So, I've heard people asking if Harris's biggest liability is her race or gender. And uh...no. The black/indian mixed race woman is actually polling several points higher than the 81 year old white male. If race and gender is a liability, it's far less so than age. So why are people making a big deal about this? Easy, because these politics are based on grievance and they have to perpetuate the grievance or appearance of it to remain relevant. If the problems of racism and sexism were solved, then the movements would disappear and become irrelevant. So to some extent they end up just moving the goal posts every time to remain relevant. We started with legitimate grievances that were straightforward, but as women and people of color gained power and influence, they start dealing with more and more esoteric issues that literally require a sociology degree to understand. Im not saying that these issues are illegitimate, but we're to the point of dealing with diminishing returns for the political capital we expend, and to some extent the people who advocate for these views simply believe that the system is stacked against them to the point of playing the persecution card at any opportunity. ANd if anything is a liability, it's that. People don't like that stuff, and that's a key reason Clinton lost. It's not that a woman couldnt win, it's that a woman who constantly complains about sexism can't win because people dont wanna hear it. Double down by going after white males in your coalition who dont care about racial/sexual issues and dont be surprised when you lose. Thankfully Harris is doing much better than that. Shes not leaning into the stuff, only terminally online resist libs are, but yeah those resist libs are still annoying. No one likes this stuff. It's not that people dont like women of color (well, anyone who doesnt is a die hard trump voter anyway), it's that people dont like it laid on thick and hear people complaining about it all of the time.
So what IS harris's biggest liability? I would say it's her being Bidens VP. Remember the old white male no one liked? Yeah. She's in his shadow. He's extremely unpopular, and a lot of people don't think Harris is gonna be any better. They ask what her policies are and dont seem impressed by what they hear. because it's 95% what Biden was for. And people have to ask "if you wanna do all of this stuff, why arent you doing it already? Youre VP" and while there are answers related to obstruction elsewhere in the political system, people dont wanna hear that. Just as the privilege stuff goes over their head, so does a complex discussion on separation of powers. So...yeah. I would argue 2024 is gonna be in part a referendum on joe biden, just as 2020 was a referendum on trump and 2016 a referendum on obama/clinton. If people are unhappy with the party in power, they'll vote for the other party. Harris isn't her own candidate. She's a continuation of the biden administration. But when no one wants a second biden term, which was why he was tanking in the polls massively, well, you can see why things are as they are. Trump has a formidable coalition, biden was deeply unpopular and shedding significant parts of his own coalition. Harris brought some of them back but malaise and dissatisfaction remains and voters are reluctant to embrace Harris for a variety of reasons, and yeah.
This is a year that by rights, the dems should lose. The fact that we have ANY shot at all at this point is a miracle. Remember, Biden's PEAK polling all year was around a 33% shot. Harris closed the gap to make it 50-50. Harris is in the best position we've been all cycle to win. If we lose, it's not because she's a woman or black/indian and if only we ran some straight white christian male we would poll better. Because the ancient straight white christian male we had polled WORSE. And a lot of that was age, but still. The democrats are just in a bad position in 2024. The woman of color is the best shot we've had. Remember that. if Harris loses, it's not because of racism and sexism among independent voters (keep in mind most of those crapbags are trumpers), it's because the dems were just set up for failure by the biden administration creating malaise. Keep in mind my energy theory. The party that is more fired up generally wins. Dems have had morale problems all year, the trumpers are fired up. Harris actually raised our enthusiasm, and while i will say we're past the honey moon period as evidenced by a slight slump in the past couple of weeks foor harris, she's still in this and this is probably our ceiling. Keep in mind, a repeat 2020 or 2022 performance is our best case scenario this year. We arent topping that in the current environment. Harris is doing the best the democrats are gonna do, and if we had a white male on the ticket, we'd be doing no better.
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