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Comment by cadamsdotcom | Hacker News Reader

To anyone sad about this:

The alternative offered was Kamala Harris. Thanks DNC.

First-past-the-post voting practically guarantees a two party system emerges over time: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

The US gov has been worn way at for decades by unscrupulous people seeking power and made so unpleasant to work in that few young people want to go into political leadership - and those that do don’t get far enough to have impact (eg. Buttigieg).. hence, old ass presidents.

Truly impactful movers and shakers have easy access to capital in the US, can keep their companies and lives private, and achieve a very comfortable life. Why would anyone choose politics over that?

Finally, the US gov system of checks and balances was designed assuming it could be perfected incrementally, but long-lived systems also need cycles of renewal - think of a forest. That design flaw is showing up now as key systems are getting cracked open by opportunists.

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What was wrong with Kamala Harris?

Other than the very obvious fact that she wasn't an incumbent President with an established political record and bully pulpit, and thus was starting from a position of weakness late in the game, running against someone who managed to maintain a position as frontrunner despite having not been in public view for four years?

She did very little to separate herself from Biden and alienated her base trying too hard to appeal to the right. She wouldn't even take a stance against genocide.

One of the biggest dysfunctions (possibly intentional) in America's two party system is that the "left" isn't really leftist. Both parties are pro police, pro military, pro American imperialism, pro oligarchy and anti labor, and the politics of both drift to the right. The red team just happens to be far more right than the blue team.

And Kamala Harris didn't prove an exception to the rule. Voters didn't want to vote for the status quo, no one really liked Biden, he was just the only option besides Trump. But that's all she represented. Just "not Trump."

Taking a stance against genocide would have made her perform worse in the general election. As much as you or I don't want it to be true, Americans like Trump. Being less like Trump is a losing proposition.

Bernie lost the popular vote within the Democratic party by a comfortable double digit margin. Consider that before stating without evidence that a more leftist candidate could win the general election.

>Consider that before stating without evidence that a more leftist candidate could win the general election.

The evidence is in the margins. 49.8% to 48.32% does not demonstrate that "being less like Trump is a losing proposition." Millions more people voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 after all, and she still lost. Winning by about 1% of votes cast or winning despite losing the popular vote doesn't point to some general cultural bias for Trump, or repudiation of the Democrats except by the left, who tend to sit out the vote or vote third party more than the right.

The far left proves over and over again that they don't turn out to vote or have too many conflicting litmus tests.

If the just move more left strat worked, I would expect to see an AOC style candidate in at least one red state. But the truth is that style of politics isn't popular outside of a few very blue districts.

Dan Osborn gave of a glimpse of what a left populist campaign in a red state might look like but he still lost. And half of his positions would get you cancelled by the AOCs of the world. The reality is a 2012 Obama platform is about as far left as you can go and hope to win a nationwide general election in the current US political climate.

That's incorrect - or, at least, not seriously tested with a true far-left candidate with the DNC'S full backing. Dan Osborn was decidedly not that.

Bernie Sanders is, of course, the quintessential example, as he polled better against Trump than all 3 of Trump's eventual Democratic opponents. Katie Porter flipped a red district and was well known for taking corporate stooges to task; the DNC undermined her latest election, and now she's out of politics, IIRC.

Then there's the case in Kentucky, where Charles Booker had a real chance to unseat Mitch McConnell in 2020; he was exceptionally charismatic and had poll numbers that were rising terrifically fast because he was home-grown and made a point of trying to unite people through shared interest. The DNC shoveled millions into primary opponent Amy McGrath's campaign, and even locked black Kentuckians out of their sole voting center in Louisville, suppressing the vote; right-of-center McGrath won, but it's hard to overstate by how narrowly.

She was trounced in the general, and it's important to point out why: because she represented too little difference from McConnell. She was never going to peel voters off the real thing with a milquetoast knock-off. Booker growth in the polls before it was cut short was so pronounced becaus he offered a real choice to Kentuckians. But the problem, for the DNC, isn't that far-left policies aren't popular (they are, wildly, and particularly among the demos that stay home if not activated with a promise of positive change); it's that those policies are anathema to the elite within the party and party donors.

That's the actual reality. Which is sobering, because it means that the left's best chance to make real progress would be when an economic reckoning robs that elite of the funding to buy their preferred candidates.

Your example of a leftist that can win in a red state is...Bernie Sanders? Kamala won Vermont by 30+ points. That's not a red state.

Everything else you said was hypotheticals and wish casting. The DNC cleared the way for Dan Osborn and he still lost. I'm sorry that the state senator you like got beat in the primary. That's politics. Leftist got beat in SF in 2025. If you can't win SF I don't think there is hope for Kentucky.

Bernie Sanders won against Trump in h2h polls in 2016 and 2020, quite strongly. Booker was on his was to something similar. Even 2008 Obama campaigned left of Clinton (we made the correct choice as far as an electoral victory goes, then, if not necessarily policy-wise).

These are realities that the DNC won't face because it threatens their donors. SF is a bad example as a region on a neoliberal stranglehold that is only nominally leftist, but much more concerned with money. The political machine there is adept at crushing upstarts. Nancy Pelosi had a serious challenger several years ago; she refused to debate him, and bad actors with Pelosi connections torpedoed his efforts with specious harrasment campaigns.

Which is all to say that the DNC and its local arms go out of their way to actively scuttle anything that doesn't have their seal of approval. Hope in SF, Kentucky, and elsewhere is not a function of progressive electoral capability, but of establishment Democrats' willingness to play fair or dirty.

Harris beat Trump in H2H polls against Trump in 2024. What matters is likely voters in swing states. Sanders gets crushed across the board when it comes to people actually voting, which is why he lost the primaries. Pelosi gets donors, and her primary opponents don't. No smoke-filled rooms needed.

>Harris beat Trump in H2H polls against Trump in 2024.

Not as consistently, not by the same margins, and with a large amount of ambivalence from swing voters. They liked Sanders in a way that Harris could never emulate. Every election over the last generation, save 2012, was determined by answering the question, "Are you sufficiently different from the last guy?" Obama, Trump, Biden, and, yes, Sanders were. McCain, Romney, Clinton, Trump (ironically), and Harris were not.

Sanders lost Democratic primaries (sometimes in dubious fashion), but kicked our milquetoast candidates' butts with swing voters in swing states, which I agree is what matters (other than not losing the progressive base, which is also something he was good at). He peeled off independents and Republicans who were fed up with Democratic centrism; as with Trump, ANY change would do for them, as long as it was unequivocal. And Sanders had the advantage of not having a history of raping women. Our loss, sabotogating his campaign (literally).

Getting donors isn't a virtue. Several successful Democratic candidates have run on eschewing the wrong kinds of donors. Regardless, she uses the smoke-filled rooms anyway. And then lies about basic stuff like, "This will be my last time running for office." It's no wonder that people on both sides of the aisle hate her. She represents many of the reasons Democrats lose, and only wins herself through momentum and subterfuge.

> Sanders lost Democratic primaries (sometimes in dubious fashion)

No, he lost convincingly in a landslide. There was nothing dubious about the primaries.

> but kicked our milquetoast candidates' butts with swing voters in swing states

In dubious caucuses. If these states had primaries, Sanders would have won even fewer states.

> only wins herself through momentum and subterfuge.

She wins because she drastically outspends her opponents. Your idea of how elections work is completely divorced from reality.

The margin would have been 15% or more if Sanders ran. What I asked you to consider is that Sanders lost by double digits to Clinton among the left. It would be far worse in a general election.

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