Ideological sympatico is why someone like Gabbard feels comfortable having "long form conversations" with Rogan. They can wax lyrical for hours about the evils of trans people and migrants. Rogan since his move to Austin has narrowed down the ideological range of his guests. Even his more "liberal" guests as of recent are friendly to right wing culture wars like Bill Maher who has a lot of the "woke mind virus is ruining society" outlook that is shared by the Rogan community. A male who isn't exactly ideologically aligned with Rogan will fare better than a woman not ideologically aligned with Rogan because at least there can be some bro talk about similar hobbies and interests like cars, combat sports etc mixed in with political disagreements. Rogan is a partisan. That means a woman guest that isn't ideologically aligned with the Rogan community is the worst type of guest to have that generates sympatico. Harris going on Rogan would be a mistake because Rogan would push back a lot more on her talking points than he did with Trump and they aren't culturally compatible to have a long from conversation. It doesn't make sense for a liberal female politician to ever go on a platform like a podcast where the hosts complain about "wokeism" all the time. Nothing good comes from that.
Did Harris campaign at all on the topic you are saying is the most important? I'm being serious, I don't remember one ad based on her support of rent controls or the like. Not that that would be a winning argument. A rent control proposition, Prop 33, failed here in CA this election. It's not a popular idea even in the bluest of blue states. I agree that the economy was the most important issue to many people. And I think that perception of the current economy, under her and Biden's administration, helped sink her candidacy. She didn't articulate how things would be different that the past 4 years in ways that would impact the average voter's bottom line.
Rent control wasn't even the point here. My point here is that a large voting base of our population who pays rent don't know the Biden DOJ is investigating entities like Realpage for cartel practices for rent pricing but memorized every trans swimmer who's attended a female swim meet in human history. That phenomenon is a product of social media algorithms and venture capitalists and that is a problem this country has to deal with and we can't deal with it by buying into the delusions of these terminally online males who believe trans people are waiting in he corners of public restrooms to assist a little girl.
I see it as 3 things that happened in succession to cause the inflation to get out of control. 1). Trump spent like a drunken sailor to keep the economy going when we literally shutdown. We did need to spend but we went overboard IMO. 2). Biden went to war on oil from day to get US into EVs(cars and trucks). Problem is the people (and grid) weren’t ready. That drove the price of gas and transportation of all goods up. Add to that, plastics and other items we use daily are made with oil. Wrong time to push Americans to go green. 3). The Fed was late in raising rates. Obviously these people making these decisions don’t grocery shop. So one item was inherited. One was caused by Biden. And the last was technically out of his control though one could argue he could have pushed Powell to raise rates sooner but that would have been a sign that the economy is hurting and they hoped it would just get better faster. Powell could have ignored him and who knows maybe there was a discussion but I doubt it.
I'm going to miss the word salad cuts. I mean I would be even worse but yeah it's a skill that wasn't her strong suit.
Beyond the realities of the world (inflation, intentionally open borders, Afghan withdrawal, meddling in Russia/Ukraine conflict), this is accurate. I'm a SF-based, Buddhist, vegan lawyer, and I've gone into deep red counties and won unanimous verdicts for vegans against 100% conservative juries. It was not a surprise at all to me that Trump won because the Democratic campaign violated some of the most fundamental rules of persuasion. Importantly, none of these errors had anything to do with "being too left wing." - It was scornful. Biden's comments about Trump supporters being garbage was just the tip of the iceberg. Obama talked down to Black men. Walz called the losers in the Republican Party "weird." And the general theme of the Democratic message was that anyone who was not with them was stupid or immoral. One of the fundamental principles of persuasion is that we like people who like us. When I go into a rural county, my first priority is to identify things about the community that I genuinely respect and admire. I have little in common with rural Utah, but I immensely appreciated their commitment to family and faith. That won people over. In contrast, scorn turns people away, even those who are not directly scorned. - It was scornful. Biden's comments about Trump supporters being garbage was just the tip of the iceberg. Obama talked down to Black men. Walz called the losers in the Republican Party "weird." And the general theme of the Democratic message was that anyone who was not with them was stupid or immoral. One of the fundamental principles of persuasion is that we like people who like us. When I go into a rural county, my first priority is to identify things about the community that I genuinely respect and admire. I have little in common with rural Utah, but I immensely appreciated their commitment to family and faith. That won people over. In contrast, scorn turns people away, even those who are not directly scorned. - It was fake. Kamala and other surrogates failed to understand the importance of authenticity in a world with rapidly-declining trust. She avoided long form interviews; didn't share her genuine personal feelings; and stuck to talking points as much as possible. Early in my advocacy and litigation in rural counties, I would often try to stick to battle-tested talking points -- e.g., that we are against "factory farming." This failed, even though the talking point itself was popular, because people sensed I was not being real. Ironically, being more honest even about an unpopular view -- that, yes, my long term goal is to save all animals from slaughter -- was far more persuasive to jurors. - It was fake. Kamala and other surrogates failed to understand the importance of authenticity in a world with rapidly-declining trust. She avoided long form interviews; didn't share her genuine personal feelings; and stuck to talking points as much as possible. Early in my advocacy and litigation in rural counties, I would often try to stick to battle-tested talking points -- e.g., that we are against "factory farming." This failed, even though the talking point itself was popular, because people sensed I was not being real. Ironically, being more honest even about an unpopular view -- that, yes, my long term goal is to save all animals from slaughter -- was far more persuasive to jurors. - It didn't understand base rates and risk. When you're assessing your persuasion strategy, you need to be able to establish a reasonable "base rate" of success, i.e., how successful have similar efforts of persuasion been in similar scenarios. Then you have to adjust the risk of your strategy based on the base rate. We recognized early on that our base rate of success was low in ag counties, so we were willing to take more risks. Against all our lawyers' advice, for example, we undertook a big outreach campaign on the most important Mormon holiday in Utah. While it caused a massive backlash, that backlash ended up being key to both moving a trial into a slightly-more friendly jurisdiction, and establishing the bias of local law enforcement. Kamala should have seen the base rate of success for an incumbent with low approval ratings was VERY low, and been willing to try new things. Instead, she played it safe, as if the base rate of success were extremely high. - It didn't understand base rates and risk. When you're assessing your persuasion strategy, you need to be able to establish a reasonable "base rate" of success, i.e., how successful have similar efforts of persuasion been in similar scenarios. Then you have to adjust the risk of your strategy based on the base rate. We recognized early on that our base rate of success was low in ag counties, so we were willing to take more risks. Against all our lawyers' advice, for example, we undertook a big outreach campaign on the most important Mormon holiday in Utah. While it caused a massive backlash, that backlash ended up being key to both moving a trial into a slightly-more friendly jurisdiction, and establishing the bias of local law enforcement. Kamala should have seen the base rate of success for an incumbent with low approval ratings was VERY low, and been willing to try new things. Instead, she played it safe, as if the base rate of success were extremely high.
She hadn't gone through the vetting process. A nobody out of nowhere with no campaign time. The people need to know who you are and what you stand for, something Trump has been doing for better or worse since the 90's. Same was true of Biden, he had the resume'. Simple as that.
Agreed - but there are a number of advantages when you are innovative, you have lots of very targeted money and you have very bright people that see an opportunity and exploit it. Look - this will fall too, we saw it with Bush and the neo-cons. The "Tech Bros" will screw up, they have the same arrogance and flaws that prior political sub movements have. The "Tech Bros" properly read the temperature of certain segments of the population - while the Democrats were busy fighting the same way they did before Trump when there were general rules and understandings between the parties. Trump being an outsider - and being willing to align with anyone that would help him win - allowed an opening for more outside the box thinking. I don't ethically trust the "Tech Bros" as far as I can throw them - but they do deserve credit for cobbling together a coalition that could win. Especially against a wildly unpopular administration. The use of the 24 hour news cycle on Fox - that led to the inundation of social media and even mainstream culture for those under 40 years old with comedy and Joe Rogan and other platforms that are in their infancy where listeners actually will vote based on what their favorite podcasters say and believe. That won't last forever, it never does with a new medium - but it works for now. The million-dollar raffle with Musk - in involvement of billionaires - targets social media --- all of that paid huge dividends because it not only brought in new voters, but stole voters from Democrats. Kennedy - Reagan - Clinton - Obama and now Trump have mastered advancements and changed the culture and rules around Presidential elections and what leads to victory - and for better or worse, it seems that WHAT you want to actually do isn't as important and how you sell it and how in tune you are with the American people.
Yeah I agree. The thing about Kamala's personality too is she's pretty simple. She's a 60 year old woman. She likes to cook. Does an elliptical every morning. Likes to watch F1 with her husband. Really loves to laugh, and be happy. All of these "get to know you things" were covered on Howard Stern, and a few other podcasts during the campaign, and none of it really was newsworthy, or attention grabbing because she's just a normal 60 year old woman in alot of ways, and god bless her for that. But putting a normal 60 year old woman on Rogan is not a recipe for a good Rogan podcast, and her people knew it. I think it was her former chief of staff that came on MSNBC around that time that explained the decision making with Rogan. It just wasn't her fit. She doesn't watch UFC. She isn't into conspiracy theories. He would have pushed her on vaccines, and she would have created soundbites for Trump's mediasphere that would have been used to pull more dude bro's away from her. Not towards her because she is so different from a personality standpoint than Rogan. Had the campaign been a normal campaign I do think Kamala could have done more culturally significant showings for people outside of MSNBC to get to know her. I think Cooking shows like having her judge on Beat Bobby Flay, etc. Those are things you could have done that speak to her personality, and actually help her instead of drawing such a stark contrast with someone like Rogan who I think would have been fair to her, and meant no ill will, but just who he is, and what he would be interested in talking about wouldn't be her thing. Saying she lost because she didn't go on Rogan is silly. Making a case that she should have been campaigning 6 months earlier so she could do appearances on things she aligns better with like Beat Bobby Flay, etc. is a legit argument, and one that really only has Biden to blame.
In a word - Authenticity Democrats never seem Authentic They come across as towing the PARTY LINE and their party line is FAR TOO VAST Republicans do the same but they are probably more Folxsy and alot easier to color between these lines Rocket River
There's lots of longtime D's and R's here saying what they feel is the issue. I've known for a long time that Trump would win this election because I know several people who are longterm Democrats that flipped for this election. Non of them mentioned the usual talking points about woke this or gender stuff. And, I'm not saying that's what won the election for Trump but I'll try to summarize the grievances I've heard, and it's a short list. They're worse off financially than they were 4 years ago (years of high inflation capped with high interest rates, an affordability crisis). They don't understand or care about why. They want it fixed and the Dems haven't communicated a clear path to that. There's money/support for everyone else but not poor Americans. Somehow Ukraine, Israel, and immigrants are worth more to the government than "us". Many/most were still very socially liberal but mostly regarding their own group and non have faith that the Democrats can execute on any programs that are actually helpful. Racism/sexism/homophobia doesn't stop when Dems are in office anyway so why not vote for the guys who keep more money in my pockets?? If Democrats come away from this thinking Kamala specifically was the problem, they will lose again. The Republican party used to be known as the party of big business, high income individuals, and those that aspire to be. The Democrats used to be known as the party for low income Americans trying to make it. Trump is pulling from both groups. The Democrats will have to form an economic plan/platform going forward that works for most low and middle class Americans. Something people will rally around and something that will differentiate them from conservatives.
There is going to be a lot of over analyzing and there is going to be a lot of over extending by Trump supporters (I am not picking on them - the winners always think their victory means everyone loves them). We can find lots of what if's - neither Harris nor Biden did a great job of boiling down what they stood for.... but that isn't why Harris lost.... neither was it her inability to think quickly. She lost for the same reason that basically any incumbent in 2024 was going to lose.... I posted in 2020 that the Presidential election that year was crucial - it as a major election and one the Democrats SHOULD win... and they did.... they won because we were in the middle of COVID and we as a country were divided and bad things were happening - when bad things happen, the party in power gets the blame. I said whoever wins 2020 isn't winning in 2024 - because we as a country were just about to pay the cost for COVID, the shutdowns (whether necessary or not), the lack of stability caused by the pandemic and the worldwide trade situation....... and that is exactly what happened.... inflation was going to happen..... I am not defending Biden - I don't think he did a good job as President from the standpoint of putting his party in a good position to win in 2024 - there was a lot of wandering and lack of direction from his administration - there was a lot of poor prioritizations by them - and there was a lot of out of touch moments, like their refusal to understand that because economists were saying the economy was good did not mean the American people believed it - and there were lots of polls that pointed it out. Still - I really don't think that this is a mandate that the American people are in love with the policies of MAGA or the Billionaires around him - as much as it is a situation where people are not happy with the status quo and Biden/Harris was the status quo - and yeah - they were not happy with the status quo when Trump was President either - but that isn't as fresh on the mind and at least he admits there is a problem.
Biden 2020 campaign centered around labor. The best aspects of the Biden administration was his support for labor movements and his attack on corporate monopolies with his hire of Lina Khan. Harris went away from this. Harris had this fixation with doting small business owners and talking about giving them tax breaks to help jump start small businesses which is bunk economics as there isn't a human that exists that is afraid to make the leap into entrepreneurship because of tax rates. It's because they don't have the capital in the first place to have the threshold of risk tolerance to start a business and not fear things like missing their next rent payment from a bad month. Laborers struggling to pay rent don't give a **** about small business owner tax breaks.
I think Kamala was too constrained by being the sitting VP, and especially given that she was obviously put in a straight jacket when talking about issues like Gaza... given the fact that her saying the wrong thing could blow up negotiations for hostages, etc. I understand that. But much of the in-authentic criticism I think can come back to the constraints of the VP role. I think we are seeing pretty clearly that moving forward, you should NOT put one of your future front runner presidential candidates in that role. You get pushed to the background so people think you don't do sh$t, and if you do get called up you have to be super careful about your positions, and the language you use. Al Gore would probably agree with that sentiment as well. If we can learn more broadly though about Trump's appeal and how to counter it with likability for the 2026 electorate, I do think the Democrats in general need to be more relaxed, and more challenging and diverse in their opinions for sure. Say what you want about AOC, but she's an outlier in a good way for Democrats to learn to be a bit more bold, and relatable. Watch her speak to the media and then watch some of the normal Dem Stiff's in Congress talk about you can see right away that the stiffs are un-usable politically in 2024-26. People know right away when you are just reciting rehearsed lines about policy, etc. that nobody cares about.
I think there are plenty of parents of girls, men and women, who are against the idea of their daughters competing against biological males. I don't think that makes them bigots or stupid. If it wasn't an argument that resonated with people (and not just "terminally online men") they wouldn't have focused on it. Social media algorithms are certainly a problem in society, but I don't think that's why Trump won, either. Republicans turned up like they did in 2020, and the Dems didn't.
