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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

Don't rule out Harris' internal polling just being bad and the public polling was superior. We're looking at a team whos message was "our opponent is a racist, homophobic, sexist, rapist, felonic avatar of Hitler" and then saw him gain margin which is quite remarkable. What did voters have to see in Harris' team for that to happen? They're clearly doing something wrong. If the team managed that I wouldn't assume their pollsters were a lone beacon of competence.

It seems quite plausible they hired bad pollsters and their internal data was off.

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What they did wrong was picking the candidate - she wasn’t popular. It wasn’t the time to try this kind of candidate, but they did it because of their own priorities. It’s OK, they won’t learn.

Democrats need to start nominating famous actors and influencers.

They had all of Hollywood this year and quite a lot of nonpolitcal content creators came out for Harris in the last days.

Having hollywood endorse a candidate is not the same as having hollywood be a candidate.

And who is the mythical hollywood figure untainted by the culture war that could pull voters from the other side. The only thing you have to do with any hollywood celebrity to thank their presidential campaign is just post screenshots of their Covid and BLM tweets. And if they don't have stupid Covid and BLM tweets then they will have antisemitic ones.

Bill Maher

Your point restated, nobody cares about endorsements.

Michael Bloomberg already tried the "hey, I'm like that guy but without the wrong think" xerox strategy and it didn't go well. Mark Cuban has toyed with it too but keeps getting cold feet, maybe due to lack of confidence or maybe due to analysis that shows being Them-Lite rarely works.

Trump's reality tv show is not a major part of what got him elected but if someone wants to fund and convince Mark Cuban to try a doppelganger campaign, a fool and his money are soon parted. Cuban seems to know better than to try with his own fortune.

If Cuban ran against Kamala he wouldn’t even have to campaign.

Cuban would have done much better against Trump. Any white southern male would have but Cuban might have pulled in Texas.

Their mistake was much more basic than that. They kept assuming that they could re-run Biden until it was too late for a switch to work.

When they did decide to switch, it had to be Harris, because she was the only one who could legitimately claim to use Biden's election funds, and they didn't have time to raise money for anyone else.

From there, they didn't fix the other mistake - the one Democrats have been making for at least a decade. The Democrats' natural constituency is the working class. They can't win without it. But much of the working class is rather socially conservative. The Democrats have spent the last decade telling working class people that if they, the working class, don't think gay marriage is a good idea, or don't think trans people belong on womens' sports teams and in womens' restrooms, or aren't comfortable with abortion, then they are moral lepers and their entire culture needs to be completely eradicated. Well, the natural result is that at least some of those people are going to flip you the bird and vote for the other guy. Democrats wonder "how could people be so stupid?" I ask, "How could you be so stupid? What did you think was going to happen?"

They didn't "have" to run anybody. They could've, and should've gone with someone else. Everyone knew when Harris was selected that the Democrats had lost. The DNC tried to turn that sentiment around, but they started from a losing position and never recovered. There were alternatives...

> don't think gay marriage is a good idea

That's the culture war of a decade ago: Obergefell v Hodges was in 2015.

And Roe v Wade was in 1973. That that war didn't end then, though.

The gay and trans thing was a wedge issue pushed by Republicans, because they saw that it worked, and the only way Dems could have appeased the riled up masses would be to straight up start oppressing LGBT people.

I don't hold it against them that they didn't budge on this one. Beating up on a minority for political points is morally repugnant, and the whole appeal of Democrats is that they have some kind of integrity.

The "moral lepers" thing feels to me like a distortion of reality. The actual Democratic politicians generally didn't engage in denigrating their base. Maybe you mean people on the disgusting website.

It was picked as a wedge issue but the Republicans chose very wisely, as the Democrats' incessant pushing of trans issues without any consideration towards the negative impact upon women and girls was unpopular even amongst many traditionally left-leaning voters.

If you mean that the Democrats' policy of supporting transgender rights through legislation was hard to defend (not from a scientific or medical standpoint, but from a populist, political one) and Trump effectively attacked it then yes you're right.

If you mean that the messaging on trans rights alienated swing voters then I think it's probably true, but moderates and swing voters do support general anti-discrimination laws but are wary of policies on sports participation and youth medical care.

If you mean that it was the centerpiece of their identity and everything that were campaigning for, and their pivotal, most important issue, then I don't think that's accurate.

But they did deliberately elevate transgender rights as a moral and civil rights issue. This was a trade off (energize progressives, lose some moderates). Conservatives effectively focused on targeted attacks (bathrooms, sports).

I think that maybe the gamble didn't pay off. The messaging should have probably been about protecting from discrimination, and debate should be focused on attacking republican establishment for being aggressive and hateful.

But really all of this doesn't matter. A better candidate, a white or latino strong charismatic man would have beaten Trump.

Exactly my thoughts even as a complete outsider. Democrats seem to became overconfident in their own internet agenda and forgot that most people at least don’t care and on average just tolerate. Through years it seems that tolerance (which we just learned is the normal mode of operation within diverse groups) turned into mandatory praising and hitler if you don’t.

The inconvenient thing is, average people are -phobic naturally or historically. That’s just the fact of life. Tolerance, the conscious inhibition of natural processes, is a good-enough contract that keeps them away from negativity, but you cannot tell everyone they are hitler if they feel otherwise, as opposed to act against. That’s bullshit and emotional hegemony. Some of the left figures (can’t name, just echoing some clips) even explicitly enjoyed disturbing these phobias. It all seemed like contrasting mockery rather than integration. I understand that most of it was addressed at far right, but you can’t target them with such negativity without affecting the rest as well.

How could you be so stupid? What did you think was going to happen?

I think they only gained more momentum. They would do so with or without Trump winning because they demonstrate levels of illusion far beyond all return points. They are de-platforming, de-employing people, ostracizing their own people who dare to speak any sort of reasonable thought, and they cheer after doing so. Do you really think they can pause and reflect? It almost feels like US needs a third force that isn’t hitler or hitler and cares about just normal society.

Oh, I would love to have a third force. Both sides are moving to extremes, and the bulk of the population is not extreme in either direction, and just want some sanity instead of extremism. A large majority is there for the taking. Will someone wake up and take it?

This pretty much covers it. Harris ran a terrible campaign in 2020 and was never popular. Biden picked her anyway, against his better judgement, because that was what the Left wanted and he was trying to appease them. His disastrous decision to run again for so long left the party with no other options.

Harris tried to correct some of her past mistakes and did better this time around but she should have never been in that position to begin with. Most of the blame should go to Biden and the activists who want to self-immolate the party on the altar of tokenism.

> What did voters have to see in Harris' team for that to happen?

Biden should have pulled out a lot sooner. When? At least a year before the election. But you can easily make arguments for earlier and earlier all the way back to having been too old to run for President in the first place, despite having had a really good term.

Also Harris needs to fire her consultants, who were still trying to play "fair" in an unfair fight and pulled back on the one attack line which was working: that Republicans are "weird".

Things are unlikely to improve until voters start primarying out anyone still trying to do bipartisan equivocation.

His approval rating was in “it would be unprecedented if you won” territory early enough that he should have been out in time to have a real primary. Folks who think switching was any kind of a mistake are going on gut and not numbers. The mistake was that he stayed in as long as he did. Even so, switching was better than not, despite still losing.

And yes, it’s so goddamn frustrating that Clinton-era consultants are still given meetings.

Clinton era consultants were the only ones saying the obvious: “it’s the economy stupid”. On the other hand it was the Obama era consultants who were fixated on the massive loser that is identity politics

Democrats are screwed on economic messaging until they join Republicans in dropping neoliberalism. Was never popular, but both parties could stick to it as long as neither "defected". Now one has.

Even when the economy's good, they're going to be hindered on messaging until they drop that.

Meanwhile a bunch of them are running around like "the problem's that we were too nice to trans people!" lol no, the problem is the latent one that's been hanging there waiting to be triggered by one party or the other since the '80s, the one any expert should have been watching for a shift in—or looking to move first on—this entire time.

> Democrats are screwed on economic messaging until they join Republicans in dropping neoliberalism.

I disagree. What we're witnessing today is that while people are happy with many of the fruits of globalization (cheap Chinese junk, cheap flights, ability to travel anywhere, remote work, etc, etc) our politicians have just about done everything in their power to increase the price of the things that actually matter: housing, healthcare, childcare, and education.

A Democrat party that could actually deliver on these things (rather than exacerbate the problems as they have done) would fare far better electorally. No need to put in place unpopular, destructive tariffs.

> happy with many of the fruits of globalization

i.e. things from overseas

> increase the price of the things that actually matter: housing, healthcare, childcare, and education.

i.e. things that have large skilled labor inputs within the US and can't be exported, plus housing which half the population doesn't want to be cheaper. This is just "Baumol cost disease". The major component of healthcare, childcare, and education is the wages of other Americans.

Let's not kid ourselves that the election was a fair comparison of economic policies.

The economy was doing fine apart from a transitory inflation spike especially in eggs. Meanwhile the US is now involved in a pointless trade war with Canada before even getting to the budget; people are going to have an economic disaster that dwarfs the price of eggs, because they got invested in identity politics of the right-wing.

I predict the Trump term will be an economic disaster on the numbers, but this will have no effect on people's stuck belief that Republicans are better than Democrats at economic management.

> ...and pulled back on the one attack line which was working: that Republicans are "weird".

Isn't the Democrat brand supposed to be that weird is encouraged? When did they start being against weird people?

Yes, but different kinds of weird. There's dem's "be yourself" kinda weird that supports queer people's right to exist, and there's the GOP "passes laws that require genital inspections of children in the bathroom" kinda weird that Tim Walz was calling out.

>What did voters have to see in Harris' team for that to happen? They're clearly doing something wrong.

Perhaps there is clearly something wrong with the voters to opt for a

> racist, homophobic, sexist, rapist, felonic avatar of Hitler

Riiiight....

https://youtu.be/eVddGSTjEd0?t=51

Or maybe the explanation is that everybody behaved "responsibly" but they never got the changes they wanted, and chances for anything different looked more and more bleak. Why do you treat this like a single event? It is not. Lots of prior experiences fed into this.

For example, as bad as this is for us (I'm German, but I lived many years in the US once), for Europe I think it is good what is happening. Now we are forced to move and mature. Crisis are not always bad. The personalities involved this time make it especially hard to look at the whole thing calmly. I admit I have a harder time seeing what the US may get out of this except for the shakeup as a general chance. However, too much is concentrated on the personalities, and, like you did, on blaming everybody. How about Democrats look what they did wrong? I mean, other than reverting to "we didn't think the voters would be so stupid", in which case I have little hope for them to get anything positive out of this.

Democrats’ mistake was putting up a woman in a leadership popularity contest, even after the previous woman lost to the same

> racist, homophobic, sexist, rapist, felonic avatar of Hitler

And a black woman at that, to further reduce Democrats’ chances.

I’m basing this on the anecdotal evidence from many people who I spoke to, who have zero problem telling me a woman cannot be a leader. Including my own non white immigrant grandmother, who grew up without rights.

Many people don’t like to see people of a perceived lower socioeconomic status pass them up. It makes themselves feel inferior.

I'll counter your anecdotal experience with my own. I can count on one hand the number of people I know well who voted against Harris because of her gender or color. And I live in the rural south. The simple truth is that Harris failed to make a compelling case to enough of the nation in enough of the right states to win. The reasons for that failure are going to be complex and varied depending on area. Any attempt to pin it on a single trait or activity is going to be somewhat wrong. This is way too nuanced a topic for "She lost because she was a black woman" to be at all useful.

> I can count on one hand the number of people I know well who voted against Harris because of her gender or color.

You can count on one hand the number of people you know well who are willing to admit they voted against Harris because of her gender or color. This is a critical distinction.

I know a lot of people well enough that they know they don't have to be afraid to admit such things to me. This is not a critical distinction because assuming you know what people think is a great way to completely misunderstand them.

As someone who spent 30 years living in the rural south, I can state this with the confidence of personal experience: some people will not reveal their worst opinions until they are extremely sure in the safety of doing so. In some cases, they'll only reveal those opinions to someone else who has repeatedly shared the same opinions with them.

So unless you're giving big racist or misogynist vibes in how you communicate with them, the racists and misogynists you know "well" may be keeping their opinions to themselves.

The Democratic white male candidate (Biden) was polling so much worse than Harris that he was removed from candidacy.

Harris was part of the Biden administration, she was the 2IC of the Biden administration, she endorsed the policies of the Biden administration and the only official difference between her and Biden was that she was a different race & gender and polled much better than he did. Although unofficially she looked mentally sharper than Biden.

It is difficult to say it was race and gender when the approved candidate of the appropriate race and gender was clearly unelectable. At least Harris was a close call, Biden had lost before the race started. If the Biden administration had been popular and had some achievements to run on then she'd probably have won.

Why is it so hard to accept that hundreds of millions of Americans are racist, sexist, dumb fucks who don't know what's in their own best interests? They elected a crazy, raging megalomaniac over two sensible women. Twice. "How about Democrats look what they did wrong?" Well, maybe the obvious explanation is the best? They ran with women. So the solution is to only field male candidates in the future? You can see why that doesn't work for a "liberal" (< 100% right-wing) political party.

I always get a chuckle out of this. Both parties are full of NPCs who have mostly lost the ability to reason themselves out of anything partisan. This becomes even more apparent when you see each side hurl the same insults at each other, trying to rationalize the state of the world through ad hominem attacks.

It's depressing not to fit into either side, to be honest. I'm both a racist, sexist homophobe, and a libtard, depending on which echo chamber I am engaging in.

No, they ran with "horrible" women. Had they not screwed Tulsi Gabbard over and pretty much pushed her out of the party, I would have loved to have voted for Democrat woman.

Gabbard is a Republican.

She used to be a Democrat.

Shes weird. There’s something just very insincere about her. I’m not sure if Russia really bought her off or not, but she definitely has some wacky opinions

Suggesting that she was "bought off" by Russia without even the slightest bit of evidence is pure idiocy. Attacking people as being foreign agents for not fully falling in line with the orthodoxy is really what I consider to be "weird" and straight-up un-American.

She was a Democrat until 2022.

Trump got ~77M votes, not hundreds of millions.

Sexism was probably a small part of why Democrats lost, but much more important reasons were the economy, alienating their base with their Israel policy, moving to the right on immigration instead of permissive policies which are popular with their base and strategically important for future demographics, and focusing most of their attention on highly divisive culture war issues that effect a vanishingly small portion of the population.

Why is it so hard to accept that Harris was _that bad_ of a candidate? Democrat voters didn't want her in the 2020 primaries (not a single delegate won) and she was basically invisible during the entire Biden campaign until the massive pre-election astroturf campaign that tried to revamp her image.

You don't get it. I agree with you. She is a woman and thus "that bad" of a presidential candidate. But to argue that it somehow was rational for the Americans to reelect Trump over her is to engage in some seriously dangerous mental gymnastics.

A quip (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_L%C3%B6sung) from a more innocent era comes to mind-

> Would it not in that case / Be simpler for the government / To dissolve the people / And elect another?

Principal Skinner "am I so out of touch" meme

Bertolt Brecht "dissolving the people and electing another" quote

Well sure, but if that is the attitude they're not going to bother hiring good pollsters. Pollsters are going to do what, come back and explain that the Devil himself is outpolling your campaign. Now what? They were already catastrophising as hard as they could and the entire English speaking world knows how the US Dems feel about Trump. A majority (although admittedly a slim one) of voters just don't believe them.

Good pollsters would have been a waste of money in that environment and I'm sure the Harris campaign was judiciously watching their budget.

What's surprising to me is how many ex government employees they're able to find who voted for Trump and just didn't think they would get downsized because they're actually doing what they're supposed to be doing. I think it's interesting that Trump consistently gets the benefit of the doubt even in cases where the people he puts in positions of power pretty clearly intended to demoralize people by firing them.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-wh...

> If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

This quote doesn’t apply just to white men, or even just men.

> Hitler

Please keep using the same tired comparisons. It helps a lot.

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