Steve Randy Waldman

all these takes as if Harris lost on "the issues".

her takes on the issues poll much better than his takes, my dear popularists.

she lost because he was perceived by low information, go-with-your-gut, voters as someone willing to let it hang out while she was cautious, scripted, hiding something.

Nov 20, 2024 at 5:28pmWeb
Show threadAlexNov 20, 2024
@interfluidity Yes. Also I think she was weighed down by being so closely tied to, and unwilling to break with, Biden, who was widely reviled and perceived as incompetent. I don’t think this election hinged on ideology; if it had, you wouldn’t had such a sharp Senate/POTUS split, with Dems sweeping the battleground Senate races except for PA—which they’ll probably end up losing by only 0.2%.
Show threadSeacrets Enthusiast (parody)Nov 20, 2024
@interfluidity exit polling had trump winning a huge majority of the voters who said democracy is important. lol. lmaooo, even
Show threadKartik AgaramNov 20, 2024

@interfluidity "But her wokeness...!"

She moved to the center.

"But her wokeness in 2019!"

Show threadDouglas Edwards Nov 20, 2024
@interfluidity One such person, when interviewed, commented that #Harris had "no substance". That can't have meant he thought she had no substantive positions on the issues. It meant he saw her as simultaneously unexciting and untrustworthy.
Show threadDouglas Edwards Nov 21, 2024
@interfluidity And although that judgment — simultaneously unexciting and untrustworthy — certainly reflects the amoral depravity of those who prefer flamboyant criminals to policy wonks, it was not entirely, or even primarily, a reaction to #KamalaHarris personally. It was a reaction to a #DemocraticParty that has, in fact, been thoroughly untrustworthy at least since 1992, and has been exciting only when it needed to win an election (and not always even then). If solid, enthusiastic majority support for anything good is ever to be elicited from an electorate capable of putting #Trump in office, that "something good" will have to be both credible and RADICAL — radical enough to halt and even reverse the half-century diversion of wealth to billionaires. And I'm sick of hearing #BlueMAGA cultists respond to criticisms like this by pointing to the isolated scraps thrown to us — Obamacare for example, when what was needed was #MedicareForAll — while actively refusing to see the continuing downward drift of overall security and quality of life for the majority.
Show threadKartik AgaramNov 21, 2024

@interfluidity Interesting that low information, go-with-your-gut voters didn't see Biden as someone cautious, scripted, hiding something. I wonder how much of this is sexism.

Certainly, reading something like https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/donald-trump-vote-margin-narrowed made me think Hillary Clinton was just never going to win, period. Her emails, Comey, none of that mattered, I think. She was just less popular than Harris, period.

Donald Trump Has NOT Won a Majority of the Votes Cast for President

Donald Trump’s popular vote total has fallen below 50 percent, and his margin over Kamala Harris has narrowed considerably as all the votes are counted.

The Nation
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik You can say a lot about Biden, but Biden 2020 was not cautious or scripted. Biden's whole career has been a fountain of gaffes. Biden would say bizarre shit (not-un-Trump-like) in 2020, from his record player spiel during the primary to telling people who annoyed him at diners not to vote for him, and almost starting physical altercations. You may think Biden's "Scranton Joe" persona authentic or a put-on, but it was always hanging out. 1/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik (Biden was accused of "hiding in his basement" in 2020, doing podcasts — PODCASTS — but not getting out during the pandemic. But when he interacted, he was scrappy, not scripted.) 2/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik I think it's true that Hillary was always going to have a hard time of it. As Kevin Drum put it, she was in fact an unusually honest politician, but the way she retained her honesty was by giving guarded rather than unqualified-and-therefore-imperfectly-accurate statements. 3/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik There's a tension between perceived straightforwardness (which requires keeping it simple, which may mean misportraying some edge cases) and legalistic accuracy, which requires either careful qualification or restraint. 4/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik Both Clinton (Hillary) and Harris put avoiding getting called on technical inaccuracies before "telling it straight" at cost of getting "gotcha-ed" on the ways straight missed some cases and so could be portrayed as lies. 5/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik There may well be a gendered component to this choice. I think it pretty likely that women have the experience of getting well-actually-ed and mansplained when giving simple, broadly right answer, but missing some edge cases. It may well be true that this kind of "technical inaccuracy" is perceived as more forgivable by men talking straight and tough, while professional women are expected to be perfect lawyers. 6/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024
@akkartik If we had it to do over again, of course Harris should go on Rogan, smoke some joints with him, just let it all hang out. We know how it works out when she's all restrained and disciplined. But there's no guarantee an open-book, telling-it-like-she-sees it Harris would have been any more beloved by voters. 7/
Show threadSteve Randy WaldmanNov 21, 2024

@akkartik If she were an open book, it could prove a book voters just don't like. (Though given that they thought openness redeemed open Trump's awfulness, you'd hope the mere awfulness might count for a lot.)

It could also be the case what works for an alpha male type just doesn't for a woman candidate, because sexism, and even the best version of a candid Harris couldn't win. I don't think so, but I don't want to think so. In any case, we can't know. /fin

Show threadDaveNov 21, 2024
@interfluidity @akkartik Seems to me going/not-going is more a symptom of a larger cultural belonging than it ever could be a mitigation strategy for that membership
Show threadDaveNov 21, 2024
@akkartik @interfluidity 2016 was far too close to justify such a strong conclusion