Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday accepted an invitation from CNN to debate former President Donald Trump on October 23, challenging her rival to another engagement on a public stage in the final weeks of the campaign.
I’m actually kind of worried that this will happen. In that vacuum she’s going to use the time to bridge the gap between the left and the right. The last thing I really want from her is more talk about supporting fracking, more soft stance on Palestine, and more words about hardline on immigration. I get that she’s trying to draw more of the right in politically but I’m also worried that she is dangerously close to having the far left get disenfranchised.
It’s a diminishingly small number. For instance Gaza is a loud issue with strong divides. But polling shows it’s a very tiny fraction for whom it’s a deciding factor in their vote preference. It’s just that the tiny fraction of people is very loud, typically young, and on social media like Lemmy.
For many of this tiny minority, it has become more a personality than a political or even ethical issue. They’re wildly overrepresented in, for instance, discourse on Lemmy; conversely, they represent a tiny, almost meaningless amount of voters who would not vote for Harris because of it, no matter how many all-caps posts they make about EVERYONE ELSE IS VOTING FOR GENOCIDE.
I talked to a guy from Springfield - and he says personally he doesn’t think it will make any difference to him whichever one gets in, because right now it’s just talk.
So his idea basically is that whoever he votes for, he’d gonna get screwed over again… this is the decline of democracy and the rise of the post-truth politicians… in many ways, watching Trump is like watching Putin’s mill putting out news - all fake and contradictory news helping to convince that all news and politicians are fake.
Back in the day, I thought that the GOP was silly to start attacking Bill Clinton on Day 1. They screamed about Travel-gate and Vince Foster so much that by the time they had an actual impeachable offence everyone ignored it. If they’d held their fire they could have actually thrown him out. I’ve come to realize that the nonsense attacks were the point; they wanted to muddy the waters so much that no one would pay any attention to politics at all.
I think the far left (if they’re going to vote) aren’t likely to be pushed away by more moderation from Harris. They’re already far more politically engaged than the vast majority of people. Meanwhile, there are a lot of apolitical people who dislike Trump, but just don’t want to vote and feel like they don’t know enough about Kamala to feel comfortable voting for her (my Catholic Republican mother, for example). I think that group probably has more people in it than the far left does, and more exposure to Kamala’s normalcy relative to Trump is a good thing for swaying them, given the shift in the polls following the last debate. I’ll always be disappointed when the Dems pivot right instead of left, but I think the logic is sound in this case.
They will feel that the value of their vote isn’t worth the time to cast it. They will no longer be driven to vote and will stay at home. That this effect will negate, if not cripple, the numbers we’d have even with whatever moderate right can be convinced to vote.
I’m actually kind of worried that this will happen. In that vacuum she’s going to use the time to bridge the gap between the left and the right. The last thing I really want from her is more talk about supporting fracking, more soft stance on Palestine, and more words about hardline on immigration. I get that she’s trying to draw more of the right in politically but I’m also worried that she is dangerously close to having the far left get disenfranchised.
Serious question.
What percentage of the population do you consider ‘Far Left?’
So radicalized that they actually believe that there’s no difference between Harris and Trump?
It’s a diminishingly small number. For instance Gaza is a loud issue with strong divides. But polling shows it’s a very tiny fraction for whom it’s a deciding factor in their vote preference. It’s just that the tiny fraction of people is very loud, typically young, and on social media like Lemmy.
For many of this tiny minority, it has become more a personality than a political or even ethical issue. They’re wildly overrepresented in, for instance, discourse on Lemmy; conversely, they represent a tiny, almost meaningless amount of voters who would not vote for Harris because of it, no matter how many all-caps posts they make about EVERYONE ELSE IS VOTING FOR GENOCIDE.
Also, they never seem to notice what Trump did to the Kurds.
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You’re getting downvotes. Sad, because you’re only telling what is true.
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I hate this, but it’s true.
I talked to a guy from Springfield - and he says personally he doesn’t think it will make any difference to him whichever one gets in, because right now it’s just talk.
So his idea basically is that whoever he votes for, he’d gonna get screwed over again… this is the decline of democracy and the rise of the post-truth politicians… in many ways, watching Trump is like watching Putin’s mill putting out news - all fake and contradictory news helping to convince that all news and politicians are fake.
Back in the day, I thought that the GOP was silly to start attacking Bill Clinton on Day 1. They screamed about Travel-gate and Vince Foster so much that by the time they had an actual impeachable offence everyone ignored it. If they’d held their fire they could have actually thrown him out. I’ve come to realize that the nonsense attacks were the point; they wanted to muddy the waters so much that no one would pay any attention to politics at all.
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I think the far left (if they’re going to vote) aren’t likely to be pushed away by more moderation from Harris. They’re already far more politically engaged than the vast majority of people. Meanwhile, there are a lot of apolitical people who dislike Trump, but just don’t want to vote and feel like they don’t know enough about Kamala to feel comfortable voting for her (my Catholic Republican mother, for example). I think that group probably has more people in it than the far left does, and more exposure to Kamala’s normalcy relative to Trump is a good thing for swaying them, given the shift in the polls following the last debate. I’ll always be disappointed when the Dems pivot right instead of left, but I think the logic is sound in this case.
Each of these swings out into right field are wedges that the right uses to drive people toward independent votes.
Define “disenfranchised”
They will feel that the value of their vote isn’t worth the time to cast it. They will no longer be driven to vote and will stay at home. That this effect will negate, if not cripple, the numbers we’d have even with whatever moderate right can be convinced to vote.
That’s not what disenfranchised means. If someone has a choice to vote, including choosing to abstain, they are not disenfranchised.
And yet you still get my point.
What? I can read minds?
Well apparently you have No problem arguing in bad faith. I’ll give you a little while to read this that I’m just going to block you