Democratic (Party) Direction

The end of the child tax credit increased child poverty by like a third in one month… but hey, trimmed the deficit.

This might just be a dumb post, but I'm not sure I'm following the thread of the Harris convo. Has Harris's past work as a prosecutor hindered her in some way? As a woman of color she has of course had to overcome structural, systemic barriers to her political ambitions (and throughout her life), but have the possibly overly stringent attitudes of leftists regarding prosecutors impacted her as well? I keep stumbling on how the more abstract or personal points being made here are still brought back to the specific example of the current Vice President of the United States—which is an odd role to be sure but indisputably an immensely powerful one—and I feel like I'm missing something, possibly something obvious?

If the point is simply that those stringent attitudes are inequitably applied to marginalized people who manage to achieve political power, that makes sense and is def something to be alert to—is the concern that holding these rigid attitudes will mean fewer women/WOC in politics?

Seems like when any single political issue becomes very important to someone (whether it is representation, the carceral state, or class warfare), the rest of their political opinions become more fungible/incoherent.

That's ok though - I think consistency is overrated, and hypocrisy is universal.

Speaking of incoherent... Ignore me.

rob you are otm

I don't post much here anymore but I have this belief that online discourse is part of the real world, with which I get the sense that people might not agree maybe. As if the topics here are all theoretical and it doesnt matter if women are listened to, because it is not the real world.

I think the point about Harris here was the thread feeling a tad mansplainy just after the earth-shattering Dobbs decision came out.

American women are in an existential death battle for basic rights at the moment. It just felt like a weird time to be getting Ted talks on the prison issue and sentencing guidelines, and weird rules for what women choose to do professionally. So I felt like clapping back a bit, sue me.

Everyone will say, I am not being that guy, but at times the thread has felt a little rude and dismissive to women and I was curious how far some of these positions would go. It is kind of funny - at times I have felt like saying, hey guys. good luck finding the real oppressors(!)

Anyway, if it's not specifically about Harris it is something else specific where it is good for people to engage with facts on the ground. It felt like a good point of entry. Sorry, I do think anyone with the free time to post to ILX so much is probably quite privileged, but it is good when people are able to listen and have some back and forth.

I have this belief that online discourse is part of the real world, with which I get the sense that people might not agree maybe. As if the topics here are all theoretical and it doesnt matter if women are listened to, because it is not the real world.

I think the point about Harris here was the thread feeling a tad mansplainy just after the earth-shattering Dobbs decision came out.

American women are in an existential death battle for basic rights at the moment. It just felt like a weird time to be getting Ted talks on the prison issue and sentencing guidelines, and weird rules for what women choose to do professionally. So I felt like clapping back a bit, sue me.

Everyone will say, I am not being that guy, but at times the thread has felt a little rude and dismissive to women and I was curious how far some of these positions would go. It is kind of funny - at times I have felt like saying, hey guys. good luck finding the real oppressors(!)

Anyway, if it's not specifically about Harris it is something else specific where it is good for people to engage with facts on the ground. It felt like a good point of entry. Sorry, I do think anyone with the free time to post to ILX so much is probably quite privileged,

Agree with all of the above.

Thank you felicity, I appreciate your responding! I am undeniably a privileged person and additionally a US citizen who emigrated to Canada 8 years ago, so I also appreciate the reminder that these discussions are never truly abstract. And good point about the significance of timing too.

I'd also add that the thread prompted me to read more about Harris's prosecutorial career, which I hadn't done before and was more interesting/complicated than I'd realized, so point very much taken about facts on the ground.

_ I don't think that people can be granted virtue or be seen as having special knowledge *because* of their oppressed status _

I can agree that you might not see this. Since it doesn't matter to you, then why put so much energy into opposing the idea, if you happen not to be in those oppressed categories?

I guess it comes back to the idea of redefining "merit."

I’ll also say, if it makes a difference, that I’m definitely a privileged person in many ways, but am currently underemployed while waiting for the school year to start, so that might explain some of my posting tendencies

Way to take credit for not getting your spending packages passed

― F'kin Magnetometers, how do they work? (President Keyes), Friday, July 8, 2022 1:47 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol how many Republicans took credit for the ones that did (which they voted against)

i would suspect if harris did not have such a mediocre-to-outright-bad record as DA & AG, and ran on a strong progressive policy platform, then the left would have been more sympathetic to her. that's what it comes down to, it's not about "merit", it's about wanting politicians that support policies the left wants, are willing to fight for them, and have some sort of record that supports that or at least isn't directly opposed to it. being a prosecutor

representation alone is not justice if the minority representatives just uphold the existing power structures

it does feel like harris is kinda being set up to fail by the biden white house though, putting her in charge of reducing asylum seeker numbers is both incredibly difficult and going to be incredibly controversial (to say the least) with the dem base. but her bizarrely inarticulate presence in interviews is entirely her. as VP she is just yet another mediocre dem with no real answers to the current political moment.

oh i forgot to finish a sentence

being a prosecutor is going to be a dealbreaker for a significant portion of the left, but a genuinely good record in the role would go a fair way to alleviate that

I'm curious if you think Harris' actions such as casting the tiebreaking vote to confirm Rollins as U.S. Attorney of Massachusetts and refusing to enforce Proposition 8 while serving as California Attorney General were just upholding existing power structures.

Also, while the job Harris is doing as Vice President should be totally open for critiques, I personally am super uncomfortable seeing the word "inarticulate" used in relation to her "presence."

That particular descriptor has super racialized connotations in America. I feel the need to surface and discourage the use of that word, as it plays into subconscious biases.

both of those actions are good but they're hardly radical & would have been expected of pretty much any dem who isn't firmly on the right of the party in those circumstances. casting a tie-breaking vote along party-lines to support the biden admin's candidate is fairly expected, though certainly it's a very welcome change that the biden administration (including harris) put forward someone like rollins there, that's a better move than many would have expected. i'm not sure a democratic california AG could have gotten away with not opposing prop 8.

That particular descriptor has super racialized connotations in America. I feel the need to surface and discourage the use of that word, as it plays into subconscious biases.

that's fair, i'm not from the US so that connotation didn't occur to me. my apologies.

No apology needed. I enjoy your posts and thought you might not be from the US.

I do take your point that Harris has been unprepared, vague, nervous, giving off weird energy, etc. in her interviews as VP. Personally, I don't mind poor extemporaneous public speaking skills if the person seems like they are trying to be accurate and avoid making statements they will regret or be unable to substantiate. A marked contrast from our last President, who really gave off big "say anything, the more unbelievable the better" energy. But on the substance - yes, it's pretty disappointing she didn't have something more inspirational to say right after Dobbs came out.

yeah, poor public speaking skills can be excused if the substance is still there, but she's regularly only had mediocre platitudes to offer. it's weird because i don't recall her coming across that badly as a speaker in the past.

The Biden Administration and Congressional leadership aren't giving her much to work with beyond mediocre platitudes, can't sell plans that don't exist.

I wasn't too impressed with her own plans during the primary tbh.

Yesterday I announced that, as president, I’ll establish a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities. https://t.co/ldwuC9RiIE

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 28, 2019

That one was really memorable as emblematic of the way the Democratic Party tends to kneecap their own policies right out the gate by imposing incredibly specific and confusing requirements that gate access to benefits.

goddamn that looks like parody

Yeah I remember that very clearly being the moment that the idea that Harris is not very good entered my mind.

And it was of particular significance in the moment of that primary, where you had Bernie, a serious contender who, for once, was not proposing all kinds of means-tested-to-death bullshit but universal programs.

Ten of them were fighting to be the not-Bernie/Warren and battling to see who could come up with the most mealy-mouthed centrist garbage to please donors and MSNBC talking heads.

Biden was centrist Bane, he didn't have to adopt means testing and mass incarceration he was born into it.

I read that Gavin Newsom is polling higher than Harris for a theoretical 2024 run.

Also not a fan, but obviously I wound wind up voting for either of them in the general.

Feel like Newsom’s Guilfoyle days would doom him eventually.

Well exactly. I felt the Bern in 2020 but honestly anyone who can deliver the vote. Newsom doesn't seem terrible.

withholding judgment on who can deliver the vote until I see some of the other options. I'm skeptical that either caluhfornia librul is the person to do it right now.

What other CaLiberal are you talking about?

It was so close in 2020. I don't think Harris should be so discounted as having been part of that winning ticket.

I think she boosted Democratic turnout.

Whatever role she played in 2020 is pretty meaningless to an individual run. Being VP makes her less likely to become President to start with, being VP for an unpopular President certainly does. She's hamstrung for 2-6 more years with no ability to generate political accomplishments. Given her short Senate career she has little record of individual stances or beliefs to separate her from the Biden administration or any other generic centrist-maybe-sorta-liberal Democrat and limits her ability to come up with them.

Harris's best path to the Presidency is Biden getting re-elected in 2024 and then keeling over.

I mean, there is a chance.

I have to believe "he's old as shit, maybe..." entered into the calculation to leave a lifetime sinecure in the Senate for a job that sucks.

I still remember watching the first Biden/Trump "debate" and thinking that the best outcome would be for Biden to win and then die.

It is kind of a morbid calculus, but not an irrational one.

xpost - that is a 100% correct take, given...

White House officials defend the urgency of Biden’s response and the actions he has taken on abortion, which they argue are in step with mainstream opinion. “The president has been showing his deep outrage as an American and executing his bold plan — which is the product of months of hard work — ever since this decision was handed down,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a statement Saturday.

“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign,” she said.

I don't think a Harris White House would be so quick to publicly flip the bird to "activists."

you guys always seem to be counting on people dying in office

Not counting on, hoping - the ghouls rarely die, though. Must be nice to have that rich person healthcare.

Yeah I remember that very clearly being the moment that the idea that Harris is not very good entered my mind.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, July 9, 2022

And it was of particular significance in the moment of that primary, where you had Bernie, a serious contender who, for once, was not proposing all kinds of means-tested-to-death bullshit but universal programs.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Saturday, July 9, 2022

can't relate to this at all

Newsom's Guilfoyle days are not going to doom him

Sanders was fucking old too. Warren was my pick and also old but women face less cognitive decline

There would be some unpleasant sacrifices involved to scourge elected politicians over the age 70 but c'est la vie.

can't relate to this at all

Dan, are there reasons that you think Harris’ tweet is both good policy and good messaging?

sic, are you seriously talking about a tweet from 2019? Didn't we just do this last weekend??

You might like Newsom - he is trolling DeSantis in Florida with a video inviting people to come to California.

sic

I don't really know, it doesn't seem egregious but I think you probably know more than me

Sanders was fucking old too. Warren was my pick and also old but women face less cognitive decline

right, with Biden the thing that really struck me was how different he seemed from the last time I had paid any attention to him, which was the 2012 debate with Paul Ryan, which genuinely impressed me. Not for any skill in presenting a political message, but in the sort of classic political performance that I figured was dead - laughing at Ryan, presenting this persona of a seen-it-all veteran who knows that the man he's opposing is full of shit and doesn't deserve a moment of his or the audience's respect, and then using the last 10 minutes to pivot to this personal, emotional appeal to the average voter. It was really incredible to watch, and seeing him in the last few years, whether or not he has dementia, that sort of performance just isn't in him any more.

Maybe, but I don't think he's incapacitated and there just isn't any other democrat who could win the 2024 election as far as I can see. Why would we NOT run the incumbent? I think all this talk of him stepping down is a mistake

Assuming a Democratic primary will ever matter again, I wonder if they learned a lesson about not running out eight people splitting up the centrist/old people vote. Without COVID and against anyone other than Trump the mass dropout to prop up Biden may not have worked out so well in the end.

If he gets elected to the Senate, I’m riding the Fetterman train in 24