this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2024
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[–] megopie 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Honestly, I prefer Biden to her. Haris’s historical political positions are questionable at best to me personally and I don’t trust her in the slightest to implement progressive policies or challenge corporate power. She has co-signed a lot of letters, and sponsored a few bills that sounded good, but never when there was a real chance of them passing, and I’ve seen very little from her that would convince me that was anything but performative.

I’m not crazy about Biden and I think he gave up far to much on a lot of the bills he managed to get through, not to mention that his foreign policy had been a mixed bag, to say the least. But, I’d still rather him be in charge of things.

This is my biggest reservation about the whole replace Biden thing. Suddenly the party is worried about Biden’s electability now? Not when they could have run primaries and had voter input? To me it feels like they always wanted to pick another candidate, but they didn’t want to run a public primary campaign. Perhaps it’s because they wanted to give the right wing propaganda machine less time to demonize the chosen candidate, or maybe insiders at the party were worried the voters in primaries might choose someone they didn’t approve of.

The first seems… I dunno, somewhat reasonable? The second ticks me off though. This all stinks, especially because most of the left of the party is still voicing support for keeping biden. If the party wants to replace Biden with Harris’s they should have had a primary about it, and not just slipped it in last moment.

[–] memfree 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I became impressed with Harris during the Impeachment hearings. She was smart, a bit sarcastic, and got as far as she could given the situation. Lots of other people basically wasted their time, but she was stellar.

I think she got a raw deal by getting stuck with 'immigration duty' since that's been an issue for decades and only getting more histrionic, so the deck was loaded against her.

Yeah, I hear complaints that she shoulda/coulda done more in California, but the very few examples I've given a look seemed like reasonable can't-please-everyone issues. Perhaps I need to get more educated, but there's only so much time in the day.

[–] megopie 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don’t care much for good personality in politicians, plenty of politicians with great personalities have gone on to do awful things, plenty with awful personalities have done great things. I care far more about the issues they campaign on and policies they’ve pushed through in the past.

Haris seemed to drop and pick up policy positions during the 2020 primary purely based on what her team thought would advance polling numbers. Which makes me skeptical of any claimed positions without concrete evidence of commitment.

[–] memfree 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It wasn't her personality as much as her ability to cut through BS. She exhibited a skill. A quick search turned up this example: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-shut-down-again-221300388.html

[–] megopie 3 points 4 months ago

I’ve seen Harris put out plenty of her own BS. equivocating and avoiding question she doesn’t want to answer. Again, I want to see real commitment to policy I care about. Not showpersonship, Fingerspitzengefühl or rhetorical capability.

[–] theangriestbird 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

you make excellent points. it's funny, many of these are reasons i didn't vote for Clinton in 2016. I wrote in Bernie bc I felt very frustrated with the primary process and the superdelegates thing. It's also the reason why I wasn't at all interested in Harris in the 2020 primaries. But now, i don't even care why they change it or who they choose, i will vote Dem in November no matter what. I agree 100% with everything you said. It's just strange to consider how much the situation has changed over the past 4 and 8 years.

[–] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 months ago

It's better to think about the general election as the place to vote for your party. You get your chance to vote for individual candidates in the primaries. I know that isn't the case for incumbents, but that's where the decisions should be made.

If people thought about elections this way, we wouldn't be in this mess where Democrats are always outnumbered by Republicans in the election booth, even though they outnumber them when counting registered voters.

[–] memfree 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

If the choice becomes Harris or Trump, will you stay home or will you vote? For which?

[–] megopie 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I will vote for Harris in that case, but I will not be happy about it. I’d rather be voting for Biden, my mind could be changed on Harris, but she has not earned that yet. After the threat of trump is off the table, the party has a lot of work to do if they want my support and Participation again beyond that.