empathy but Empathy Deficit Disorder exists and, as EDD people often point out, the lack of being able to feel empathy doesn’t stop them from wanting to help people and making choices based off that desire. They just don’t feel empathy when they do it.
Of course, you’re not using that word to mean literally understanding and relating to others’ feelings; sympathy would certainly qualify.
But how do you ensure that? Who gets to implement these tests? And what stops it from being someone who just sees Empathy Deficit Disorder and goes, “Eew…keeping them away from this….”
I always feel to like I sound like I’m being condescending but (and I mean this as genuinely as possible) you should try selling out writing and theory by disabled authors. Because of the way disabled people are erased from both culture and society as practically a matter of function, it can be really hard to even realize the ways in which our assumptions don’t factor them in. Stuff covering ability and autonomy are incredibly interesting in the ways they think about concepts due different lived experiences.
We already assess people for mental health issues. I’m saying that politicians should be under massive scrutiny to make sure that we’re not allowing people with deficits in the areas which would make them callous, self-serving and so on, to rule over people, particularly vulnerable people. Pathological liars and manipulators shouldn’t be given a platform or the respectability of office to brainwash people on a global scale. Its almost so basic and obvious as to be unspeakable, but we know now that we must structure our societies & create standards to keep these people out of power.
We in fact should select for the traits that we want/don’t want in leaders and only allow people into politics who have those traits. This testing is already happening in many professions, maybe even most. Even shitty customer service jobs use these tests - well, all I’m saying is that we need politicians to be tested as much as astronauts are. How can that possibly be a bad idea?
I don’t think the metrics and so on should be any different than what already exists. Respected people in the psychology field have already said that trump is mentally ill in such a way that he’s unfit to rule.
The problem is that now he’s manoeuvred himself into a position where he can’t be removed, and soon even us talking like this will be illegal.
I’m all for disability rights, just not to the detriment of public safety - which exists in every sensitive field. Politics is a sensitive field. Politicians should be strong in emotional, compassionate and cognitive empathy, as well as sympathy. They should also have a good track record of being moral and decent people. Stealing from cancer kids charities would be a no, no matter what disability that person had.
This could be summed up as ‘no tolerance for intolerance’ or ‘no kindness towards cruelty’.
The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke has government by lottery.
The old guard (both literal and figurative) need to get the fuck out of the way for the AOC’s and Crockett’s who will actually speak to power instead of cowering in the corners.
They sure as eff do!
Pelosi hated the left long before the left hated her.
Yep. Every time I hear Jeffries talk I am thinking “shut the fuck up and go fetch AOC”.
