What a time to be alive. As it seems now, I was entirely wrong, as was 'conventional' political wisdom. May I continue to be wrong. It's a welcome failure, as far as I'm concerned.
I figured there was a 1% chance of Biden dropping out, but also thought that Kamala would be a better candidate than him, but was also skeptical that Kamala would be able to beat Trump.
So....basically wrong on the first, correct on the second... yet to be determined on the third.
I did not expect the Democrats to actually do anything that would actually help themselves, figuring that they are far too ossified and out of touch.
Currently the Trump and the Republicans seem to stun locked by the 'they're just weird' angle... which is amazing to me in two ways:
One, that after basically 3 decades of spewing lies and hate and insults against their opponents in the form of coordinated talking points to respond to basically every political development, they cannot handle the mildest possible form of this being used against them.
Two, that the Democrats finally actually collectively did something 'aggressive' rhetorically. Years and years of 'taking the high road' and acting morally superior to their opponents... they finally actually did something (collectively) that makes them not seem like hoity toity cloistered intellectual snobs.
That, and ~~Mike~~ Tim Walz is actually surprisingly relatable and charismatic.
*Tim Walz
Derp. Thanks.
Yep, I was wearing that clown makeup too. Dems have not impressed me much lately with being able to deliver a coherent and effective message, so I was fully prepared for a shitshow of disarray if/when Biden dropped out.
It was very surprising to me how effectively they were able to leave Trump stumbling just as he seemed to be on the upswing. The utter lack of disorder around it almost feels like Biden was planning to drop out of the race all along, just waiting for the right moment... but that's probably giving him too much credit.
Right there with you
Honestly, I had forgotten about Kamala when arguing that Biden was the best bet. My argument always lay in, "Needs to be familiar because Trump has this uncanny ability to swamp somebody without a track record", and I completely forgot Kamala fit that exactly in the same way Biden did - By being a VP
SO glad I was wrong, too - It was a lot of me groaning, "Oh god Biden is our best bet dear fuck no..."
I think I let myself be misled about the urgency of having a candidate ready and the time for campaigning. Meanwhile, other countries gear up their elections in less than a month.
It was that plus the "if Biden drops out it will be a whole ordeal establishing a new candidate." It wasn't. It was quick, painless, and even the VP choosing was relatively quick and made people happy.
Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. The election isn't over. This nations racism, sexism, and sheer stupidity might be too much to overcome.
And just because she wins doesn't mean it goes away either.
And just because she wins doesn't mean she wins either.
There are election deniers all over the country in important places and they're going to act up after the election refusing to certify their election results. SCOTUS could end up rubber stamping a Trump win in a scenario where it's up to them to solve a legal dispute...
They didn't know about Walz. Seriously, wtf Democrats? It seems you have a treasure trove of untapped talent but you still wheel out barely alive corpses like it is the Imperium in WH40K. Let the next generation take over. The Old Ones should step back and turn into advisors and elder statesmen.
Dems can't dig too much into their talented and passionate base. They have to find waffling liberals more interested in keeping the status quo.
Still so much better than anything the Republicans could muster but don't be fooled.
They have to find waffling liberals more interested in keeping the status quo.
Bingo.
Doing an "I told you so" on people who are happy to be wrong is pretty silly.
that's why i gave kudos to those people instead last month https://lemmy.world/comment/11376547
the fears were wrong but understandable. if AOC wasn't sure there was enough support behind Harris you're allowed to be wrong too.
now there's great and unified energy behind the democratic party for the first time since Obama. just enjoy it and try your best to keep it up. going for an "i told you so" right now is petty.
Yep, I was one of those people, but I'm happy that I was wrong about it.
I didn't know what to think about Biden dropping out but I'm glad it's taken a turn for the best. It was a bold move and it paid off.
I won't pretend to know how it would have gone either way. Had it actually not happened in the timeline that it did happen, it could have easily been different. The momentum, the media narratives, the quickness with which the Democrats united behind Harris, all of these things caught most everyone by surprise. I could see any of those things being wildly different had Biden chose to step down much earlier. We don't like to admit it, but irrational, unknowable elements like "vibe" and "timing" have always played a huge role in elections.
Yeah though I’ll say two things in our defense: 1) it was a reasonable stance given the information we had, and 2) we’ve been some of the most proud to accept and admit that we were wrong people I’ve ever seen talking politics on the internet.
All the people who said I was helping the orange man by asking for a better candidate can tell me they’re sorry. Yeah right. They’re the same ones telling us to shut up about Gaza.
I had no confidence that the Democrats could coalesce around another candidate, in time for the convention.
I'm honestly flabbergasted
I don't know if I ever talked to YOU about it, but I definitely said a few times that it was too risky to change candidates, even though Biden was polling terribly. I'm very happy to eat my hat now!
Yeah, in the same boat. I thought they needed to stick with him because of advantage incumbents have, and I didn't think we had time to promote a new candidate. Very happy to be wrong about that! I don't care about the change, I'm just happy to go with whoever has the best chance at winning
I genuinely didn't think someone else was positioned to take on the campaigning. I'm glad I was wrong.
Yo I don't think we spoke but I was someone saying Biden would be the nominee. I even said things like it's unlikely or impossible there will be another D candidate.
I acknowledge I was wrong on that part. I also acknowledge as the season wore on Biden clearly displayed himself as not fit to run, and a replacement was a good idea.
In general I focused and continue to focus on those who say "stay home or vote 3rd party" as that is an issue in the face of project 2025 and other obvious trump stuff.
So my argument wasn't "omg vote for grandpa Biden he's the best" it was "let's keep trump out of the Whitehouse, a Democratic candidate is the only option, and Biden is currently the likely nominee."
Also, keep talking about Gaza, it's important.
Around the time this article was posted, I largely agreed with AOC, even though I was very worried about Biden's stubbornness leading to his loss in November despite his capability of being an excellent leader.
But the fact that the party was able to resist chaos, keep steady on a Biden-lite agenda through Harris means that the Dems have vastly outperformed my expectations in the last month.
I will let Lemmy decide if I need to hold myself to account for my comment pledging money to charity if a "spry and progressive" candidate succeeded him. Does Harris count as spry and progressive?
And Done! Lemmy has spoken!
Does Harris count as spry and progressive?
Surprisingly, yes!
I expected the Dems to support the same tired high road taking boring candidate so I wanted Biden to be kept around for brand recognition because that seemed to be the only thing the Dems would accept. I absolutely did not expect Kamala to come out guns blazing on memes, engaging the GOP on their level instead of taking the high road, and then picking the absolute best example of a human being possible as VP. I expected the Dems to discourage all of those things in favor of some stoic white guy safe choice.
I am extremely happy to have been wrong and it is great to see the Dems catch on that this kind of campaign will be successful.
That's what they looked like at the time they were made too. Was so wildly disconnected from actual day-to-day opinions. Best argument at the time could have been "Biden won't drop out and the DNC won't do anything about that, so we should try to make the corpse look as appealing as possible."
I’m happy to be in the “i told you so” crowd, and I’m surprised that I predicted it would be kamala just being crowned president elect after biden drops after the speech.
What I never imagined was how much support Kamala would get. I thought a change like this, while it would have been better, would be controversial. While I’m upset with some things, like the wishy-washy “hope” platform and the promised things having a poor track record of being achieved by the dems, I’d much rather prefer this to biden, even with her terrible views on genocide and LGBTQ rights (especially trans rights)
Granted, this hope narrative is working wonders for a lot of democrats, and I even felt a little bit of it in my jaded, cold, black anarchist heart. Just the change of candidate alone feels similar to the times when I’d go home after spending a month eating the horrid cafeteria food in college to have a home-cooked meal. But i’m worried that after that brief weekend of good shit, it will go back to the same old bullshit once she’s in office
guilty
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