So, a lot of liberals seem to be getting frustrated with undecideds not understanding that Harris is the clear choice this election, and how Harris good, trump bad. The video they were responding to is this one, and watching it myself and being from PA, I have things to say about it.
First, it seems like these undecideds DIDNT like Trump. AT ALL. They thought he was unhinged and crazy. And yeah, that tends to happen when you start going on about how illegals are eating peoples' pets. On the flip side the criticisms of Harris seemed a bit more reasonable than libs were making them out to be. Most were focusing on her policies and asking "why didn't she do this stuff while VP?" and pointing out they werent that impressed with her policies and would like to know more about them. These are reasoned criticisms of Harris, and I really feel like I should discuss them here.
First of all, to answer them. Harris didnt do more as VP because she was an employee of Joe Biden. She couldnt enact her own agenda. As for why Biden didn't do more, well, because he was hamstrung by congress. We had narrow house and senate advantages, and in 2021-2023 the senate constantly sabotaged biden because of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. In 2023-2025, we got 51 senate seats, but then we lost the house, meaning we got ~~Ned Flanders~~ Mike Johnson and Joe McCarthy sabotaging everything we do. It It is important to take this into consideration when voting for people. You can have plans but if you cant pass anything because another branch of government is actively sabotaging you, youre not gonna pass anything. And Biden basically suffered from this his entire presidency. Much of Harris's agenda is Biden's agenda, with most of the new stuff being stuff related to inflation and anti price gouging stuff.
Why blame presidents for not passing things when congress is to blame? If you care about the ideas and policies, support the candidates regardless of their ability to get things passed and focus on voting more such people into office. This is something I wish independents would understand. They dont understand the inner workings of government and when the people who try dont pass things because they cant, they get blamed for trying. Then causes them to not try in the future, causing them to run to the center into what i call the "uncanny valley of suck" and then they lose even MORE support.
So yeah. Let's lay the blame where it belongs. On congress and SCOTUS. Presidents nominate justices, so vote for presidents if you want scotus to change, and vote for candidates you want on a congressional level if you want congress to change. But dont abandon the candidates who wanna do nice things because they dont pass everything you want them to when the bottleneck is elsewhere. It's like complaining you got a RTX 4090 but youre running games at 10 FPS because you're running a core 2 duo from 2007 with 4 GB DDR2 RAM. Yes yes, your smartphone is faster now. We get it, but yeah, the 4090 aint the problem, everything else is.
With that said, to address liberals as to why people dont just automatically go for Harris and democratic candidates. And to be blunt, as a pennsylvanian, i get it. Since 2008, we've had an environment where people want change. "Hope, change, yes we can". Thats what Obama ran on, and then whe he got into office, he ran to the center on everything, his policies were in the uncanny valley of suck, people were demotivated, so they stopped supporting the democrats. It became obvious to me by 2014 or so the core problem with the dems is that they suck at motivating people. Because people dont see much reason to vote for democrats. because they feel like nothing is gonna change if they do. And most of the time, they're right.
This is why Hillary lost here in 2016. Clinton was a status quo candidate, and an alienating one at that. People didnt want her, because they didnt believe their lives would change in a positive way if we voted for her. This is why Bernie wouldve done better. he had policies that energized people. And because the dems didnt embrace him, they embraced trump instead. Because at least he thought theyd bring the jobs back.
And Trump, he didnt do anything either, but unemployment was lower (until COVID), and goods and services were relatively cheap, and people are looking back at 2019 like it was the good old days. Prices are insane these days. I'm on vacation, a big thing i like to eat on vacation is krispy kreme doughnuts. I dont get them home. A few years ago, they were $8.99 a dozen. Now they're $17 a dozen. It's insane. Now do that to everything in the economy. Now dont raise their living standards, no wonder people are pissed. It's the economy, stupid, as Bill Clinton would say.
A lot of people blame Biden on the economy. I understand policy so i understand it's not his fault, it just happened due to factors beyond his control, but the american people dont understand that. And Biden looks weak and ineffective at addressing the issue. Biden wanted to be relatively progressive, but he couldnt pass much, he seemed kinda worthless, and people lost confidence in him. We like to act like everything wrong with Biden is him being 81 and struggling to coherently express thought, but that was just the topping on the cake. People are unhappy with where the country is. And they want CHANGE.
So, we got rid of the old guy. Ok, so no more "age issues", but Harris is associated with Biden and his admistration. And if anything, dems are making sure she basically just acts as a continuation of Biden. But do people want that? NO! And when people feel malaise, they wanna go for "something new." They dont have a good idea of what this "something" should be. But they're tempted to vote for the other guy who isn't associated with the current administration. Harris offers some new policies around the edges, and people have to wonder, gee, is this gonna make my life better? How is this gonna help me? Why isn't she doing this already if she's in office now?
Like, a lot of Americans, are exhausted with the status quo. We've been exhausted since, arguably, the great recession. A large segment of americans arent happy with how things have gone, we see nothing but inaction from democrats. Runarounds. If anything dems often spend more time lecturing and condescending to us and telling us to vote for them and we're stupid if we don't, and a lot of voters dont like that.
So...a lot of them want the crazy dictator guy. He's the "other option." And if this election is a referendum on joe biden and the democrats, then that is very dangerous for us and the country as a whole. This is why were having so much trouble winning. And this is why independent voters are waffling. They dont like trump, but they dont necessarily like what they see from Harris either. So they're just like "what do I do?"
For anyone who "knows" and "understands", yeah, Harris is the no brainer candidate. BUT...let's face it, even im not totally happy with Harris. And part of it IS she's just a biden continuation. I dont want Biden round 2. I want Kamala Harris at her BEST. I want her to be her own person, to distance herself from Biden. Go in her own direction, and define herself as her own person. Bring back that public option. Bring back the LIFT act. Be bold. Be yourself. I mean, if i want Harris to be anything, I want her to step out from under the shadow of the Biden administration and the DNC and make this about herself. people dont want more Joe Biden. They want something new and different. And if harris cant give people that, people are gonna waffle and maybe go for Trump. They will risk the dictator wannabe over the better candidate because their desire for change overrides any other factors.
As a PA voter, I get it. I hear that these people are saying, I see where they're coming from, and I understand that at the end of the day, the democrats need to change. What the dems dont understand is how to meet voters where they are and connect with them. They got this inside the beltway mentality where they're living in 1992 and obsessed with fixating on their internal presures and politics and things like legacy, brand, and appealing to moderate voters that dont actually seem to want what they think they want.
And yeah, that's my take on it.
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