Ronald Reagan came third in the 1968 Republican primary, didn’t run in 1972, and came second in 1976. If you were writing this in the late 1970s you’d be arguing that Ronald Reagan was wildly unpopular because he’d never won a single primary despite running for president twice. Whatever you think of his legacy (and I think he’s responsible for a lot of the worst parts of the last half century) he was wildly popular as president.

Was Harris popular? Not especially. But, the issue wasn’t her laugh. Aside from being non-white and non-male, she was also running as a pro-establishment candidate at a very anti-establishment time. Trump’s absolute destruction of the establishment will go down as history as the point at which the US really started to self-destruct. It shows how good the status quo actually was for a lot of things Americans take for granted. But, the message that “everything is fine, I’m just going to continue with existing policies” was the absolute wrong one to use.

Ronald Reagan came third in the 1968 Republican primary, didn’t run in 1972, and came second in 1976.

Harris bowed out months before the votes were even cast, and was in something like 6th place at the time she quit. How is this at all comparable?

Is it really goalpost moving for ‘she never won’ to be elaborated on, into ‘she gave up before the voting even began because she was that unpopular’?

Does that really change the comparison between her and someone who came third and second in primaries? The essence of your retort was ‘neither did Reagan but look at him’, but the fact is that ‘they both failed to win primaries’, while technically correct, is definitely not equivalent to saying they were on equal standing. This is basically the exchange that just happened:

• “She obviously never won that scholarship, she never aced a test”
• “He never aced a test either, but he won the scholarship”
• “Yeah, but she had a D average and he had a B+ average”
• “Are the goalposts on wheels so they can be moved more easily?”

Is it really goalpost moving for ‘she never won’ to be elaborated on, into ‘she gave up before the voting even began because she was that unpopular’?

Yes.

You see, in the first instance the goalposts were at “she never won”.

Then the goalposts were moved.

Now the goalposts are at “she gave up before the voting even began”.