If she’s serious she’ll be a historically great president. But if it’s PR. Not so much.
We’ll see when the DNC starts. They can script all they want. But that will tell us the story. Who they invite. What they talk about. It’s all theater of course. But it’ll act as a barometer of where the politics are.
The DNC is first and foremost a corp. And I don’t trust corps. Don’t trust them any further than I trust Blackrock or Vanguard.
They can’t collect donations if everyone is broke. They need people to have disposable income. And shit has got so bad now. They have to be feeling it.
They can collect donations just fine. It was big, huge donors saying “I won’t give the democrats one red nickel if Biden doesn’t step down” that helped get Biden to concede his candidacy.
It was a combination of things. It was also the lack of voter enthusiasm risking down ballot races.
The announced speakers including both Clintons doesn’t have me hopeful
That’d be expected even if it were Bernie Sanders.
Kinzinger, too. Plus with Bernie, Jayapal, and others attending a progressive side show I’m getting the sense progressives (or anyone staunchly anti-corporate) aren’t going to get much time on the podium.
If they don’t have significant local progressives like Chuy Garcia or Delia Ramirez up there, and their “local” speaker is Pritzker, I’m going to have a real hard time buying this campaign promise.
I gotta say, if it’s all a PR act, it’s dumb as fuck. it might work for this election but it will then disillusion millions of young voters permanently if she can’t follow though on these promises, leading to a huge loss (or worse, migration) of young Democrat voters.
She literally can’t, even if she was actually 105% committed to it people seem to forget that overall the president actually has very little power. Without the cooperation of the house and Congress nothing in that vein will ever get done and no matter who gets elected our house in Congress have been split divided and useless for quite a while now
Why would someone downvote you. This is 100% true. Congress makes the laws. The president can set the agenda but things can only happen if there are enough people in Congress who will actually vote for it. Since we know 0 Republicans will ever help with anything, that means the Democrats need enough of a majority to overcome the GOP, and enough of a majority that one or two rogue Democrats looking to advance their own profile can’t hold it hostage. We had that for a brief time in the Obama admin and they passed the ACA. During the Biden admin Manchin alone could make a name for himself by blocking anything and everything.
It’s a crappy system where you have to control both houses with some breathing room, and the presidency, to get something done if one party decides to stonewall everything. But that’s the reality. Our system of government has serious problems.
However, assuming that the Democratic presidents are privately glad they can’t do most things they say they want to do, when they are never given the opportunity, and then using that assumption as the basis for cynicism, seems unreasonable. What do you gain by assuming this? Why not work as hard as we can to give them a real actual opportunity, and then see what happens.
I think it’s more about the attempt than the result. historically, we get a lot of promises of strong leadership and then no attempts to even start following through. in my opinion, this is a massive source of voter apathy both in general but especially among young people. “why bother? they’re all liars anyway, nobody will really try to help us once they’re in” - the kids energized into politics with Kamala’s campaign will wither or defect permanently if she makes these promises and they vote for her because of it and she does the usual routine of ignoring them until reelection season swings around again. if they want any hope of banking on the new energized kids in future elections, she has to at least try and she has to be loud about doing it. if she doesn’t, this will win us only 4 years.
when companies pay lobbyists to change laws and it doesn’t work, they retry and retry and retry until they do it. same with unpopular surveillance and “security” bills. but when talk of important social reform come up, dems go “ehhh, it’s unlikely to pass… don’t even try, it’s not worth it. it will just be a hassle…”
like yes, the prez cannot just make dictates to change laws like people wish. other parts of government have to be engaged to do these things. so… ENGAGE THEM
Wouldn’t be the first time.
I firmly believe the DNC would rather lose and fundraise off the fear of what the Repubs do.
And I firmly believe you’re full of shit.
You can deny history all you like. But that doesn’t change it.
History, as in the past… You’re almost there…
Lmao the Democratic and Republican party are both bought and paid for by corporate money. I wholeheartedly and unabashedly support Harris/Walz but you can fuck right off with this stupid shit that Harris somehow is immune to the reality of our political financing structure (namely, megadonors, corporates, and PACs)
I’m holding a hope that Walz hasn’t succumbed to the greed yet. Though I expect Harris has to some degree. Like it or not, there is enough money in politics that most of us could probably be bought eventually, to lesser and greater extents.
The real question is "when?‘’.
Duplicating my comment in one TG chat (and roughly translating it to English):
this is like saying that “some girls are beautiful, and some are nice”, or saying to someone “your family is good” ;
what the promises of regulating prices and such really tell is that there’s no mention of actually splitting and killing those corporations and reducing their power.
In other words, oligopoly is nice, and power from centralization is nice (of course it is, since what a big corp can do, government can use), it’s just prices that we want to fix.
State capitalism with a human face is what she’s promising here.
“both sides”.
“No sides”
“You can fuck right off with x” is a turn of phrase I can’t wait to see fade out of common use
I’m sorry, but I’ma keep calling it twitter. You can fuck right off with x
Try being funny next time
Right! Follow the example of our resident funny bones, Lexi Sneptaur! She’s responsible for hilarious classics such as "try being funny!"😂 and "‘You can fuck right off with x”’ is a turn of phrase I can’t wait to see fade out of common use"🤣
Aren’t they just a cut up?! With such fine examples of comedy to emulate, you too can now be as funny as Lexi Sneptaur! The only question is, do you use your newly discovered powers for good, or evil…?
Removed by mod
"This is communist; this is Marxist; this is fascist.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by the New York Times, describing Kamala Harris’ economic agenda
So she’s far-left, extreme-left, and extreme-right all at the same time?
Trump doesn’t really know or care about what words mean. He cares about how words feel.
Unfortunately, many people are the same way.
It’s the dementia. He should seek treatment.
Marxist is not extreme left, just a kind of left. You can be anything from a socdem to a bolshevik while remaining Marxist.
And stalinism one can call rather right and fascist, at the same time with Marxism used as a foundation, and it’s not as easy as you’d think to find counterarguments to what they’ve come up in USSR to tie a totalitarian state to Marxism.
So there’s one thing which is all these at the same time - stalinism.
By the way, if we give Trump’s word hu-uge benefit of doubt and forget for a minute that we are humans, thus tribal apes, this is not that wrong.
She’s talking about regulating prices and other populist and pretty socialist things, but she doesn’t talk about killing oligopolies and preferential treatment. Which is kinda close to state capitalism with populist elements. Which would in rough strokes make things closer to stalinism in economic part.
Don’t Think. Just Trump.
lol. Words are not deeds.
You got that right. Talk is cheap. Presidential candidates are basically used car salesman.
Since it’s cheap, why not the other candidate say the same thing?
Politician before the election promises stuff.
No, sure this time is different.
Hope so. This is very low hanging fruit.
Kamela is good
New Republic - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for New Republic:
MBFC: Left - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://newrepublic.com/article/184937/harris-price-gouging-corporations
Yeah just like how Biden’s gonna seal the deal witch Israel tomorrow.
I’m kind of annoyed more people aren’t offed by the fact that the DNC didn’t run a primary because we had at least 3-4 better candidates lined up, and Kamala wouldn’t have even reached close just like last time.
I think I’m just gonna start labeling this articles “hopium”
3-4 better candidates
Who are these people and why do you say better? Kamala Harris polled better than literally any other person including Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newsome, etc etc all the people who are usually presented as other options.
Kamala Harris polled better than literally any other person including Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newsome, etc etc all the people who are usually presented as other options.
What poll bruh, there was no primary. That’s literally why they ran a “roll call” to gg easy their chosen candidate.
These polls. Run it back to January and tell me which poll has someone other than Biden or Harris leading. There is one! I’ll wait for you to find it and tell me who it was that won it.
There were some others, that weren’t focused on the “democratic primary” category. I’ll also wait for you to find one, and tell me which one has someone other than Biden / Harris winning, and who it was.
I personally have no issue with Harris as the nominee, the process that got her there, and she has my vote. But I’m not sure polls that are that hypothetical are worth very much when it wasn’t a fully serious primary but more a rubber stamp on the incumbent.
If Biden would have decided not to run last year and let there be a full primary those polls don’t really convince me that Harris would have been the nominee. (For one thing there would have been actually campaigns by her and by alternatives.)
What happened to the other person?
I’ve noticed that this happens a lot. It’s “what poll?” “this poll” and then all of a sudden some other person jumps in with a new line of questioning. Sort of a multi-person version of Never Play Defense.
The second part of the question which I sent to the other person dealt very directly with the point that you’re making. There was a pretty extensive process of polling during the time when it was trying to find people to thrust into place as a substitute for Biden before he withdrew. They did a bunch of matchups of various random name-familiar Democrats.
I absolutely refuse to accept the logic that it would have been better to have a month of infighting about who the candidate should be, as opposed to unifying behind a single strong candidate who was leading in the polls. Who would you rather have had?
What happened to the other person?
I’ve noticed that this happens a lot. It’s “what poll?” “this poll” and then all of a sudden some other person jumps in with a new line of questioning.
I have no clue. That’s kind of a fundamental part of this format of social media. Multiple people can converse with different viewpoints.
I absolutely refuse to accept the logic that it would have been better to have a month of infighting about who the candidate should be, as opposed to unifying behind a single strong candidate who was leading in the polls. Who would you rather have had?
I don’t think it would’ve been good either. Like I said:
I personally have no issue with Harris as the nominee, the process that got her there, and she has my vote.
I would’ve preferred this whole mess have been avoided so there could have been actual primary during the normal primary timeframe. Maybe Harris would’ve came out on top, maybe not. Without any campaigning I’m not going to take any of the “literally anyone besides who is actually running” polls from the primary season seriously.
This is more what I was talking about
(You can find more like this at 538.)
I mean, I don’t fully disagree with you that any number of polls like this aren’t real representative of much. But, the point is that any time the voters were asked, they tended to prefer Harris as much as anyone else.
I actually fully agreed with everything you’re saying until I saw how it worked out with Harris as the nominee and people’s reaction to her. I’m sure the honeymoon won’t last forever but it seems unlikely to me to see how that played out and then say “naw we should have done something different.”
So what does Trump’s rear end smell like?
They keep telling us this is the democracy they need to save. A presidential candidate that’s never won a single primary, electoral vote, and came in last in her own state is suddenly the nominee?
I don’t love how it played out either but it was the delegates we voted for that elected kamala as our nominee. It was our representative democracy at play in a less than ideal situation when biden dropped out at an awkward time. And kind of the point of a vice president.
Its this or the guy that said he’d be dictator on day one and that no one would ever have to vote again if he is elected. You decide what you want to vote for.
The parties are private entities and can set whatever rules they like for selecting a nominee. That said, this was technically still the same representative democratic process. Voters selected the delegates (which are bound on the first round voting only), but Biden dropped out and released his delegates to vote whichever way they wanted.
Certainly I would’ve preferred for Biden to drop out last year and have had a full primary. But you can’t make someone accept the nomination when they don’t want it, and there are rules and a process for the already selected delegates to vote for someone else.
Removed by mod
yay now our below living wages will go a micro bit further
let us celebrate the Democrats who do everything they can to fight against the Republicans
If you got the 2% micro growth, you’re actually not in the starvation wages bracket. If you’re in the 13% growth bracket and you’re upset that it’s not more (which, I get), you gotta talk to the people who set up the 7% inflation in 2021 and 2022 that ate up all your wage gains from Biden’s policies the last few years - not blame the people who got you 32% higher wages that then got eaten up by the Covid inflation.
So groceries go up 150-200% and wages go up by 15% and somehow that’s a win?
ETA not to mention inflation being something like 2.5% per year at least
deleted by creator
Sssh you’re not supposed to use the actual numbers
You’re supposed to pull Trump-style wild exaggerations out of thin air, and then disappear and have someone else take over (apparently) when someone questions the reality you are presenting
So groceries go up 150-200% and wages go up by 15% and somehow that’s a win?
You’re misunderstanding the chart – that’s all inflation-adjusted wages. Cumulative inflation (which, again, was follow-on impacts from Covid, mostly unavoidable although I’m sure Trump didn’t help) was around 20% in total. So low-wage income went up 33%, high-wage income went up 24%, and so on, and then about 20 percentage points worth of that got eaten back up by inflation.
Basically the working class exceeded inflation by quite a lot, and everyone at least kept pace with it (2 percentage points above inflation means basically no detectable change).
What groceries are you paying 200% more for? Even for the very highest items like eggs, it’s been like 40% increase cumulatively.
ETA not to mention inflation being something like 2.5% per year at least
The whole problem currently is that it was way the fuck more than 2.5%, and prices from the spike in 2021-2022 haven’t gone back down or anything. Here’s the chart. The wages chart I showed was inflation-adjusted.
This is only true of you believe inflation figures are an accurate reflection of the cost of living. Most people saw an increase in their rent and groceries of 50-100% since 2019.
Are the people who earned $7 in 2019 making a $10-14 minimum today? Are the people who were on 30k now making 45-60k? If you genuinely believe that, you’ll believe anything…
Most people saw an increase in their rent and groceries of 50-100% since 2019.
What is your source for this?
If you genuinely believe whatever anyone on Lemmy tells you, just because they are telling it to you, you’ll believe anything
(FTFY, hope that helps)
(Also, what happened to the other person who was saying 200%? Is this like a tag team where everyone takes their turn to send one and exactly one message to me, so that the abandonment of the 200% figure can be replaced with other equally incorrect figures in a way that I then have to disprove afresh as if the whole first conversation hadn’t happened?)
deleted by creator
Most people saw an increase in their rent and groceries of 50-100% since 2019
I’ve reported this as misinformation after the discussion in !news@lemmy.world
Are the people who earned $7 in 2019 making a $10-14 minimum today?
People who earned $7 in 2019 are currently, on average, making $9.24 - an increase that comfortably exceeded inflation. If you want to say we need to do way more because that amount of income is still a fucking crime, then that sounds good. If you want to say we need to get rid of the team that achieved that $2.24 increase, instead of seeing what they will do with another 4 years and even if the alternative is to bring it back down to $7, then I have some questions
groceries go up 150-200%
I’ve reported this as misinformation, after the discussion in !news@lemmy.world
That 13% is $10k in the bottom 10% median individual income they were earning $8,801 in 2022. Which is $1,199 https://dqydj.com/average-median-top-individual-income-percentiles/
90% median individual income is $135,605 in 2023. In 2022 it was 132,676. Which is 2% …but they got $2,929 Same source
98% and 99% saw the largest nominal amount increase. 98% got 13,901 more money between 2022 and 2023 99% got $5,878 more money between 2022 and 2023 Same source.
Obviously $1k for someone making $10k is significant than someone getting $2k making $130k
And they’re pulling those numbers out of their ass as if raising a minimum wage to something that is still an unlivable wage is progress.
What is that, if not progress?
If the thesis is “let’s keep going we need way more”, the great. If the thesis is “let’s shit on the team that achieved 30% higher wages and imply they’re the same as the team that actively wants to undo all of that and leave us with just the 20% inflation and no higher wages” then I will respectfully disagree.
That team didn’t do shit for higher wages, until there is a federal livable minimum wage, they haven’t done shit.
What do you believe happened to working class wages between 2020 and now?
What did the Biden administration do that brought increased wages about? Which specific policy of his do you credit with the increase in wages?
The two big things I’m aware of are (a) firing Peter Robb on Biden’s very first day in office, and replacing him with a staff at the NLRB that was actual labor people (b) raising about 2 trillion dollars via increased corporate taxes and then spending about half of that on programs designed to create domestic manufacturing jobs
(Oh also the answer to what happened to working class wages since 2020 is they went up by 12%, inflation adjusted)
The role of the Democrats has never been to fight Republicans. It is to prevent leftist movements and organizations from ever gaining any political influence or power in the country.
You gotta talk to the post-1968 activist left about how well it worked out for them pursuing that vision. That’s how we got Reagan; that’s how the “single income family with one guy with a high school diploma supporting a house and good middle-class life that’s unrecognizable to most people today” went all the fuck away.
Again, if you want to go further than the fuckin Democrats that sounds great. If letting the Republicans defeat the Democrats is a key element of that strategy, you’re gonna have to break down the details to me because to me it doesn’t make a single bit of fucking sense.
We got Reagan because capitalists wanted Reagan. The ones that supported people like Milton Friedman were the ones that wanted wanted Reagan in office.
