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Trump’s secret sauce is exploiting this from every angle.
— Alfred describing why the mob hired the Joker
It’s clear that both political parties in the US are captured by the investor class, the democrats didn’t even have an election to choose Kamala she was selected by their donors who preferred someone they could control over someone with the best chance of winning.
If the lesson people take away from this is that Republicans are just uneducated and naive, they’re missing the point. People were desperate for something different, they thought Trump was someone from outside of the system but they didn’t realize that the system is money and no one is outside of it.
It has an interesting conjecture, and sounds like it was written in good faith.
Biden won the primary, then he stepped down. That's the actual story, and if you don't include the teensy little detail you're being dishonest. As a reminder to everyone, choosing not to tell the whole truth is dishonesty.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/is-it-really-unlawful-...
You’re the one being dishonest. The democratic nomination wasn’t official until August, and to suggest the Democratic Party had no other option is factually incorrect and a revision of history that ignores the months the party and pundits spent discussing other options, as well as the legal argument the party itself made to justify choosing Harris.
Two important notes: the RNC would have been just as screwed if the DNC had succeeded in putting a bullet in Trump’s brain. Also, Harris performed unusually badly during her presidential primary, stoking angers that she was not only unelected, but that she wouldn’t have been elected given the chance.
Wait, what?
Ultimately, if Harris wasn't a good candidate for the Presidency, then she shouldn't have been VP in 2020. That was where the issue lay.
> The nomination will officially be voted on either shortly before or during the convention itself. Unless a major Democratic figure mounts a serious challenge — which did not appear to happen within 24 hours of Biden’s announcement — the president’s endorsement of Harris will likely carry the day with delegates.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/is-it-really-unlawful-...
The idea that Harris was the only option because they couldn’t move funding is absurd, we’re talking about an election for the highest position in the world. If the party wanted to choose someone else, they would have found a way to reallocate the funding or just eat the cost.
There's a very good reason for this: those general elections cost states money. Money they have not budgeted to re-run a primary. In addition, in most states, the primary is framed in a legal process that does not allow for an "out-of-band" second election. It would, generally, have been illegal to re-run an election (at least using the physical voting apparatus of the myriad states) to choose an alternate when Biden dropped, which is why the party chooses via their own process.
And as far as I'm aware, that process was followed following Biden's announcement. I wouldn't accuse Republicans of being uneducated and naive if people didn't vote for Harris because "she never won a primary..." I'd accuse traditional Democrat voters of not knowing very much about the party they (nominally) tend to support. It'd be nice if civics weren't just something people's parents and grandparents did.
As for being an outsider... In 2024, I fail to see how voters would think a former President could be considered outside the system.
1: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/12/joe-biden-one-te...
2: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/06/biden-president-...
This is exactly the problem. The Democratic Party excuse is always "we're following the process". The results suck and then they wring their hands wondering how they lost the election. The goal should be to get power, and getting power requires nominating someone popular. Anyone who has paid attention to US politics for the last decade could have explained just how unpopular Kamala Harris would be.
The Democrats do follow process. That's one of the key things that makes them Democrats in contrast to the demagoguery and power-at-any-cost approach that seems to have co-opted their colleagues across the aisle. I don't think the kind of people who would vote for a Democratic candidate at all actually want a rule-breaker (and if they do, we got one in the Oval Office right now).
Some of you do. Some of you don't. Most of you want of you presidents to obey courts at least.[1]
> So glad they kept the filibuster
In 2013 Democrats eliminated the 60 vote requirement for most nominations. In 2022 all but 2 Democrats voted to eliminate it for some legislation. Who kept it was 100% of Republicans, Sinema, and Manchin.
Some people who sounded like you said Democrats could have and should have blackmailed Sinema and Manchin to get 50 votes. They couldn't explain what would have stopped Sinema or Manchin from defecting to the Republicans.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/majority-americans-believe-...
If we're blackmailing Senators, what do we do when the courts step in to stop it?
Breaking the process leads to a pyrrhic victory. It's France going from guillotining the king to guillotining feminists. If that's one's goal, rejoice! The man in charge right now is the best opportunity since the adoption of America's Constitution in the first place to get there.
ETA: As a side question on this topic: let's assume the Democrats, upon finding that Biden wouldn't be willing to serve, found some way to re-run the primary. We'll magically ignore the massive cost to do so and the fact that it would be illegal to use the voting apparatus of most states in a surprise out-of-band second primary, and we'll magically assume they could organize and pull it off in time for the general election. Who would have come out of that process that would have beaten Trump?
For what its' worth, by the time Biden was elected, the party was already dead. It would have realized that in 2020 if Trump hadn't messed up COVID so badly. The best example of what I am talking about is Obama not seating Merrick Garland on the court and daring the Senate to stop him.
Instead, I saw Americans stay home, again, and Trump get elected, again. It would appear, sadly, Americans are getting the government they're willing to put in the effort to have. All the resources in the world to stop these circumstances and they didn't use them.
Ah, well. Pax Americana was a pretty good run. We got the Internet out of it. Hopefully, the reshuffling of global power into something that replaces it will be even better.
And in the American system, where We the People consent to be governed by a government that derives its power from those people... Where else would the blame lie?
Maybe subconscious feelings made people not bother to get to the polls to vote for her, but I don’t think there’s a sensible conscious argument to ditch her on this basis. In fact, people often say she failed for a reason that is almost an opposite of her unfairly replacing Biden – they say she acted just like him and wouldn’t differentiate herself from him.
I get it was unusual and maybe offensive the way she got nominated, but if a principled voter is going to weigh informal notions of legitimacy, the obvious choice is hold their nose and vote for Harris.
I don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils. It’s a myopic viewpoint that doesn’t take into account long term consequences.
People can rationally look at the long term benefits vs short term risks and rationally vote for Trump. It is extremely hubristic to think that people who don’t agree with you politically are stupid or irrational.
I fail to see that position. There's always a choice between better and worse; even if the choice of better isn't what you want right now, it bends the arrow in the direction where the next choice starts from a better position.
Is your argument that there's a risk of local maxima? Perhaps. But I think it's hubris to imagine that if you bend the arrow down, you'll get to decide who survives the local minima to see whether there's a better maxima after it. That's a choice to put a lot of blood on one's hands.
I would have preferred if the GOP hadn't put actual fascism on the table so that people had meaningful choice over policy (and, indeed, had Trump lost, perhaps it would be the GOP who would've learned their lesson that Americans won't tolerate fascism). But since they did, and America chose the GOP choice, we're now in a situation where the best we can hope for in 2028 is a vote to reject fascism instead of something better.
I don't think that gets us pointed in the right direction, sadly.
(In the larger sphere, the problem is people thinking all they can or should do is vote for President. There's a whole four years and several Congress and state elections in which to do something effective towards desired outcomes, but Americans get very drilled-down on the President only, to their detriment. Half the reason Congress is so sclerotic is most Americans can't be bothered to know who their Congressional reps are, let alone what they stand for).
Back in the olden days of Bush or Obama, they would at least have a trial in a secret court with a judge who was maybe not rubber-stamping it, the public was pretty sure they were real terrorists, and the jailers (or executioners!) were Americans who faced consequences when they mistreated the prisoners.
... until they weren't. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there sure are a lot of historians in America who have actually packed up and fled the country as of late...
Speaking of myopia... so a voter considering voting Dem should have thought, "Well, if Biden died today she would become President for awhile anyway, and if he died after winning she would be president for the rest of his term, so she's halfway to being a presidential candidate anyway... but I'm really pissed they didn't re-run the primaries in ways that might not even be legal and would inevitably invite attacks on the legitimacy of the winner, so I'm going to teach them a lesson. I'm so mad I didn't get a chance to have a new-blood lefty or whoever I think is better than Harris but somehow didn't beat Biden, that I'd rather make it more likely for the far-right to win again. I won't vote for someone who disrespects democracy by accepting an unprecedented party nomination, I would rather the winner be the one who disrespects democracy by egging on violent attacks on the capitol, attempting fake elector schemes and pressuring the VP and state governors to throw the election, and violate campaign finance laws. I may be saddling myself and the entire country with a president I don't want, but at least I will have stood my ground stopping Democratic party insiders from upgrading a nearly-nominated VP candidate to Presidential candidate!"
That is the argument that I am saying is stupid and irrational, not being Republican or voting for Trump per se. I just don't see a reasonable, self-consistent argument from "I'd consider a Democrat, but they bent their own rules" to "I should let the non-Democrat who has broken laws win." That's emotion, insistence on following one rule at the expense of all others, and denial of political realities, not logic. And people are free to vote on feelings and perceptions, as I am free to argue they were stupid or irrational if they say this is their reason.
And yeah, some of those accusations against Trump haven't been proven in a court of law, but neither has the idea that Harris was illegitimate.
If you care about Dem ideology etc enough to follow their primaries, you would stick with the party even if they didn't yield exactly the flavor of candidate you prefer, not hang everyone out to dry with a far-right alternative in the generals. If you were content to let the far right win, it doesn't feel like you were truly invested in the Dems anyway, so why should they care how you would have voted in their primary re-run? Again, it's emotionally-driven, this desire or hope to use the party's power to get your candidate onto the ballot, and punish them if they don't do it.
Maybe I should be open to choices other than Trump or Harris, but I feel they're worthless in this climate, and I don't think your premise cares about them either. If you want to vote third party, why care whether one of the two parties followed their nomination rules?
It's also "fun" how Republicans whined about rule-breaking and denying the will of the people in this situation, then a few months later they're entertaining plans like putting up a strawman for president so he can resign and give Trump a third term by succession. (Which as I understand, most lawyers believe is BS, but these days... it might just work.)
I don’t. I follow both primaries because that’s where almost all of the democratic process in the Presidential election happens. Once you have two candidates (third parties are obviously jokes), you get to choose between the two.
So, the primary process is very important to make sure democracy happens and I put a lot of importance in it. As should everyone.
And so, if a candidate does not win through that primary process, that candidate is illegitimate.
If Biden won and died on day 1 in the office, you'd still end up with "a president who never won the primary" but it wouldn't be the party's fault. Biden stepping down is approximately the same endpoint without dying; is it really logical to blackball the party over a possibility that could have happened accidentally?
Even supposing they legally could have done what you want, they were also legally permitted to do what they did. Harris was a candidate produced by the party following laws and its own procedures. You didn't like the outcome, but that doesn't mean it was not legitimate. Call it undemocratic if you want (though I'm not sure the normal primary process is democratic anyway), but it's legitimate.
That's a great point, and one I wish more voters understood. The primaries are very undemocratic, both of them. In most states, you can't even vote in both primaries because you can only have one party affiliation.
How much real choice do Americans have when the primaries determine, practically, the candidates and they can only lend their voice to one party's choice of candidate?
It is very clear that, long before the primary, Biden was not fit to run again, probably not even fit to stay in office. A functioning party would have gotten their senile standard-bearer to at least not run again, ideally even step down and let his VP take office and build a relationship with voters. Either way, they could have run a real primary and therefore chosen somebody that Democratic voters might actually have been excited about voting for in the general election. This may even have been Harris, but a version of Harris with a much better shot at winning because she'd spent an additional year or so campaigning.
Why is this an impossible set of events? If it isn't, why not lay the blame for this colossally bad fuckup at the feet of the Democratic leadership?
I think people believe elections are internet-fast or internet-convenient, which is where this skewed idea comes from. They aren't, for reasons that should be obvious with some consideration about how elections are secured.
Basically speeches/debates/mini campaign before the convention, and the delegates vote at the convention without regard for the original primary.
The primary process itself is just for show, but a competent party would understand that it needs to have at least the appearance of legitimacy.
The last Democratic presidential primary that seemed legitimate to voters who were paying attention was 2008: 2012 was 2nd term Obama, in 2016 insiders ratfucked Sanders to pick Clinton, 2020 they did something similar to pick Biden, and then of course the disaster of 2024.
It's been nearly 20 years since we've had a "real" Democratic primary that at least advertised itself as a democratic process. Seems logical that Democratic voters would be skeptical about the so-called leadership of the party.
But there's no reason to assume that anyone would have shown up to challenge Harris. The incumbent effect is very strong in both parties, and it's extremely rare to refrain from nominating the sitting first-term President, so there's no reason to believe the result of all of that wouldn't have been the successor the President recommended. Note that the initial Primary went landslide to Biden. American voters tend to go with recognizable names and tend to hew to tradition.
You're quite correct that relative to the GOP, the Democrats have a more elitist structure that consolidates leadership to party operatives. When you don't have that... Well, nobody in the GOP party machinery really wanted President Trump, but the GOP doesn't have superdelegates.
> 2016 insiders ratfucked Sanders to pick Clinton
This is a common hypothesis but Sanders never had the votes. He was about 3 million short of Clinton. While there's no doubt that the party preferred Clinton, the voters didn't show enough of a preference for Sanders to overcome that inertia. Again, American voters tend to go with recognizable names, and they already saw Clinton close to the White House (even if, as First Lady, she wasn't actually elected).
Were the Democratic voters even wrong? Clinton ultimately went on to win the popular vote. There's no particular reason to believe Sanders would have done so; we'll never know what that alternate reality would have looked like, but his opponents would have drilled in on his Jewish heritage and it would have gotten quite ugly (as Trump revealed, there's a lot of straight-up bigots who became politically motivated in 2016).
This is exactly what they voted for, what they were hoping for. They knew leopards would've eaten the face of a few of them, but it was somewhat expected, a calculated risk. There's a few casualties even when you win the war.
They saw something they could cling to, to avoid changes for the remaining of their lives, even if this meant destroying their country, the rest of the world or the future for the matter. And they replied with "Yes, we're fine with that".
The way many of them think of it is that illness and death due to disease, starvation, lack of medication, problem pregnancies, etc. are acts of god and a part of life. They don’t want relief from that, if it comes with a government that has the power to change things they don’t want to change.
In particular, the "Make America Great Again" era they seem to hearken to was an era of massive industrial growth fueled by being the largest country untouched domestically by a World War. Getting back there would require burning half the world again. We shouldn't want that.
These are lessons history teaches consistently, and I'm sorry they apparently slept through that day of class.
But it is worth noting that an April 2024 NBC News poll showed Trump leading voters who say they do not follow political news by 26-points. Meanwhile voters who said they read a newspaper every day supported Joe Biden 70% to Trump’s 21%.[0] Additionally, a survey conducted in November 2024 by Northeastern University found that just 24% of Republican voters relied on news media, while the rest said they got their news from family and friends, as well as social media.
This means that while less than 1/3rd of eligible voters cast their ballots for Trump, only ~8.3% of the electorate entered the voting booth reliably informed, and then still chose to support him.
0. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-biden-tr...
It’s hard to make the same case for crypto, which (despite the insistences of its participants) more or less exists in isolation from the rest of the market. The industry feels it is over-regulated. Makes sense that a more lassiez-faire leader would take a more hands-off approach to it.
There is a reason exchanges were investigated in the first place and it wasn’t for fun.
> Prosecutors shall prioritize cases that hold accountable individuals who (a) cause financial harm to digital asset investors and consumers; and/or (b) use digital assets in furtherance of other criminal conduct, such as fentanyl trafficking, terrorism, cartels, organized crime, and human trafficking and smuggling. Seeking accountability from individuals who perpetrate these types of wrongdoing deters future illegal activity, compensates victims, and promotes the public’s confidence in the digital asset markets and broader industry. On the other hand, criminal matters premised on regulatory violations resulting from diffuse decisions made at lower levels of digital asset companies often fail to advance the priorities of the Department.
I read this as switching from proactive enforcement (stop the act before it causes damage) to reactive regulation (punish the guilty after the act happens). Proactive regulation of public markets makes sense because the general public has an interest in well-functioning capital markets even if they are not direct participants (markets are essentially the capitalist replacement for central planning).