So...I'm reading Harris's 107 days, and I'm pretty close to the end. However, before I write my response to it, I want to outline my own ideas of her campaign. This is a summary of stuff I've written from Late June through mid November on this blog, you can go back to that time era and read what I wrote, but I do want to separate her campaign into distinct "eras" and my overall evolution of thought. This will serve as a framework to help me react to the book better. Her book is structured where she gives her thoughts on the campaign day by day based on what she's doing, and I want to give a short abridged/summarized version of where my head was at the same time.
Late June-Late July
Joe Biden was never gonna win 2024. That much was clear for me. I was always realistic about his odds, despite there being a ton of copium from establishment democrats. The fact was, the guy peaked around a 30% shot, and often hovered in the 20s. The 226-312 result that we got was my typical prediction for the end results. Public opinion had shifted roughly 6 points from 2020, and yeah, Biden was always fundamentally unpopular. I accepted his campaign for what it was, recognizing that trying to convince democrats was like talking to a wall and they'll just do their typical delusional condescension and claim im not a "team player" if I dare point out the obvious. I recognized Trump was the fascist and knew his second term would be roughly as bad as it has been and I wanted to stop that from being a reality.
However, then Biden flubbed the debate. And his chances cratered. I didn't think much of his performance. Quite frankly, given I rate on style AND substance with about equal weight, I thought that Trump's lies were worse than Biden's obvious malfunctions. But given the public reacts more to style than substance and the fact that Trump can tell like 50 lies a minute doesn't seem to matter. All that mattered was Biden malfunctioned. Suddenly the floodgates opened and criticizing Biden was fair game. There was a huge push from the top to get him out, Biden remained stubborn, and I remained skeptical of the idea if doing so as I feared it could make things worse. The polling data at the time told me that yes, Biden was bad, but everyone else was worse. Still, because my big concern this election was simply winning and surviving to live to fight another day (because Trump really is a threat to democracy itself), i resigned myself to the numbers.
As this month dragged on, I updated my model, putting it into a google spreadsheet and digitizing it. I updated it daily with all the new polling data and updated whenever it was worth doing so. Toward the end of the month between June 27 and July 21st, I noticed the pushes to get Biden out were more desperate, and I remained convinced it was a bad idea. If anything it went against my ideological interests as well since those wanting to push him out wanted a more centrist candidate and I obviously didn't.
Still, eventually, he was forced out. I thought it was a huge mistake at first, but he quickly endorsed Kamala Harris and her polls shot up appreciably in the coming weeks.
Late July-Mid August
Harris injected new life into the campaign. No one REALLY wanted Biden. Rather, we were STUCK with Biden. And Harris brought new enthusiasm into the party. The fact was, no one knew what we were getting. We were just glad it wasn't what we had. I was enthusiastic too, and her campaign was initially very aggressive and willing to fight MAGA. We had memes coming out of it like crazy, enthusiasm went through the roof, but I also kind of remained cautious. I understood this much. Harris was Schrodinger's candidate. She was either going to be insufferably centrist, or the most progressive candidate in a generation. It depends what she did. And I kind of engaged in watchful waiting, trying to observe what decisions she would and wouldn't make. I looked at her VP choice as a barometer. Tim Walz seemed more progressive, but someone like Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro seemed to indicate a more centrist direction. She went walz. But still. She needed a platform. Was she going to be progressive or not? Who knows?
Mid August-Early September
Schrodinger's box was finally opened just in time for the convention. And we got...centrist. I never had too high hopes for harris, my expectations were already tempered by the fact that the democratic party is inherently a conservative institution, but I graded Harris by her own standards. I wanted to see her govern at her most progressive. In 2020, she ran on the lift act, which was like a mini UBI, and she had a healthcare plan akin to the public option I support. But she didn't run on a public option, instead abandoning the issue, and she ran hard to the center.
The convention REALLY soured me on her. Again, I know she isn't me and isnt gonna align with me, but the centrality of her message on "hard work" and the "opportunity economy" made me cringe. She had this conservative attitude like life shouldnt be easy, we're not asking for it to be easy, we just want it to be somewhat fair. DAE LIKE hard work? Opportunity economy! That whole thing just soured me on her, being the anti work "life should be easier, that's progress" progressive that I am. If I wanted work worship, I'd vote republican. They're the ones obsessed with the glorious job creators. Harris had some good things in her platform, but what she didn't have disappointed me, and her overall economic message soured me on her. By this point, the honeymoon period was over, and I saw what we were stuck with. Biden, but if anything, slightly more conservative.
It was a disappointment.
Early-Late September
For much of September, I went on vacation to Myrtle Beach. This led me to post a lot less and to have a lot less time to do so. My mind was on the campaign and I did check in here and there. I updated my model daily in the hotel and would occasionally post an election update. I'd also post philosophical articles on work during this time. The thing is, this book I've been trying to write, I've been working on it for a few years now. It still sucks, but I was using my blog as a springboard, and given how Harris really pissed me off on the work topic, I did flirt with a few different ideas about it.
Two things that stood out to me during this time. First of all, I read Harris's book that she had out on her ideas at the time, and I saw how some of them made it into her platform. She seemed so close to getting it, but just stopped short. And it did soften me on her through this time. Harris is a weird figure. She has a progressive side, but she's moderated by institutions, and again, it really is a matter of what side comes out. And hearing her own case with her own words did soften me somewhat from my anger over the convention.
The other thing that stood out was the debate. It was so laughably one sided for Harris that it was actually funny. Trump went full blown THEY'RE EATING THE CATS, THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS, and even harris on stage was like "what the actual ####?" That was my reaction too. I knew Trump would be bad, but holy crap, he was so bad it wasn't even funny. Honestly. I dont see how anyone can support the guy. I mean, yeah, we can nitpick harris all day, she aint what I want, but Trump just lied about EVERYTHING and seemed completely unhinged and insane. Still Harris's numbers were growing and the campaign reached a dead heat between Harris and Trump. I figured she would keep improving and hopefully, eventually take the lead. Again, for all the cardinal sins that the democrats and harris were doing that would normally piss me off, I just ended up trying to be the better person and accept it, understanding that this is our Weimar Germany moment and we all gotta pull together to avoid suffering the same fate.
Late September-Early October
This could be seen as part of the same arc as the previous section in the campaign, but it's a bit different for me. The bulk of september was spent on vacation and at the end I got back. As I settled into my routine, Harris was still going strong from her debate performance. But then she started nose diving soon after. It seemed to coincide with the VP debate on October 1, when I think back. While September was a strong month for Harris, her energy began stalling out going into October. She went from having around a 59% chance, just about the highest you can get while the race still being a tossup, back down to around 50, and then back into the 40s. I didn't know if this was a trend, but after a few weeks of this, I started panicking.
The reason I separate this segment of the campaign from the rest of it both before and after is because the end of this section is when I voted for Harris. I live in PA where everyone can do mail in voting, and I LOVE mail in voting. I dont have to go out, I can just mail it in. I can research candidates more. It's more convenient, but it does go to show that yeah, some of us were already voting during Harris's decline.
I myself took great pleasure in filling out my ballot. It was more an F U to Trump. Keep in mind, my entire motivation by this point was to keep Trump out of office, because I knew that he literally would be about as bad as he ended up being. The writing was on the wall. For some reason, most didn't seem to care. And entire election has felt like watching a train wreck happen from the get go. I can see the danger but people were just like "well we had him once before, he's not gonna be that bad, right? Besides I cant stand the thought of 4 more years of Biden." I get it, harris kinda sucks, just as biden kinda sucked, but uh...yeah. We really did need to pull together to save democracy here.
Early October-Late October
Post vote clarity hit me like a motherfricker. And it was very obvious by this point that Harris was in decline. We were entering the final month of the campaign, the most crucial month, the one that we can't screw up, and WE WERE LOSING! On my blog, I was sounding the alarm bells. I pointed out the states, and I became a lot less filtered about my true views on harris, flaws and all. We saw this before. The convention soured me on her, but then seeing her galavanting around with Liz Cheney and saying that she wanted moderate republicans in her cabinet made me cringe. This is NOT what I wanted to vote for, and this was almost enough to make me regret voting for her.
Keep in mind, in 2016 and 2020, I didnt vote for the dem nominees. Because of crap like this. I HATE these people. I really do. I hate the democratic party. They're so consultant brained and obsessed with moderation, and those people CLEARLY got to harris's campaign. She went from taking the fight to trump and getting down in the dirt with him early on to the consultants coming in and cleaning up everything where now she was basically "Biden but more moderate." Which is the last thing I wanna hear. I also think it's the last thing the country wanted to hear, based on polling.
Really, the dems dont seem to get it. And even now, they're trying to pass off all of the blame on Joe Biden for their loss, but in reality, no, it's because this brand of bland centrism is just fundamentally unpopular. Harris had somewhat of a platform, but here's the thing she doesn't get. It's not big enough, it's not what people want. But still, despite my obvious criticisms, the race was still in tossup territory, it just went from Harris being the frontrunner to Trump. But it remained in that 40-60% range for both candidates. It's just that they flipped who was in the head. All in all, who won would come down to what direction the polling error goes in. I normally like to ready the energy but it was hard this election. Trump had his lovers, but also his haters. So did Harris. For this period, I'd say Trump had more energy through October, but it did seem like toward the end, things seemed to fall off for him too.
Late October-Election Day
For me, the final turning point of the campaign was that rally in Madison Square Garden. It flopped and made Trump look like a massive racist. And given how one of the key demographics needed for victory was gonna be Latinos in PA, I was very very happy to see it. Between that and a bunch of other small things leading up to election day, I honestly thought the energy was shifting toward Harris at the last minute.
But then Trump won. It was a painful defeat and one that I watched with horror. In 2016, the first time he won, I had schadenfreude. I felt like the democrats clearly had it coming and I knew that Trump the first time around wasn't gonna be that bad. He wasnt the apparent threat to democracy he evolved into, and honestly, I thought Hillary sucked. My opinion at the time was that if Trump won, people would FAFO and next election we'd just vote him out, and show the public once again why we dont elect republicans.
However, I kinda realized in 2020 that people actually LIKE that orange psychopath and Biden BARELY won. And then he threw a hissy fit during January 6th and tried to overthrow the election. And as the data came out on that, I was like, yeah, this guy can't be elected again, he's too fundamentally dangerous.
So when he won again, I was like oh god no. But the result was what it was. And it was decisive. Despite trying to dig ourselves out of the hole that Biden dug us into, the party couldnt' do it. Again, I dont think the problem was just Biden. I think the problem was the democrats just suck, to be frank. Their brand of politics is fundamentally unpopular, and it doesnt resonate. Democrats dont listen to voters. They tell voters they cant have what they want, argue with them about that fact, and tell them to support them anyway. And in the grand scheme of things, Trump won in part because he had some increased turnout, yes, but I think the bigger problem was a lot of democrats just stayed home and didn't vote. Some of it was cost of living, the Biden problem, Gaza. but ultimately, the GOP base ended up being fired up and the dems ended up not being so. Just like Harris was Schrodinger's candidate, both progressive and moderate at the same time, where the wave function collapse landed on moderate, the campaign was the same way, and it landed on Trump.
And that's why we lost.
Conclusion
Anyway I just wanted to set up this framework because I'm probably finishing Harris's book in the near future, and I figured that while I process the events from Harris's perspective over her campaign, I wanted to see what I was thinking at the time and where my head was at around the same time she was. In a way, reading this book isnt just reading the book. I also went back and read my own blog posts from the same time period in order to see how I viewed things at the time. With that said, my next post will probably respond to Harris's book directly. Idk if it will be longer or shorter than this.
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