Red Mosquito

Trump's popularity defies all rational justification. Jesus would be 47/48 with him right now.

B wrote:Trump's popularity defies all rational justification. Jesus would be 47/48 with him right now.

Republicans would hate Jesus once they heard what he had to say

Bi_3 wrote:Vance continues winning the internet and losing the election:

Fuck JD Vance. Skyline chili is delicious!

tommy wrote:

B wrote:Trump's popularity defies all rational justification. Jesus would be 47/48 with him right now.

Republicans would hate Jesus once they heard what he had to say

Now THERE’s a fact.

B wrote:Trump's popularity defies all rational justification. Jesus would be 47/48 with him right now.

Remember that guy from a few years ago that said if Jesus came back to earth and said something, he’d believe Trump over Jesus?

dear readers,

i have never been to cincinnati, but went to a place in NYC once that was opened by a cincinnati person and had cincinnati chili dogs. it was hyped as something special but when i tried it i thought it was very bland. not sure if that was the 'real deal' or what. but it made me feel bad for interior americans that this was considered their prize fare.

sincerely,
coastal elite

Bi_3 wrote:

4/5 wrote:Fact or fiction: If Democrats had an actual primary process this year and democratically selected a candidate, that person would have a significantly better chance of victory than Harris does.

Fiction.

I responded to this too quickly without addressing the underlying questions. I standby the statement that it's fiction that having had a traditional primary process in 2024 would have necessarily resulted in a more electable candidate, BUT I think that is largely due to Trump being on the opposing ticket and not because Harris will be a good leader for the future of the nation. She is the moneyball candidate.

The implied question about whether or not primaries still matter or whether the parties should just pick who they believe is most likely to win, I think they still do. There must be a place for ideological views outside of the party mainstream (West, Stein, Sanders, etc.) to be presented to the public and debated. Yes, I want the views I think are ignorant to be discussed and debated and understood before they are dismissed. We must maintain the marketplace of ideas and not drift quickly into algorithmic homogeneity via tiktokification of the party platform. That is country before party.

BurtReynolds wrote:I can't think of anyone but Biden who would have done worse. This shouldn't be a contest.

I have a suspicion you would have said this about someone else if they had been the nominee. The mythical "anyone."

And of course, if DeSantis or Haley had been nominated, there would have been lots of people saying equivalent things about them.

4/5 wrote:Fact or fiction: If Democrats had an actual primary process this year and democratically selected a candidate, that person would have a significantly better chance of victory than Harris does.

Probably fiction, especially because that process could have resulted in Harris or I guess even Biden. But it is hard to tell.

Rob wrote:

4/5 wrote:Fact or fiction: If Democrats had an actual primary process this year and democratically selected a candidate, that person would have a significantly better chance of victory than Harris does.

Definitely fiction. I also feel like your question is framed as if she couldn’t win the primary. I don’t think that’s true. She’s obviously changed a bit these last 3.5 years, because this isn’t what she was like in 2020, and the whole prosecutor angle works so much better this time. Plenty of people, including Pelosi & Obama called for… something. No one stepped up, and there didn’t seem to be any obvious contenders. I assume Mayor Pete will run again someday, so maybe… but I don’t believe he’d be doing better than her had he won. I don’t think “wonky” works this year.

Yeah, it's definitely framed that way. I don't know that "no one stepped up" so much as The Party chose Harris and everybody got in line. Personally, I don't think she could have won a competitive primary but the right answer is still probably fiction.

Yeah the DNP is so disorganized and not cohesive that I don't even know of another candidate that everyone would get behind? Certainly not Gavin, and Bernie is too old now.

BurtReynolds wrote:I can't think of anyone but Biden who would have done worse. This shouldn't be a contest.

This thought was what prompted the question. It's as if each party asked themselves, if we let the other party choose our candidate for us, who would they choose? And then did exactly that.

My logic kind of goes:
If the Republicans ran anybody but Trump they would likely win relatively easily.

Since they are running Trump the Democrats should win relatively easily.

The only candidate Trump would have a substantial advantage over was Biden.

The next-best opponent for Trump was Harris.

E.H. Ruddock wrote:Yeah the DNP is so disorganized and not cohesive that I don't even know of another candidate that everyone would get behind? Certainly not Gavin, and Bernie is too old now.

It was always going to be the VP. The real solution would have been for Biden to have picked a better VP in 2020 (Whitmer)

Bi_3 wrote:

Bi_3 wrote:

4/5 wrote:Fact or fiction: If Democrats had an actual primary process this year and democratically selected a candidate, that person would have a significantly better chance of victory than Harris does.

Fiction.

I responded to this too quickly without addressing the underlying questions. I standby the statement that it's fiction that having had a traditional primary process in 2024 would have necessarily resulted in a more electable candidate, BUT I think that is largely due to Trump being on the opposing ticket and not because Harris will be a good leader for the future of the nation. She is the moneyball candidate.

The implied question about whether or not primaries still matter or whether the parties should just pick who they believe is most likely to win, I think they still do. There must be a place for ideological views outside of the party mainstream (West, Stein, Sanders, etc.) to be presented to the public and debated. Yes, I want the views I think are ignorant to be discussed and debated and understood before they are dismissed. We must maintain the marketplace of ideas and not drift quickly into algorithmic homogeneity via tiktokification of the party platform. That is country before party.

Agreed that it's fiction, but mostly because for 90%+ of the electorate there's no change of candidates that would move them to vote differently, so any 2024 presidential election would be at least relatively competitive.

I think with Harris this exact setup was the best, and maybe only, way for her to have a good chance to win: avoid the long election marathon, show up and be Not Trump and avoid doing anything so monumentally stupid that causes the significant portion of the country that can't stand another Trump presidency to skip voting at all. She did a great job in the debate and that strategy looked like it might win, but it may not hold. It seems like the last couple weeks the campaign has been lurching in different directions to try to shore up it's base support and then in the next moment trying to reach out to independents and even Republicans. With a real primary process the base support would already be there and we likely wouldn't be seeing Obama reprimand black men for not supporting a candidate that they didn't pick. Idk.

Captain Termite wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:I can't think of anyone but Biden who would have done worse. This shouldn't be a contest.

I have a suspicion you would have said this about someone else if they had been the nominee. The mythical "anyone."

And of course, if DeSantis or Haley had been nominated, there would have been lots of people saying equivalent things about them.

A lot of truth here. It feels like any other Republican should have had a better chance to win than Trump, but that probably isn't really true. DeSantis was so hilariously awful in the primaries, it's tough to imagine him outperforming Trump.

With the Republicans it shows the disconnect between what general election voters would support versus the primary, but I'm not convinced that Democrats did any better choosing their candidate.

I thought the hypothetical was about a regular winter/spring primary. If you are asking about some primary done in August after Biden withdrew from the race, the answer moves even more towards 'fiction.'

4/5 wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:I can't think of anyone but Biden who would have done worse. This shouldn't be a contest.

This thought was what prompted the question. It's as if each party asked themselves, if we let the other party choose our candidate for us, who would they choose? And then did exactly that.

My logic kind of goes:
If the Republicans ran anybody but Trump they would likely win relatively easily.

Since they are running Trump the Democrats should win relatively easily.

The only candidate Trump would have a substantial advantage over was Biden.

The next-best opponent for Trump was Harris.

I think this is a little too pat - especially because similar things were said about the 2020 and especially the 2016 election (in addition to various senate/house elections). Or maybe I'm taking "only" too literally, even though I'm not taking it 100% literally. The idea that the democrats ditched the worst-possible candidate for the second-worst seems off to me; or as I suggested in my other post it is so universally applied to have become meaningless. Similarly, I don't fully believe that any other republican nominee but Trump would win the election easily.

Captain Termite wrote:

4/5 wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:I can't think of anyone but Biden who would have done worse. This shouldn't be a contest.

This thought was what prompted the question. It's as if each party asked themselves, if we let the other party choose our candidate for us, who would they choose? And then did exactly that.

My logic kind of goes:
If the Republicans ran anybody but Trump they would likely win relatively easily.

Since they are running Trump the Democrats should win relatively easily.

The only candidate Trump would have a substantial advantage over was Biden.

The next-best opponent for Trump was Harris.

I think this is a little too pat - especially because similar things were said about the 2020 and especially the 2016 election (in addition to various senate/house elections). Or maybe I'm taking "only" too literally, even though I'm not taking it 100% literally. The idea that the democrats ditched the worst-possible candidate for the second-worst seems off to me; or as I suggested in my other post it is so universally applied to have become meaningless. Similarly, I don't fully believe that any other republican nominee but Trump would win this easily.

It definitely is. I originally wrote some sentences after that about how I realize that none of that is literally true but more what it feels like.

But I do think Republicans wish they were still up against Biden. And that once Biden was eliminated that their next choice (among those with a realistic chance) would be Harris.

The "would win easily" stuff is almost certainly not true, though. This is all just probably residuals of the very boring, "Really, these are the candidates? They're terrible!" feeling that comes over most people who haven't OD'd on either party's Kool-Aid.

Captain Termite wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:I can't think of anyone but Biden who would have done worse. This shouldn't be a contest.

I have a suspicion you would have said this about someone else if they had been the nominee. The mythical "anyone."

And of course, if DeSantis or Haley had been nominated, there would have been lots of people saying equivalent things about them.

I said before that Biden and Trump were the worst possible candidates and that anyone would do better, and when Harris took over i thought she'd win. But then I realized she is awful in interviews and her campaign has been really sluggish and out of touch.

Maybe people's expectations have cratered so much that we just expect these oafs now. I have to think one of the other choices would be much better. Anyone that knows how to talk. Desantis and Haley have problems, but they both can stay on message pretty well. I'm not sure what Harris's message is.