• 0 Posts
  • 196 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 19th, 2023

help-circle


  • Well that’s the thing: nobody’s disparaging them for growing. It’s great that they finally saw trans people as people. Wonderful for them. But they’re LIFE-LONG Republicans. They sat through Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump as president. All the while, their party just got shittier and more full of bigoted people. They watched the rise of right-wing talk radio, with horrendous humans like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck spewing their vitriol in the name of the party, and they remained. They watched the Tea Party hold up signs decrying Obama as a monkey, or a muslim, signs calling for the hanging of Obama, and they remained. They watched Trump try to overthrow democracy as hundreds of terrorists committed violence at his bidding, and they remained.

    Now, they’re finally deciding to leave the party because the bigotry they supported all along suddenly became turned their way. Fuck them. I’m not disparaging them for growing. I’m disparaging them for being pieces of shit.


  • All, or at least the vast majority, of those people you’re talking about are already Trump voters. They’re going to continue backing Trump no matter who the Democratic party picks. They saw a black guy get elected president, and that radicalized them. They aren’t coming back. Pandering to the imaginary demographic of racists who will surely see the light if we elect the right candidate is simply a losing proposition.

    Will there be right wing violence in response to a Harris presidency? Of course there will be. Is there right wing violence now? Of course there is. I understand that you’re tired of hearing the “fuck them” replies, but seriously: fuck them. They are a cancer on this nation. Holding back on doing something good just because you’re afraid that the fucking awful people you share a country with will do something awful just means that you never make any progress.





  • You know what? I felt the same way before today. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the announcement, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Harris is the best possible presidential candidate.

    Like you, I don’t think she’d make the best president. Hell, she wasn’t even in my top 10. I’d have vastly preferred someone like Hakeem Jeffries. But here’s the thing: the person best suited for the office of president isn’t necessarily the best person to run for president.

    Harris has all of the advantages Biden had: she can run on this administration’s record, since it was her administration too. Every positive talking point about the stuff that Biden’s done for the country can equally apply to Harris. Additionally, she gets his entire war chest, and with the president’s blessing today, she’s likely going to have 100% party support as well. To make matters even better, she doesn’t have any of the flaws he sported: she’s young, she’s sharp, she’s great in debates, and because she’s the antithesis of Biden in all of these respects, all of the criticisms pointed at Biden (which could also 100% be applied to Trump) will now all be applied to Trump and Trump alone.

    Lastly, I think that now is the most favorable moment in our country’s history for a non-white, non-male person to become president. She’s got the built-in support of everybody who dreads another Trump presidency. A significant number of people who would vote for Biden but not Harris due to sexism or racism will be rethinking that position when the opposition is Donald Trump. Also, something like 40% of people in the US just simply don’t vote. Biden would never appeal to those people, but a black / asian woman who has succeeded in a mostly male dominated field could be very inspirational to a large number of otherwise apathetic non-voters.

    I honestly think that Harris being endorsed for President is just an unalloyed good. I don’t see any realistic downsides, and an incredible number of upsides. It actually has me excited, which is a feeling I haven’t felt since 2008.



  • I mean, I guess it’s your turn. Those of us who wanted Biden to step down have been feeling really fucking defeated for months, now.

    The truth is, none of us know how it’s going to go in November. We each had visions of what we thought the best path to victory would be, and we each hoped that the party would follow our vision. I think that Biden’s poor debate performance, poor health, obvious cognitive decline, and the slew of poor polls he’s been getting mean that replacing him (even at this late hour) is the right way to go. I suppose we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed and hope.