Summary
Former vice presidential nominee Tim Walz criticized Trump for economic chaos while taking personal responsibility for the situation during an MSNBC interview.
“We wouldn’t be in this mess if we’d have won the election — and we didn’t,” Walz told Chris Hayes. He called Trump the “worst possible business executive” and praised the Wall Street Journal’s editorial criticizing Trump’s tariff war.
Walz emphasized Democrats must offer something better, not just criticize Trump. Recently, he acknowledged a leadership void in the Democratic Party and admitted spending too much time combatting Trump’s false claims about immigrants.
I disagree Mr. Walz. Had Biden not sat on his hands after being given the power of god by the supreme court - we wouldn’t be in this mess today.
This headline is trash. He’s saying we wouldn’t be in this mess if they’d won. The headline makes it sound like he’s taking much more blame than his actual quote implies.
Props to him for taking ownership of it. It means a lot even if it isn’t fully his fault.
Not you walz but the Democratic party. Send out 19 billion to Israel while our kids were hungry in school.
Thank God Trump won, because now we get… checks notes… Mar-a-Gaza!?
“I think Americans have had it,” Walz explained. ”… Look, I own this. We wouldn’t be in this mess if we’d have won the election ― and we didn’t.”
Good to see someone from the campaign acknowledge “getting votes” was the campaign’s entire job, and losing the election is the fault of the campaign.
I hope Walz runs in a competitive primary and gets the nomination.
But if they try to just hand a baton off, we’re gonna see the same result.
Primaries are only competitive if the people show up to them.
Primaries are only competitive if we actually have them
I feel like if Biden had stuck with something like, “I’m going to be one term and let some younger folks lead, we need some folks who are going to see the consequences of their actions running the show, not 70 and 80 year olds.” and had an actual primary, Harris wouldn’t have been the nominee and said nominee would have won. There’s a few other things that could have helped, but the short campaign was definitely a huge stumbling block.
I’ve seen people argue Biden and Jamie Harrison had a following out, and that Biden never really planned to run again, he just wanted to spoil the primary and push a very unpopular Harris onto the ticket.
Yes indeed, but also primaries can help to attract voters. I think the Sanders campaigns, though he didn’t win, made young people more likely to vote Democrat.
We did, in fact, have primaries. There were like 9 choices for the Democratic nominee in my state. Better challengers could have run but didn’t. Yes I know the DNC using funding to “encourage” or “discourage” but that doesn’t change the fact that challengers could have, and did, run in the primaries.
Nobody voted for Harris in the 2024 Democratic primary and she was still the nominee, picked by the head nerds at the DNC
That is partially true. We the voters did not vote for Harris, but the Biden delegates who the primary voters sent to the convention did.
Yeah, and Biden was old. Even before his obvious deterioration, there was always a chance he wouldn’t make it through the term and Kamala would have to step up. If you voted for Biden in the primaries and were NOT ready for a potential future of a Harris presidency, I don’t know what you were thinking.
Like I said: The head nerds at the DNC picked her.
yes, but those head nerds were elected by the primary voters.
Count the number of states where “others” were not on the ballot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Ballot_access
Your proof that we didn’t have primaries is to link a source that shows that not only did 48 states have a primary (I wasn’t aware that Florida and Delaware did not, so TIL, and thank you for that), but also that all of them had at least one challenger on the ballot? Show me who qualified to be on the primary ballot in their state, showed up to register for it, and was denied.
I’m not who posted it, but that list is either wrong or varies by county. My state is listed with a couple other candidates in various colors including green, but my actual primary ballot was Biden or nobody. (Or Trump or nobody). I just recycled it.
That sucks. Was there anybody who met the requirements and tried to register but was rejected?
Primaries are kind of a moot point for the incumbent if they want to run again.
Trump in 2020 had 2,549 delegates. The next closest was Bill Weld with 1.
Biden in 2024 had 3,905 delegates. The next closest was uncommitted with 37.
Obama in 2012 had 3,514 delegates. The next closest there was also uncommitted, with 72.
Bush in 2004 had a clean delegate sweep of 2,509.Yep. But it’s generally (just learned that Florida and Delaware Democratic parties cancelled theirs in 2024) not because the state parties just reject any other names to be put on the primary ballot. But there’s still a lot of people saying there was no primary or that the DNC wouldn’t let any challengers run. Just generally misplaced anger that they didn’t have better Presidential candidates to vote for when the reality is that better people just chose not to run. Has there ever been a primary challenger beat the incumbent president for the nomination and then win the election?
Has there ever been a primary challenger beat the incumbent president for the nomination and then win the election?
There’d have to be a primary challenger who beat the incumbent first, and I don’t think that one has happened. I know Ted Kennedy got relatively close (Well, closer then the others I’ve mentioned, still blown out 1900 to 1200 delegates) to knocking out Carter on the Dem side, other then that, Reagan and Ford in 1976 was decided 1,121 to 1078 for Ford.
NO! NO! NO!
NOOOOOOO!
Do not nominate Tim Walz you stupid assholes. He was the blue republican addon to make the progressive Harris campaign appeal to centrists and republicans. He wanted to “expand israel’s borders”. He was elected in a district that ran straight red like the blood of the innocence for a long time before he won it, and then he lost that district during the election.
We have free public school lunches for all our kids here in Minnesota because of Governor Walz. How the fuck is that “blue republican”?
He might be further left than any republican but hes as far right as a Democrat can be. As I have said before I will vote for him, but I gurantee you millions of leftists won’t.
He was the blue republican addon to make the progressive Harris campaign appeal to centrists and republicans.
The what Harris campaign?
Are you from the mirror universe?
Good. Maybe we can finally convince some people around here.
Nope, because the majority of the people that are in these comments in this post and in several others that are acknowledging that the Democrats fucked up will start punching left again in about three years. And they will repeat their failures from 2016 2020 2024.
Unlikely.
Its like pod save cracked open all their heads, took a crap, and sealed them all back up.
Nope. This is on Biden. It’s his fault Harris/Walz were put into an impossible situation.
That senile old fuck was supposed to be a one-term president. If they’d spent 4 years planning for 2024 instead of sitting around with their thumbs up their asses maybe they could have run a winning campaign.
But no, Joe was too proud or stupid or both to stick to that plan. This election was lost the instant he doddered his way on to the debate stage on 6/27/24.
It’s on Biden and Garland for not throwing Trump in prison the second his term ended.
Exactly, and it’s the third time we’ve been betrayed like this.
Not going after the Bush administration.
Not going after the subprime mortgage architects.
Not going after Trump.
Three times, they’ve had the easiest of layups for public approval of all time and they’ve consistently fucked it up.
I’d like to add:
Not going after the Confederate states
to this list
Wouldn’t that have been the Republicans at the time?
It’s not really a fuck up when they did it deliberately. Their priorities are in the wrong place because it’s an oligarchy.
Seeing liberal’s repeatedly stumble in stopping anyone to the right, but having the fangs come out the moment they need to protect themselves from the left really shows that it’s not failure, it’s refusal.
I see the same from the left though. Great criticism… of other leftists. Then defending authoritarian shitholes with dictators, like Russia. Makes no sense to me, it’s just tribalism.
That’s a false dichotomy. There are more political ideologies left of center than status quo liberalism and tankism. Most leftists are very much critical of Russia, because it’s an imperialist capitalist dictatorship.
I hope so! I mean the left should be united against Russia but that’s not what I’m seeing, sadly.
Are you comparing the political actions of the only ostensibly anti-fascist party in the US to the leftist infighting of posters online? Try organizing with leftists outside and you might be able to see the difference.
It’s kinda difficult to criticise those in power from the left when there aren’t any. Is there even 1 communist politician in th UK or america?
People, including us now, talk online and share their views. I’m sure the same would play out in person as it does online. Maybe luckily, some political ideologies seem to ban any criticism by banning anyone from their spaces who aren’t on board with their agenda. So that at least saves on talking to people who aren’t interested in talking to others, only pushing their propaganda.
Amen. 4 years to build a case? January 6th, spend 6-12 months and file charges. What the fuck were they doing for 4 years?
Running out the clock.
To hell with his January 6th temper tantrum, he should be in the fucking Hague for his handling of Covid.
Or at least the second the supreme court said whatever the president does is legal as long as it’s an “official act”.
The Oligarchy will never convict one of their own. For four years, I said it was the dog and pony show. And in the end, nothing will happen to Trump. Here we are.
Lots and lots of balls were dropped. Garland didn’t get Trump in jail when he could have. Biden didn’t stick to only one term. A democratic candidate wasn’t really elected when Biden stepped down (for the record, I think that Harris was more than qualified, but a lot of people were upset that she was just “chosen”). Harris didn’t try to stand out and be her own candidate - she mostly just stuck with the status quo and never disagreed with Biden. Etc etc etc.
Warning bells started going off in my head the moment that the Democrats announced that Harris was going to be the candidate after Biden dropped out, not because I thought she was an unqualified candidate but because there was no time taken to search for other candidates. Maybe it was too close to the election to take the time to go through the rigamarole of all that but I think even a cursory effort to do so would have gone a long way towards making it feel like people’s opinions actually mattered. Biden dropping out was huge (at least to me) because it felt like an acknowledgement of the voters who had consistently felt like they were held hostage for their votes because the alternative was a fascist.
It doesn’t help either that they went on to repeatedly shoot themselves in the feet while chasing moderate Republican votes, getting other prominent Democrats to chastise certain classes of voters and breeding the same voter apathy that hurt them in 2016, and their refusal to acknowledge that what’s happening in Gaza is a genocide that we shouldn’t help Israel perpetrate.
Yeah, the moment I knew we were in trouble was when they publicized that video of Obama lecturing down to some black men about not supporting Harris enough. Whoever thought staging that was a good idea needs to retire from politics forever and go find a field to stand in.
that video was so based lmao. Not every day that you get to see obama yelling at people.
Idk about based. Imo, it was hella staged, and I found it real cringe.
It’s also the campaign money, only goes to Harris, and not anyone else. They are legally required to return all that fundraising to the donors if they use a different candidate
On your last point, I don’t think Dems could’ve done anything different. They’re clearly in Israel pockets and they can’t disobey their corporate overlords and run on a more progressive agenda. Only other option was to try hard to get the “centrists”. Incredibly disappointing as they would rather lose and go hard fascist rather than let their donors lose any money (how’s that stock market looking?).
Maybe it was too close to the election to take the time to go through the rigamarole of all that but I think even a cursory effort to do so would have gone a long way towards making it feel like people’s opinions actually mattered.
it was way too close for that, by the time you had found one, you would be weeks, if not one or two months prior to the election, with no VP, and only a candidate, you would’ve had to have started the primary at the time it normally does to pull that off, they took a gamble, and that gamble was that biden would ride it out, and im not really sure why they took that gamble, but they did, and they lost.
Garland never had any intention to prosecute trump
Putting trump in jail would’ve made America look bad. Oh, the irony.
A cascade of failures. Beyond Joe not man enough GTFO, the DNC once again anointed a letter instead of letting the public decide. yes, Joe should never have run for a second term. Given that he did, he should have dropped out sooner. Given that he didn’t, the DNC should have had an open convention rather than putting their thumbs on the scale in back room deals.
Tim is 100% right that we would not be in this mess if they had won, but when is the DNC going to stop trying to manipulate everything and lie to us about it? They are to blame as much as Repugnacans.
Because they and R are same team. I bet it’s like lawyers who viciously go after each other in court, them have golf and martinis on weekends.
Harris made choices. She could have chosen not to adopt every single one of Bidens policies. What was biden going to do, fire her? If you look back at her presidential run she really struggled to articulate any policies back then too.
What was biden going to do, fire her
If the reports are true, yes that seems to be the case. I’m not really sure what would have happened, but she was absolutely threatened into defending Biden’s legacy.
The president cannot fire the vice president.
The best a president can do is lock the VP out of meetings. Bidens approval ratings were so low, being locked out of meetings would have cost her nothing. So exactly what reports are you quoting here, lets see them. I think you made that up.Bidens approval ratings were so low, being locked out of meetings would have cost her nothing.
Hell, if that happened and we assumed that anti-establishment sentiment is what got trump elected, maybe she could’ve capitalized on that to win the election as a “new” type of politician, one willing to go against the Democrat establishment whom literally everybody hates and dig up the potential dem voters who haven’t had hope for change since Obama. Of course, this is Kamala Harris we’re talking about, probably one of the last politicians that I’d expect to pull a move like that.
Walz emphasized Democrats must offer something better, not just criticize Trump.
Biden shares a lot of the responsibility, but Harris and Walz were running on fundamentally faulty assumptions.
Biden made an appropriate decision to back out. He should have done it much sooner. But I’m not sure I would characterize the failings of Harris/Walz as Biden’s fault. I don’t really feel that’s fair.
Harris’ main draw was that she didn’t want to do anything, which pissed off progressives. She was pro-establishment and pro-status quo. She didn’t need Biden’s help to not get votes… I have no love for Biden, but the truth is the truth.
But I’m not sure I would characterize the failings of Harris/Walz as Biden’s fault.
Inasmuch as they ran as a continuation of his policy, I’d say there’s some blame to be had.
So you’re saying that two adults chose to run an unpopular and non-working Biden “plan” which was proven to not work, and that’s also Bidens fault because two completely unrelated people decided to also use that plan?
Does your brain not work?
They used his blueprint. He bears some responsibility.
Removed by mod
If biden hadn’t been such a mildewy dishrag of a president, his VP might have won. Now insult me more since it’s all centrists do when people expect better of them.
And again this is about you hating Biden. Which is fine, hate him. But how long are you going to blame everything on him like a petulant child?
Next week when you stub your toe you’re going to blame him?
His Vice President chose to run for office. She chose the platform that she chose to run with. It wasn’t Joe Biden’s platform it wasn’t even loosely tangential to Joe Biden’s platform. But it’s his fault in your eyes because you feel that she stole his platform…
Go back and reread my anecdote about the police. You made it even more relevant.
This is on anyone who was within arms reach of Trump in the last decade and didn’t take matters into their own hands.
Yeah a bunch of people want to make excuses for 90 million people who just… Didn’t think it was important who won.
Campaign was flawed but if people showed up to vote against fascism we wouldn’t be here. And there’s zero excuse for all 90 million of them to not show up.
Edit- well, Im reading your post in a different light but, yes that too.
If you didn’t notice, Democrats were aligning with fascism.
Funny, I noticed they were the only ones running campaigns with a legitimate change of winning against the fascists.
Talking about winning against fascism and actually doing something or not the same thing, they talk a big game and then end up capitulating to Republicans.
Winning elections is the only way to keep power from the hands of fascists that doesn’t involve extralegal actions.
Which fascist is gonna keep fascism out of power, the blue one or the red one?
They probably realised Harris wasn’t going to win due to the amount of prejudice and thought Biden had a better chance against trump (who they’d have guessed would have been axed after his loss and criminality, but it was a cult), but then they let Biden to abdicate because there was truth in the criticism of him and the media ran with it…
At that point who else could they run? It was bad planning, not accounting for Biden’s age/health and the cult of trump.
Also they should have given Bernie his shot. They didn’t want real change and it’s been forced on them anyway, but now to the detriment of all.
“We wouldn’t be in this mess if we’d have won the election — and we didn’t,”
(Implies that if they(H&W) would have won we wouldn’t be in this mess)has quite the different sentiment than
“Tim Walz says ‘we wouldn’t be in this mess’ if it wasn’t for him and Harris” (Implies its their fault we are in this mess)
These headlines -_-
Not that I prefer straight bias but we got conservative media calling these people cutting all of everyone’s safety nets “heroes” and this is supposed to be liberal media straight misquoting for clicks?
We are in the worst timeline.
I do blame them, though. They could have ridden the coattails of Biden’s withdrawal all the way to victory, but instead Hartis capitulated and palled around on stages with Republicans instead of Walz.
The failure of the Democrat campaign has a lot of causes, but none more so than the failure of leadership.
Ultimately nobody wants to touch the issue of spiraling national and global wealth inequality, but it’s destroying our economic systems and the only fix would seem to be redistributing that wealth.
Democrats need to force their doners to make concessions to the American people in order to get voters, which goes against the interests of their doners, and they won’t get elected without the money to spend on advertising that wins elections.
Both the Republicans and the Neolibs lead to an oligarchhy.
From the article:
“We have to make sure that Americans know it’s not just that Donald Trump is bad but we’re offering them something better,” he continued. “And I think that’s what we need to work on.”
That’s an admission of culpability.
Walz emphasized Democrats must offer something better, not just criticize Trump.
It’s so obvious the democratic party lied about Biden to get through the nomination phase and used the fact that the money already donated for the campaign was specifically to Biden or Harris and would not have easily been given over to any other new candidate. You do have to wonder, especially after how Trump was greeted by them, just what actually happened here. The fact is that the truth about Bidens condition should have been known, he should have decided not to run, and the Democratic party should’ve had a real primary for real candidates and new ideas. Tim Walz was as bad of a VP pick as Tim Kaine. The white guy as VP to shore up the right wing vote is a total myth. Biden was kind of the first one, then Tim Kaine, then Tim Walz. It just doesn’t work. Neither will Newsoms podcast attempt at finding common ground which he hopes will translate into moderate votes. Democrats really have no clue just how bad things are about to get…
I wouldn’t be surprised if Newsom pulls a Tulsi Gabbard and switches sides. He had Charlie Kirk (of TPUSA) on his podcast where he “completely aligned” with him on trans rights (i.e. eradicating us), then had Steve Bannon on. That’s a bit much even for the Liz Cheney flank of the DNC.
I suspect Newsom doesn’t see any future for his party, and is bailing out instead.
In my experience, the higher up you go in both parties, you tend to sort of arrive at the same places with the same people… and most importantly, the same donors and the same money machine. That’s the great thing about the U.S. dollar really, corruption and selling Govt from Citizens United to today sort of drives the bipartisan nature of it because it all greases the wheels of the two party political machine.
I’ve listened to several episodes of his podcast… I’ll probably continue listening but in the first episode Newsom basically kept saying he only got into college because his scores were low and he played baseball. Then he kept backing down to Charlie Kirk, Bannon, etc, while constantly saying he doesn’t know what to do and kept asking them for ideas. In the first episode, there was a moment where he said Jesus Fucking Christ or something to Charlie Kirk, which called him out on it. It’s like, the very voters he’s trying to go after will hear that and stop at the first episode. He will gain no allies on the right as he abandons the party he is supposed to believe in, along with the core values he is supposed to defend. He thinks having a podcast with right wing guests where he gets sort of transactional on the issues. Like, do you think giving up the trans in sports debate is going to win you anything when their entire side would like to see gay marriage go away entirely? While you claim to still even support that? Do these people even think any of this through?
If Newsoms approach is the best the Democrats have to offer, then it might be game over for a very long time…
Newsom is an amazing combination of a spineless coward and a heartless monster that if he’s the Democratic Candidate, it might be the first year I don’t vote. I will NEVER willingly put a transphobe in the White House.
That’s EXACTLY what I’m expecting, when he stood up to Trump I thought he’d be alright, but the dude has basically been courting the Far Right and going all in on being as transphobic as possible.
He’ll run the sadly profitable “I was on the Left peacefully drinking Kombucha and eating Avocado Toast like the next pink pussyhat wearing hippie, but then they went too far when they tried to tell me the Holocaust actually happened! They’ve gone completely nuts!” grift.
I’ve been wondering if there’s a gas leak at Newsom’s house. The hell happened to him?
the truth about Bidens condition should have been known
It was known, and lots of us were shouting from the rooftops about it, But Democrats and liberals did everything they could to shut us up, accuse us of being Russian bots, accuse us of helping to get Trump elected, when it was liberals that got Trump elected by ignoring the people that saw every single sign
It didn’t help that the New York Times and other media outlets were all in on talking shit about Biden, and that undermined their credibility on the age issue. It was only after Biden’s disastrous showing at his debate with Trump that the average voter had any credible evidence of his decline.
There was evidence. There are tons of videos of Biden speaking in the 80s and 90s. Compare any of those videos to hin speaking in 2021, 2022, or 2023 and you could very easily tell that his mind had become a pale shadow of what it once was.
The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate, the subtle arguments which he would not be able to understand, much less answer. And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right.
All we needed to do was take off their rose colored glasses. The evidence was plainly in view for everyone to see.
And every time you point this shit out, people will stick their fingers in their ears and say:
You had a primary and we all picked Biden!
Ignore that the 2016, 2020, and 2024 primaries were effectively just for show! Ignore that they argued in court they have no reason to follow democratic policies in their primaries!
Ignore the evidence that the media hated outsiders that threatened their bank accounts and loved the ones that increased them!
Turn off your brain and cut out your tongue, vote blue no matter who we pick for you!
Ignore that the 2016, 2020, and 2024 primaries were effectively just for show! Ignore that they argued in court they have no reason to follow democratic policies in their primaries!
the law literally says they don’t have to lmao, go take that up with the DNC or something.
Yeah, everyone keeps bringing this up like it’s some kind of dunk, but the DNC can basically run things as they please. Don’t like it? Start another party. The party’s procedure goes back a few decades by now. People act like when Biden dropped out they did this crazy double secret turbo maneuver but the fact is the DNC can put forth whomever they want.
literally, it’s how this works, go bitch at the DNC or get legislators to do something about it lmao.
It’s so obvious the democratic party lied about Biden to get through the nomination phase and used the fact that the money already donated for the campaign was specifically to Biden or Harris and would not have easily been given over to any other new candidate.
the argument for this one is that the super pac was biden/harris, not any other random person, so it’s questionable whether they would’ve been able to use super pac funding at all especially at such short notice, given the technicalities of super pac funding. The majority of DNC funding, sure, but super pacs are most of the money in elections these days.
Gavin’s going to run more Diet Republican than any Democrat ever before and that’s going to make even my “Blue, no matter who!” ass not vote for him. I’m already thinking about staying home in '28 because Trump can’t win a third time and Gavin’s a transphobe.
Turns out holding back the things that work (like calling fascists “weird”) while not breaking with some of Biden’s unpopular policies was a terrible idea… who would’ve thought? At least Walz is honest enough to admit it. I doubt the DNC will let the social democrats like Walz or Bernie take the lead though… establishment dems would rather stand by and praise Reagan while Trump dismantles the constitution.
The DNC is a right-wing party and frankly benefits from the current fascist oligarchy too. They still get their bribes from corporate lobbyists all the same. VERY few representatives actually lean left and fight for us - hell, even Sanders, Walz, and AOC are centrists at best and routinely fall in line with the establishment.
2024 was no different than 2016. They didn’t listen to their voting base whatsoever because they’d rather have a fascist in charge than give any credence at all to leftist policies, even if it costs them an election. Just look at some of the info coming out about Harris’s campaign, where campaign workers were instructed to consider anyone asking about Gaza as a lost cause and not bother trying to earn their vote.
The whole party is rotten to the core and needs to be completely dismantled and replaced with an actual far left worker’s party. As it stands right now, the DNC is essentially just a controlled opposition party, even if it’s not entirely intended to be one.
You can pretty much tell which one , Ds are getting the same megadonor moneys from the GOP, and yes the Dems are hoping coast on by along with the GOP, to eek some federal elections.
The DNC is a
right-wing partydictatorshipAnd we just got the furtherest left chain we’ve had in over 30 years…
The chair has complete control and no accountability to anyone else.
and replaced with an actual far left worker’s party.
And the new chair agrees with you. You don’t even have to take his word, look at what he did as head of Minnesota’s state party
the new DNC chair just gave us elissa slotkin as trumps speech rebutter. She’s a zionist and menber of the problem solvers coalition (bipartisanship for bipartisanship sake) and new democrat caucus (pro business focus). She’s measured as the most centrist dem there is.
The new chair is accountable to the same corrupt influences as the last one. We might as well have not appointed a new chair. Ken has to go.
She also co-sponsored legislation to ban corporate pacs…
How are her (absolute dog shit) opinions about Israel affect the position she has?
Because you can trace the money, no matter what random, clearly going to die, just for show bill gets introduced.
Bernie’s chances of running are pretty much up and over. He’s like 83. The time to have gotten him in was definitely 2016, but the DNC wanted Clinton and that got them to lose. 2020, he lost again because everyone tone deaf wanted Biden because they believed “well, he was around Obama during his two terms, he should be in because he’ll just continue what Obama built!”. They only got lucky to have won 2020 with Biden, just lucky.
I cannot see Bernie Sanders ever running again.
he lost again because everyone tone deaf wanted Biden because they believed “well, he was around Obama during his two terms, he should be in because he’ll just continue what Obama built!”.
An article I read about this talked about how DNC-funded advertising discredited Bernie not by attacking his actual policies, but via a message of “his promises are good, and you may like them, but how many voters out there won’t vote for a scary socialist?”. I think that’s ultimately what did him in; it’s impossible to make a reasonable person hate the stuff Bernie was promising (unless they think it’s gonna placate the proletariat and make them lose the will to seize the means of production or some shit), but it is possible to convince them that some unspecified “many people” wouldn’t vote for him and therefore he’d lose the election.
They also banked on the sexist “Bernie Bros” and tried to paint the movement as majority male when it wasn’t. Plenty of women who liked Bernie. And a lot of that enthusiasm would have captured some youth that could have attracted young men wanting change and wanting to put their weight behind something.
Change was coming regardless. The DNC had an option for a brief moment to permit or encourage change for the better of all. Instead, they let our economic problems fester, accelerated the income disparity, and chose to back…whatever the fuck this shit show is now.
When parties get so arrogant that they think the people they represent are the enemy—they need to go. Unrestricted and fully backed? I think Bernie could have won against Trump in 2016.
I don’t think Bernie will run again in 2028, but he is still relevant right now because nobody else is taking the lead. I hope people like Walz will step up and try to turn the DNC around. It’ll be an uphill battle even with the DNC, not to speak of the actual election.
I think Bernie should run, alongside AOC, Walz, Al Green, and others. The primary can sort out who is truly best as president. That is the whole bloody idea of a primary, one the DNC never honestly permitted after Obama’s tenure.
The reason why the conservatives found an effective candidate in Trump, is that he was allowed to legitimately compete in their primaries. It is a stress test, and the DNC refused to allow their own primary to work as intended.
AOC has not interest though, she said it would best if she stayed in the house
The best he can do is rile people up and it works.
“Weird” alienated voters. It’s an example of bad messaging that the dems doubled down on that made them lose.
They lacked a platform that promised anything but more of the same that Americans were tired of. They needed to present something new and hopeful, not just lob an insult that much of America identifies with. A suite of policies to help the working class attracts votes to your side. Calling your opponents weird attracts votes to the weird anti-establishment.
Weird plays into the republican’s hands, and it annoys the hell out of me how the dems decided to throw the election to focus on petty insults that come off as compliments to most observers.
A part of the problem is that they didn’t hold back on broken and alienating messaging like “weird”. They should have focused on talking about what they can do for the people.
No, weird was a successful offensive attack on Republicans that was both popular and was great at making them get flustered and double down on their weirdness (which is itself an incredibly charitable way to describe their fascist policies)
Other messaging that was very popular
https://blueprint2024.com/polling/harris-poll-positive-message-8-8/
https://blueprint-research.com/polling/distance-biden-ads-message-test-10-15/
Progressive policies that a majority of Americans support
Democrats’ Working-Class Failures, Analysis Finds, Are ‘Why Trump Beat Harris’
2024 Post-Election Report: A retrospective and longitudinal data analysis on why Trump beat Harris
How Trump and Harris Voters See America’s Role in the World
Majority of Americans support progressive policies such as higher minimum wage, free college
Democrats should run on the popular progressive ideas, but not the unpopular ones
Here Are 7 ‘Left Wing’ Ideas (Almost) All Americans Can Get Behind
Finding common ground: 109 national policy proposals with bipartisan support
Progressive Policies Are Popular Policies
Tim Walz’s Progressive Policies Popular With Republicans in Swing States
Just because it flustered republicans doesn’t mean it didn’t alienate voters.
I agree with the rest of your message listing progressive policies that the majority of Americans support. That’s the winning strategy.
This is the Clinton-era way of thinking. A losing campaign must have done everything wrong, and a winning campaign must have done everything right.
No, Clinton-era thinking is trying to fluster the Republicans without being concerned with alienating the voters.
Where’s the proof that it alienated voters? The vox article has evidence voters received it positively
It alienated me and others like me that identify as weird.
You can’t win the left while shit talking non-hegemonic personalities and preferences.
You don’t find Republican policies that dehumanize immigrants, attack women’s rights, and demonize LGBT rights weird? To put it as nicely as possible, fascist policies are weird
Why are you proposing that we be as nice as possible to fascists?
You were never going to vote for Dems anyways, you keep saying alienation but you have not provided any proof. The fact that your being flustered means it’s actually working against Republicans, yes we know you are one.
I did vote for the dems.
“Weird” as an insult is fundamentally pro-centrist and pro-status-quo.
“Weird” alienated voters.
No, the initial comment was fine, as was the authentic reaction to it.
What made it weird and ineffective, was Kamala and other zero charisma neoliberals beating it into the ground while screaming “you like this”.
It’s like when Dee was trying to make Instagram videos and Charlie kept fucking with her:
I said I wanted staged moments that felt authentic!
When Walz said it off the cuff, it was a good thing. When Harris tried to make it an entire campaign, it was stupid and “weird” on its own.
“Weird” alienated voters.
Oh? got any proof of that? Was your proof on fox news maybe? I saw plenty of articles praising it.
It alienated me.
Most queer people identify with the label “weird”.
I also saw pro-corporate outlets praising it.
Oh see you said it alienated voters, plural.
What a ridiculous take.
I’m sure I’m not alone. America is a very pro-weird place.
Most queer people identify with the label “weird”.
OK. First of all, words can have multiple meanings. Like the word “screw” or “bark” or “current”. We dont need to deprecate these multiple meanings in favor of just one. In conversation you pick the applicable meaning, and if you cant thats more a ‘you’ problem. I have enough problems of my own without taking yours on too. My use of the word doesnt affect you at all.
Secondly, I will stick with the normal usage that most people use. Language is an agreement between people around meaning, and the vast majority of the population doesnt agree that it has this new meaning. Sorry. Maybe in a few years “wierd” will have a more predominant meaning that you prefer, but today it does not, and again, even if it did, the word need not mean only one thing.
I also saw pro-corporate outlets praising it.
But it seems like your memories dont match your ability to show it now. Human memories are notoriously unreliable.
It alienated me.
If you simply dont like that the word means what it means because you wish another meaning was more dominant, then I have a hard time feeling like you’ve much of a right to be aggreived at anyone about that. But by all means, be alienated if you want to. Just dont expect anyone else to make your alienation into a thing. Cheers.
It alienated me.
Most queer people identify with the label “weird”.
That’s fair actually. When I first heard it without context, I also felt kind of alienated by it.
I think you can be weird in good and bad ways, context matters in this case. I think it’s fair to call out fascists for being “weird” in the sense that they are evil, crooked and - crucially - not relatable for the vast majority of voters. The “weird” thing is about the fascists not being “like us” - and thus very instinctively not trustworthy.
At the same time it’s also possible to be “weird” in an individualistic, relatable and validating way. Most people have insecurities or fears on some level and accepting this “weirdness” can be validating and actually show likeness. I think it’s very clear that Tim Walz didn’t mean it like this.
He didn’t call them weird out of the blue, but rather to sum up his other points about their unrelatable, evil behaviors. The message was something like: “The fascists are not real, believable people. They don’t seem driven by everyday worries like us. They don’t seem to have the same kind of feelings like us.”
And I think that is actually exactly the message that wins elections in this political climate. Debating the issues is getting you nowhere if your opponent has no actual beliefs to debate against. Calling them out for being fake people with no actual beliefs is a better strategy.
Alienated which voters?
Me.
There’s no leadership void in the Democratic Party, it’s been Bernard Sanders for quite a while. Them denying this is to their (and everyone elses) detriment. Just run Bernie/AOC and let’s get this over with.
Nancy Pelosi is the leadership of the Democrats. And AOC was not allowed to become top house dem. They chose Gerry
AtrickConnely instead.AOC and Bernie will never be allowed to do anything besides sheepdogging progressives into the Democratic party. And at this point it appears they are fully on board with that.
Sheepdogging is why Bernie’s out on the road right now.
Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries may control the official party apparatus, but when it comes to communicating and connecting with constituents and energizing the base, AOC and Bernie are clearly the only ones acting as opposition leaders.
At some point they have to fall in line and follow orders. Or fade into obscurity. It’s a truly shitty system. One long overdue for a big reset…
honestly, if walz had been managed competently, I think he’d have been a pretty good folksy VP candidate. especially if he’d kept up on the ‘weeeeird’ stuff.
harris was just a terrible idea, and she didn’t even push her strengths. it’s like she, and the people who put her there, were all trying to lose.
The “Weeeeird” stuff would have knocked Trump right out of the park.
without the genocide and harris’ being simultaneously a woman of color (alienating fascists), a cop (alienating anyone with a conscience), and an arrogant symbol of the establishment that let it get so bad? yeah, fine red mist. it was a really good strategy. and they just stopped it, probably because a wealthy donor said it made them uncomfortable.
The correct answer to that is “It bothers Trump and Trump makes Americans uncomfortable.”
i want walz and aoc in 2028
we don’t blame you tim we love you ❤️
Imagine Trump, or any other billionaire, saying something like this. Can’t do it? Me neither.
DNCs fault for blocking Bernie
i cant imagine its likely he would’ve even won in the first place, literally just schizophrenia politics.
Sure as opposed to the totally stable and sane politics of today🙄. The establishment neoliberals aren’t popular . It’s just a fact
but people keep voting for them???
Why does every dumbass on this site keep saying “BUT THEY AREN’T POPULAR” only to see them get literally 40-50% of the votes. If they truly weren’t popular, they would get like 30% of the vote.
But i guess your entire counter argument is probably “WELL BUT HOW DID TRUMP WIN THEN?” anti-incumbency. Plain and simple.
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The voters deserve a lot of blame here.
You can lead a horse to water…
Any ADULT can easily see that politicians are going to be imperfect, and no single candidate is going to align 100% with your stance. Demanding that they do, or else you’ll vote for literally the worst possible option, or sit out, or vote a “protest” vote, all so that someone, somewhere will “learn” something is just fucking childish and stupid. And this will be continue to be true no matter how many times the Tone Police show up to admonish people about blaming voters. Sorry, not sorry: I blame the voters.
I agree, I’m also happy that people like Walz seem to want to give people a better option, making a protest vote even less appealing.
Tim Walz explained it the other day at SXSW.
Politicians are like teachers. If it’s Tim Walz’s job to teach kids about geography, and then test them to check if he taught well, if the outcomes of that test show that half the class passes and half fails, then the blame for that is on the teacher. The teacher could have taught differently, teaching in different styles to adequately reach out to students where they’re at in life and according to their specific learning styles. He might teach the same topic 5-6 different ways to capture as many people as possible.
The Harris-Walz campaign didn’t do that. They had terrible messaging as soon as the DNC hit. When Harris brought Walz on, there was actual progressive momentum. But then Harris bent the knee to establishment Democrats, and they lost the election.
I will not believe that it’s the voters’ fault for the election outcome. If Democrats were sober enough to realize Trump’s threat and wanted to really fire people up, they would have may the necessary changes to do so.
I blame the voters.
It means you never have to listen or change in any way, so of course you do.
LOL, I am a voter. Are you under the impression that I have any direct influence over the Democratic Party? 🤣
LOL, I am a voter. Are you under the impression that I have any direct influence over the Democratic Party?
According to your comment, voters are to blame, not the infallible holy party. So good work electing trump. It’s all your fault.
says the guy, responding to the guy who literally voted for that fucking party.
Nobody demanded that Harris align 100% with their stance; they demanded that she not be an absolute pile of shit of a candidate. That distinction matters.
she was actually pretty ok? The one thing that was bad about her was the israel stance, which is like maybe 5% of the voter base that ACTUALLY cares about that enough.
So first a lot more than 5% of the Democrat voter base cares about Gaza. I won’t get into the weeds, but there.
The one thing that was bad about her was the israel stance,
No? She would’ve won at least two or three swing states if that was the case. Her economic policy (or lack thereof, more accurately) was horrible. She dedicated the final two months of her campaign almost exclusively to “Trump bad” rhetoric while not promising to do anything for her constituents. I mean this woman was asked what she’d do different from Biden economically and she said “nothing comes to mind”. Status quo politics just won’t cut it in this day and age.
So first a lot more than 5% of the Democrat voter base cares about Gaza. I won’t get into the weeds, but there.
i’m talking about the voter base that actually cares enough to influence their vote over it. I’m sure if you polled the public it;s like 90% or higher who care about it at all, like 40% support israel, 60% against israel, and like 5% of those is “fuck israel i hope it burns to the ground and that palestine re conglomerates into israel” type of people.
No? She would’ve won at least two or three swing states if that was the case. Her economic policy (or lack thereof, more accurately) was horrible.
“her economic policy was bad” bro, did you see ANYTHING that trump said? Literally an irrelevant argument. Especially now.
She dedicated the final two months of her campaign almost exclusively to “Trump bad” rhetoric while not promising to do anything for her constituents.
I remember her talking about a lot of things she and walz were going to do, that was like a pretty big deal. Was their entire plan, not all of it was great, but it existed, unlike trump.
I mean this woman was asked what she’d do different from Biden economically and she said “nothing comes to mind”. Status quo politics just won’t cut it in this day and age.
yeah and? Biden had pretty good economic policy? Aside from the whole covid thing, but you have no choice there, unless you want a global recession, more like a depression. Again, trumps economic policy has been an utter disaster in comparison.
i’m talking about the voter base that actually cares enough to influence their vote over it.
https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/postelection-polling
bro, did you see ANYTHING that trump said? Literally an irrelevant argument.
Don’t move the goalposts. Here’s what you said:
she was actually pretty ok? The one thing that was bad about her was the israel stance, which is like maybe 5% of the voter base that ACTUALLY cares about that enough.
We’re talking about Harris on her own merit, not about Trump.
I remember her talking about a lot of things she and walz were going to do, that was like a pretty big deal.
Like? Give me something specific she clearly said she would do for the working class and a link of her saying it in September or October.
yeah and? Biden had pretty good economic policy? Aside from the whole covid thing, but you have no choice there, unless you want a global recession, more like a depression.
He did well on the economic recovery front, but he or example didn’t go after price gouging. His economic policies were a step in the right direction, not an end state to campaign on.
Again, trumps economic policy has been an utter disaster in comparison.
Again, that is literally not what we’re talking about.
centrists think “second worst” means “good”.
in the context between shooting yourself in the head with a 12 gauge slug, and stubbing your toe really badly. I think most people would agree with me when i say that stubbing your toe is the best option. Comparatively, a good option.
Of course if you compare it to things like, randomly finding a billion check on the ground, nothing compares to that, but that’s an unreal comparison, you literally cannot base a reference point on them.
Sample Online sample of 604 voters fielded from December 20 to January 07, 2025. Margin of Error ±4.5%
thats uh, a really small sample size. Especially for a sample that’s supposed to consist of multiple swing states. Not to mention that organization is clearly either deeply embedded into the arabic culture, or arabic itself (didn’t look that hard) obviously that’s not an issue, we have things like AIPAC here in the US, it’s just, probably very biased. Which is why they exist in the first place. That’s kind of the whole point.
Don’t move the goalposts. Here’s what you said:
What’s the other available option? Voting for jill fucking stein? Who cares what i said, the facts are plainly evident, you have one really bad choice, and one decent choice.
We’re talking about Harris on her own merit, not about Trump.
and if we’re talking about her own merit specifically, i’d say she’s still a pretty competitive candidate, the voting numbers seem to agree with me on that one.
Like? Give me something specific she clearly said she would do for the working class and a link of her saying it in September or October.
she ran for a bunch of shit, notably the child tax credit, the housing crisis, the food crisis, corporate taxes, capital gains tax, there are a number of other things, those are the ones i can remember off the top of my head.
He did well on the economic recovery front, but he or example didn’t go after price gouging. His economic policies were a step in the right direction, not an end state to campaign on.
the price gouging one im not sure on, there was only really significant price gouging of medical equipment and consumables in the early pandemic months, which was quickly shut down, as it was deemed illegal, beyond that you’re talking about things like food, which struggle with inflation, and are also affected by things other than the economy, notably the avian flu for eggs. Consume electronics have gotten more expensive in some capacities, the GPU market specifically, but that’s obviously due to AI. That’s about it, everything else is probably going to be related to inflation.
Again, that is literally not what we’re talking about.
Who else are we comparing it to? Fucking god? IS the heavenly father himself going to come down and run our government for us? What’s the frame of reference we’re holding here?
thats uh, a really small sample size.
Short answer: Learn statistics. Slightly longer answer: 604 people is more than enough for a normal distribution to appear, so if the sample size was “really small” it’d be reflected in the margin of error.
Not to mention that organization is clearly either deeply embedded into the arabic culture, or arabic itself (didn’t look that hard) obviously that’s not an issue, we have things like AIPAC here in the US, it’s just, probably very biased.
Biased towards… Palestinians’ rights? The fuck are you talking about?
What’s the other available option? Voting for jill fucking stein? Who cares what i said, the facts are plainly evident, you have one really bad choice, and one decent choice.
Uh… If you don’t care to have a conversation then you should say so from the start. If you do care to have a conversation, then what you said quite obviously fucking matters. Also you ignored everything I said to claim Harris is a “decent” choice.
and if we’re talking about her own merit specifically, i’d say she’s still a pretty competitive candidate, the voting numbers seem to agree with me on that one.
What voting numbers? The ones where she lost all seven swing states? Also I quite distinctly remember a whole lot of “hold your nose and vote for her”, which isn’t what you say about a “pretty competitive” candidate.
she ran for a bunch of shit, notably the child tax credit, the housing crisis, the food crisis, corporate taxes, capital gains tax, there are a number of other things, those are the ones i can remember off the top of my head.
Quotes for those things from September or October?
the price gouging one im not sure on,
Again, the fuck are you talking about? Grocery price gouging during recessions is a widespread and documented phenomenon, and if you don’t understand that then you really are in no position to discuss the November election, because you don’t understand the people’s grievances that Harris failed to address.
What’s the frame of reference we’re holding here?
“Good” doesn’t need a frame of reference; it’s an absolute judgement. “Better” is a relative judgement that does require a frame if reference. Most people can judge whether something is good without being offered a specific frame of reference, and to most people a candidate that doesn’t even acknowledge a problem exists (again, “nothing comes to mind”) is not good.
Defeated Democratic candidate: accepts responsibility in the lightest possible way
Liberal fanboy: Noooo, it’s not your fault, it’s the children who were wrong!
Yeah, us voters are children, and we need politicians to baby us
I didn’t say Walz, Kamala, Biden or the Democratic Party in general have no blame.
Harris could have aligned with 99% of what I wanted, but that 1% was OK with genocide, and that should have been a red line for anyone.
So, the alternative was little d, because that’s so much better?
The alternative in every instance is always no Democrats. We already have a right wing party, we don’t need two.
There were two viable options only.
When your two options are both right wing reactionaries, there are not two options.
Any ADULT can easily see that politicians are going to be imperfect
The best I can do is fall for blatant Russian propaganda and then get mad when someone calls me out on it.
TRUE I LOVE TAKING UP ONE SIDED POSITIONS LIKE FUCK ISRAEL I HOPE EVERYONE IN THAT COUNTRY DIES A HORRIBLE AND PAINFUL DEATH
this is satire, hi hello, im doing political satireIt sure is convenient how all criticism comers from russians so you can ignore it.
Kind of like anyone that finds faults with other leftists is a “centrist”, right?
Don’t you have voters to blame for your party’s decades of complete incompetence?
You’ll have to try better than that comrade.
You’re being mean to me! I hate you mean liberals! You’re always picking on leftists who just want to let fascists become president
based and true, thank you.
