So, Politico put out an article talking about how some die hard Bernie or Busters are now supporting Kamala harris. As one of these guys, let me explain how I got here.
Why I defected from the democrats
In 2016, i defected from the democrats over Hillary's coronation to the democratic candidacy. The fact is, it wasn't what I wanted to see out of the democrats. I hadnt been a democrat for all that long when it happened. I was an ex conservative who left the GOP during the 2012 election cycle, and by 2016, I did a lot of ideological spring cleaning that made me a full on progressive.
Being new to the democratic party's intraparty politics (keep in mind I was just sitting here with the pop corn in 2008 begrudgingly supporting McCain while the clinton supporters were calling the obama supporters sexist and the obama supporters were calling the clinton supporters racist), they felt foreign to me. And having an independent streak, there was NO WAY I was gonna vote for a party that so obviously coronated their nominee and told us we had to vote for them or else.
And being a "bernie bro" whose politics reflect that of the rust belt and disaffected white working class people who lean progressive, ie, i was big into economic change and social justice crap did nothing for me at all, I felt very justified in "teaching the democratic party a lesson" and refusing to vote for them.
It's all fun and games until the Trumpers try to overthrow democracy...
On Donald Trump, I never really bought the line that he was a massive threat to democracy. I've heard this crap before. Wanna know where? Again, as a republican in 2008. We were told Obama was this socialist who was gonna take over the US, destroy us economically, and end up redistributing the wealth and making grandma die due to death panels on healthcare. But obama ended up being quite moderate, and not a threat to democracy. If anything, by the end of his 8 years in office, he was TOO moderate, and I wanted actual change by then. Democratic politics a la the third way is in the uncanny valley of suck. It's too far left to appeal to anyone on the right as they're perpetually in fear that whoever is nominated is a secret communist gonna overthrow the system, and it's not far left enough to energize the democratic base. So the dems lose elections to the right again and again.
Me personally, i treated 2016 as just another year. Trump was a loudmouth, i didn't like him. But he seemed kind of moderate and populist on economics, and while yes, he was racist, I quite frankly didn't care all that much because as a "privileged white male" who isn't gonna apologize for who I am, I didn't care.
So, the Clintonites called me a Bernie bro and said all kinds of deranged crap while not appealing to me on the issues I DID care about, so I just ended up voting green.
And Trump sucked. We all know he did. I kinda figured Trump was a flash in the pan. people would vote for him since they didnt know what they would get but when they got him, they'd turn on him. And it seemed like, going through 2020, that was how things were. And once again, finding intraparty democratic politics to be alienating to my very being, and once again not getting my way and being told to accept a crappy candidate i didn't want, I just went third party again.
But then, despite being massively up in the polls, Trump almost won, which kinda scared me because it made me realize that through it all, much of the country STILL LIKES THIS GUY. And then he threw salt over losing the election. I knew he would, and didn't think much of it, there would be people to remove him on January 20th, 2021 kicking and screaming if he didn't leave on his own accord.
But then I saw January 6th. i didn't think that much of it at the time, but it did baffle me. Like...where was the national guard? I saw quick responses to BLM protests all year, and beings heads being cracked for daring to protest for the police to be a little less militant, but these guys just get a pass? Then I realized that this was essentially orchestrated by Trump himself, he incited the crowd and withheld backup specifically to let the coup happen, and overturn the results. And at that point, i realized, this guy can never be president again. He literally just did that. No. If he were just a normal republican candidate, with the democrats' hyperbolic foaming at the mouth over him as a campaign strategy, I would be fine just walking away and letting the dems fail. But we can't do that if this guy has a serious chance of getting back in the white house.
And it's gotten worse. SCOTUS is compromised and now our ultimate referees are blatantly biaed toward this guy. And now they got some 900 page plan to force christian nationalism on us and break our government. And as things stand, if the GOP wins, they'll control all 3 branches for at least 2 years and do god knows what to break our democracy and turn us from a two party state into a one party state. I've reflected and stewed on this during the Biden years, and I've kinda literally gotten scared of Trump. The dems arent just making it up as an electoral strategy. This guy is legitimately dangerous. And for all the talk of turning the temperature down, I'd love the temperature to go down, but I can't back down as long as the GOP is this dangerous. I just can't. They're literally a threat to democracy as they stand and in a position to do some major damage if they win in 2024.
The left has gone insane
Meanwhile, while I was on board with the Bernie or Bust movement in 2016, the left has gotten insane since then. They've gone down rabbit holes of extremes of being so anti democratic party they start spouting conspiracies and sounding like conservatives. COVID broke their brains where many of them went anti vax.
A lot of them radicalized into full blown socialists and gotten so extreme that I don't even recognize them after all. Between the extreme "anti war" views on foreign policy, the calls for literal socialism and communism on economics, and the "woke mind virus" going around on the left on social issues, I've kinda just backed the frick away from these people and realize that they just don't represent me after all. I love Bernie himself, I love the squad and AOC and the like. But those guys are pariahs among the left and their fricking calls for literal socialism. Like really, they're insane, and I don't fit in with them any more.
Yang moderated TOO much
Meanwhile the other anti establishment figure I liked in 2020, Andrew Yang, he had a lot of promise with his forward party. A party based around UBI and human centered capitalism, as well as breaking the two party duopoly? Sign me the frick up! But then they merged with these like, Lincoln Project types and abandoned the UBI and human centered capitalist stuff and are all about unity and blah blah blah centrism, let's not stand for anything at all. So those guys alienated me a lot.
Biden didn't govern half bad
I was critical of Biden at first, but after watching the left go completely insane, and the Yang gang go full on enlightened centrist, I started looking at what Biden was actually doing, and it wasn't half bad. is it everything I want? No, but he's trying to hit priorities of mine. And it's kind of coming back around to me begrudgingly backing up the democrats again. if only because there's no good alternative to them. I mean, biden's platform was heavily inspired by Bernie and while lacked many of the big ticket items in my purity tests, he actually has done a lot of stuff and tried to do a lot of stuff. Mostly small things, but it adds up and counts. And it's not like anyone else has anything going on...
There really isn't an alternative...
Still I was open to a possible 2024 challenge. But really, no challenge on the left really appeared. Marianne Williamson was running on Bernie's platform, and I did vote for her, but she never got off the ground. No one really took her seriously, even on the left. And I've kind of realized, post Bernie, the left's bench is empty. We don't have a good successor to Bernie. And most holdouts who are still bernie or Bust are extremist nutcases. After October 7th, they went full on free palestine as their big 2024 issue, wouldnt even back williamson and voted for "uncommitted" or "free palestine". And they werent a very significant part of the population. Like really, post Bernie, we don't even have the numbers to mount an effective challenge or even the pretense of one in the democratic party. We are scattered to the wind with us just being increasingly resigned to another term of Biden, or radicalizing to the point that nothing the democrats could ever do is enough for these people. I've always tried to be reasonable. Condition my vote to my policy preferences. but democrats started doing just as good as or better of a job than any alternative would, especially given how extreme and offputting the alternatives are.
And then there's the trump problem...
And then you gotta consider this, Trump is running again. His base is as energized as ever. And we're NOT. And we're LOSING. BADLY. According to the polls. We're talking being down 2-4 in the electoral college vs being up by 4-9. And keep in mind, even though Biden won, we underestimated MAGA last time. We ALMOST LOST. And now we're down what, 4? 6 points vs our 2020 high water mark? yeah, that's not good. So the mission suddenly became "okay, time to rally behind Biden". We might not like everything he's done, we might want someone more extreme, but at least he's doing SOME stuff. And given Trump is LITERALLY a threat to democracy, yeah...we need to come together behind the democrats. For real.
Kamala Harris is actually looking pretty good...
Even before Biden dropped out, I did kinda toy with the idea of someone else being the democratic nominee. And I looked at alternatives like Harris and even though i overlooked her in 2020, she ain't bad. I mean, another thing too, I kinda moderated a little bit between 2020 and 2024 by becoming a little more pragmatic. This was as I did some more ideological spring cleaning where I kinda researched alternative ways to reach my goals, especially given my primary UBI idea costs $4 trillion dollars, and that makes a green new deal and maybe even full on single payer unfeasible. So what did I come up with as an alternative. Well on environmental policy I came up with something like build back better, NOT a full green new deal. And on healthcare, well, I came up with something that looks suspiciously like Kamala Harris's 2020 healthcare plan.
Keep in mind, i've always been a UBI nerd. Not really in the "socialist" direction, but the human centered capitalist yang direction. So looking at how to feasibly hit my goals, I kind of moderated a little on my secondary goals. And Harris's politics got a bump for me where going over my purity tests again, Harris is looking pretty good right about now. She's not a UBI stan, but given how low the standards are getting between the left going into the "nothing will ever please me because i want revolution" direction and the centrists getting so pathetic that they want nothing at all, this middle lane actually starts looking good.
And I did note Harris was high on my list for possible replacements.
And then Biden was forced out...
And here's the thing. I did resign myself to Biden in 2024. I figured, given the environment, it was the best we can do. The standards just lowered that much. And then debate gate happened. The party imploded over it. And given my primary goal is just to defeat trump and push for Biden again, I honestly got to a point where I was like, ok, let's try to win. So I stayed loyal to Biden, being reluctant to replace him. Keep in mind, I evaluated Kamala's chances last year vs Biden's and didn't like what I saw. And inevitably, I ended up being a bit of a biden loyalist purely from a numbers perspective. he had the best chance to beat Trump, so be it.
But Biden was forced out anyway. And now we got Harris. And now everyone is enthusiastic. And I'm not gonna lie, I am too. Because Harris actually is a good candidate relative to Biden. I can actually defend her and her policies, and I actually have something to work with. Something to vote FOR. Not just AGAINST. I like her climate ideas. her free college ideas. Her housing ideas. Her healthcare ideas. I LIKE HER POLICIES. now, that said, she STILL ain't as extreme as I want, but no one is perfect. I supported Bernie and Yang despite having clear philosophical and policy disagreements with them at times. This is no different. I mean, no candidate is ever gonna be perfect. And despite my purity tests and refusing to vote for dems in the past, I've never been as unreasonable as the far left is now. I've had clear policy goals. I just wanted someone who I'm voting FOR, not AGAINST.
And now we got one...
And then the democratic party went super saiyan...
And now the energy is different. I can actually make memes for this lady. here's the thing. Memes are organic. You get inspired, and you make them. You can't force it. You cant make memes for candidates youre not enthusiastic about. You need to LIKE the person. And very quickly, suddenly, Trump is the old guy in the race. And he's the rambler. And he's the crazy one. And his VP is weird and unlikeable.
And Harris has the energy.
I'm still not convinced we have the polling to win. Quite frankly, I'm very nervous from a polling perspective. However, based on how I'm seeing things shifting, my projections are going from "as much of a chance as Biden had" to "maybe we can actually win this." Really. The energy is changing. Energy is what wins elections. And we just had a massive infusion of energy.
And now Trump suddenly looks old and tired. And he himself is panicking like a DBZ villain who realizes he lost.
So what now?
So what now? Well, now we have to win. And this means, play it safely, keep the energy going, and don't screw up. What does screwing up mean? Alienating people like me again. Trump is such a threat because his movement has energy. Biden barely beat him last time. he couldnt beat him this time. Even Harris is gonna struggle. So, play it cool, and don't mess this up. That's what I'm gonna say. Focus on the rust belt, get to 270, win. Don't get prideful like Hillary Clinton or Vegeta. That's how we got here in the first place. And drop the centrist corporate thing. Nothing sucks the energy out of the room like corporate democrats who promise to never make your life better because it's not pragmatic.
So yeah, that's why I support Harris, and that's what my advice is. keep going. You got Big Bernie energy right now. This is like 2016 all over again, we can either win with a progressive, or lose if we decide to go all corporate and centrist. Up to you.
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