2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[crazy canuck]

Turns out the Democrats have stumbled onto the best strategy for defeating Trump.  Give people and the media something else to talk about.

What? You think we journalists are so easily dis...

 

[Valmy]

Turns out the Democrats have stumbled onto the best strategy for defeating Trump.  Give people and the media something else to talk about.

When I was growing up I heard a legend that Jimmy Carter had a small surge in the polls late in the 1976 election when he changed the side of his head he parted his hair on. Apparently the media spent a few critical days babbling about it.

[Legbiter]

When I was growing up I heard a legend that Jimmy Carter had a small surge in the polls late in the 1976 election when he changed the side of his head he parted his hair on. Apparently the media spent a few critical days babbling about it.

Maybe we wouldn't be living in this timeline if HRC had never been nominated. Trump would have gone on to lose to a generic dem candidate in 2016, none of this reality would exist. Which Biden kinda was in 2020. So maybe all Harris has to do is be very baseline to win. Many are tired at this point of the Trump Show. 

[FunkMonk]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/07/25/ap-confusion-jd-vance-sex-couch-claim/

JD Vance fucked a couch and that is somehow not the craziest rumor in American politics

[Josquius]

Why the hell does this youngish nobody have a best selling memoir?

[Jacob]

Why the hell does this youngish nobody have a best selling memoir?

Because Peter Thiel has made him his protegee and has invested significant resources into making him a thing.

Additionally, in American politics - printing a bunch of books that are then bought by a bunch of politically aligned PACs and Think Tanks is an established way to add "best selling author" to someone's CV and to distribute grift-money within the ecosystem.

[grumbler]

Why the hell does this youngish nobody have a best selling memoir?

He has a compelling life story and the book is full of those bits of anecdotal evidence that conservatives love so dearly (e.g. he claims to have seen people on welfare having cell phones while the working poor did not).

It doesn't take a lot of MAGAts to push a book to bestseller status.

[Sheilbh]

He has a compelling life story and the book is full of those bits of anecdotal evidence that conservatives love so dearly (e.g. he claims to have seen people on welfare having cell phones while the working poor did not).

It doesn't take a lot of MAGAts to push a book to bestseller status.

Although its success wasn't the MAGA crowd - he was a MAGA-explainer. The New Republic review at the time opens:

J.D. Vance, the False Prophet of Blue America
The bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy" has emerged as the liberal media's favorite white trash–splainer. But he is offering all the wrong lessons.

J.D. Vance is the man of the hour, maybe the year. His memoir Hillbilly Elegy is a New York Times bestseller, acclaimed for its colorful and at times moving account of life in a dysfunctional clan of eastern Kentucky natives. It has received positive reviews across the board, with the Times calling it "a compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass." In the rise of Donald Trump, it has become a kind of Rosetta Stone for blue America to interpret that most mysterious of species: the economically precarious white voter.

Vance's influence has been everywhere this campaign season, shaping our conception of what motivates these voters. And it is already playing a role in how liberals are responding to Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election, which was accomplished in part by a defection of downscale whites from the Democratic Party. Appalachia overwhelmingly voted for Trump, and Vance has since emerged as one of the media's favorite Trump explainers. The problem is that he is a flawed guide to this world, and there is a danger that Democrats are learning all the wrong lessons from the election.

Not the only example of someone going on that path. But this was a genuine hit and not just with MAGA types or Fox News buying thousands of copies of their hosts books to get "NYT Bestselling Author" on the title page

Why the hell does this youngish nobody have a best selling memoir?

Connections help - I think he went to Yale. Plus he has a good story that he can clearly tell quite well (in writing). And the timing was perfect.

I'm not sure how long he'd been writing that memoir but it just so happened he had a memoir of white poverty in the rust belt to sell in the summer of 2016

The more details we find out about what happened immediate after Biden announced he was stepping down the less likely your scenario of senior party operative, making the decision behind the scene becomes.

This detailed analysis of what Harris did immediately after and for the next 48 hours explains why she got all the support.  It had everything to do with her and her team and not so much your theory of party insiders deciding everything well beforehand.

I think all of that is in line with my scenario - none of it goes against it.

Again I think I'm badly communicating because I think what I'm describing is what Garbon is a truism - which I think is right. There was a decision point (with many, many players) with lots of background politics. For example, this is literally my point:

The story of how Ms. Harris so efficiently and effectively locked down the nomination — "a perfect 48 hours," Robby Mook, who managed Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, has called it — was told through interviews with more than two dozen people who are supporting Ms. Harris, involved with her campaign or who interacted with it. Many of those people requested anonymity to speak candidly about matters they were not authorized to discuss.

Top Democrats decided to look past any nagging concerns about Ms. Harris in one fell swoop, as Republicans eagerly began to recirculate old clips of her taking liberal stances that could make her vulnerable in November, such as opposing fracking, supporting Medicare for all and declaring that those who cross the border illegally are not criminals.
[...]
The party was also primed to unify. After a chaotic and damaging three weeks of infighting about Mr. Biden's mental capacity, a broad range of Democrats were desperate to refocus on Mr. Trump, and Ms. Harris was the only viable path to come together quickly. The speed with which the consolidation happened was reminiscent of how the party had first rallied behind Mr. Biden in 2020 after he won the South Carolina primary and a contest with Mr. Trump loomed.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had, in private discussions ahead of Mr. Biden's exit, said that the No. 1 priority for the party was unity, according to two people with knowledge of those conversations. The Clintons, these people said, believed that a speedy coming together above all else would maximize the party's chances against Mr. Trump.

Ms. Harris called each of them separately, and within an hour of Mr. Biden's endorsement, the Clintons had issued their own joint endorsement that served as a clarion call to the broader party that it was time to coalesce.

The only thing I've said is I wonder if it was the right decision.

(Although I've now been thinking and reading about it more broadly and suspect that actually Biden's endorsement was the key moment and it would have been very very difficult to do anything else after that).

[Admiral Yi]

The only thing I've said is I wonder if it was the right decision.

You've said a great many things besides this.

We all wonder if it was the right decision.  We won't know the answer until election night.

[garbon]

The only thing I've said is I wonder if it was the right decision.

You've said a great many things besides this.

We all wonder if it was the right decision.  We won't know the answer until election night.

[Sheilbh]

You've said a great many things besides this.

We all wonder if it was the right decision.  We won't know the answer until election night.

But literally all I said was it looked like a coronation not some form of contest. Could be the right decision given the situation, but I think Obama was maybe right and they should have gone for the some form of contest option.

But good to know I'm not the only one who's a little unsure though (And to be clear if the option was this or Biden carrying on this is 100% the correct choice). And I think the start of her campaign has been impressive and shows the simple difference of having a younger, more energetic candidate.

[Admiral Yi]

But literally all I said was it looked like a coronation not some form of contest. Could be the right decision given the situation, but I think Obama was maybe right and they should have gone for the some form of contest option.

It looks like that because no one wants to contest it.  Nobody else has put their name forward, no one else has championed a different candidate, no one has talked about Harris' weaknesses.  No one has made the case for anything other than *waves hands* someone else might do better.  Neither you nor Obama has made a case.  You've just stated the obvious.

That's why I asked you about the type of process you want.  What kind of process will *compel* another candidate to come forward?  In Putin's Russia they have tricks to get sacrificial lambs to put their name on the ballot.  Is that what you want?

[jimmy olsen]

5 point swing
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1816516410337788253

New Morning Consult poll (7/22-24)

🟦 Kamala Harris 46%
🟥 Donlad Trump 45%

last Trump vs Biden poll (7/15-7/17): Trump +4

She just needs to catch up with her senate candidates
https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1816491704368693317

#New Senate polls

Arizona - 🔵 Gallego +4
Pennsylvania - 🔵 Casey +4
Michigan - 🔵 Slotkin +4
Wisconsin - 🔵 Baldwin +6

Emerson B - 800 RV (Each) - 7/22-23

[Admiral Yi]

Harris gives speech on Gaza.  Deal is total withdrawal from Gaza in exchange for hostages.  I cringed when I heard food insecurity and acute food insecurity.

She looks pretty hott.

[The Minsky Moment]

She's lost the Otto vote (such as it is) and not without reason.