Something is wrong with this split-screen picture. On one side, former president Donald Trump rants about mass deportations and claims to have stopped āwars with France,ā after being described by his longest-serving White House chief of staff as a literal fascist. On the other side, commentators debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris performed well enough at a CNN town hall to āclose the deal.ā
ā¦
Letās review: First, Harris was criticized for not doing enough interviews ā so she did multiple interviews, including with nontraditional media. She was criticized for not doing hostile interviews ā so she went toe to toe with Bret Baier of Fox News. She was criticized as being comfortable only at scripted rallies ā so she did unscripted events, such as the town hall on Wednesday. Along the way, she wiped the floor with Trump during their one televised debate.
Trump, meanwhile, stands before his MAGA crowds and spews nonstop lies, ominous threats, impossible promises and utter gibberish. His rhetoric is dismissed, or looked past, without first being interrogated.
I appreciate the sources but cāmon dude, you could at least format stuff a bit.
First off, to your immigration sources: theyād support a claim like āDemocrats are appealing to conservatives on immigration policyā, not āDemocrats ran to the right of fascists on militarizing the borderā. Thatās a BS exaggeration.
To your link to Harrisā interview: She was asked if she trans people should have broad gender-affirming care access. Her answer was āI believe that people, as the law states, even on this issue about federal law, that that is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary. Iām not going to put myself in a position of a doctorā. Thatās a 2-for-1 answer - ādecisions should be left to doctors and patientsā + āTo any conservatives listening, thatās not just my belief, thatās the fucking lawā. Saying āShe just got on national TV and refused to support trans rightsā is completely inaccurate.
To your economic sources: sure, those are food for thought. Hereāre some more:
Nobel Laureate Letter of endorsement for Harrisā Economic Plan Perspective of former US Treasury Chief Economist Perspective by Economic Professor at University of Regensburg Perspective by NHC Perspectives of various other economists
Her implementation of the plan will matter more than whatās on paper, but thatās true of virtually any other economic plan she could propose. In any case āsheās not going to meaningfully redistribute wealthā is still a matter of what you define as āmeaningfulā, and I assert that your definition is different from that of the average middle American.
To your climate sources: All this is saying is that drilling may likely go up under Harris. If that were all that mattered, I bet youād say Biden āisnāt committed to climate changeā either, since oil went up under him too. And Iād disagree, because what matters isnāt just reducing dirty energy production, itās about accelerating clean energy production. So again, BS exaggeration.
> What has she offered besides vague rhetoric on this? Is she going to end the fillibuster to restore abortion access? Is she going to reign in the extremest Supreme Court? Are they finding creative solutions with the FDA to regulate mifepristone? Will she proactively use the powers of the presidency to save lifes or is she going to talk about how important it is to codify Roe and then never do it?
What a loaded last question. āAnd never do itā like sheāll choose not to sign roe codification into law if given the chance.
Yes, I know thatās probably not what you meant, but your only legitimate questions are the filibuster question and the āreigning in questionā (The FDA already approves mifepristone, expanding approval doesnāt mean jack if the SC knocks it down).
To both those statements, to your entire post as a whole, and to this little quote in particular:
> Youāre missing the point. Its NOT ENOUGH to be marginally better than Trump. You need to present a coherentĀ alternative worldview, which she is failing to do by running to the center and saying as little as possible.
I say: youāre the one missing the point, by ignoring the context of the thread you started. You opened with your opinion on why Trumpās fascism appeals to people, and you claim she has to give an āalternate worldviewā to turn people away from that.
You canāt seriously think Harris could sway those people by talking about ending the filibuster, or reigning in the SCOTUS. Nor will she sway those people by talking more strongly about resolving the climate crisis, about protecting trans rights, about supporting abortion, about chilling out on illegal immigrants, etc. There is practically no one who wants her to take stronger left-leaning stances on all those things AND will vote for Trump instead. I only say āpracticallyā because if the odds of that were say, 1:100mil, then hey, maybe a couple voters will do that. Everybody else? Not bought into Trump at all.
If you really do honestly feel Harris needs to go way farther left, then youāre just projecting what YOU want onto the people who are okay with Trumpās fascism.
Itās literally not. They ran to the right of what Republicans wanted. There are countless articles talking about how it was everything and more than Republicans wanted and they only turned it down over politics. I can find literally dozens of these articles:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-border-bill-wrong/
https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/2/5/24062710/senate-immigration-bill-border-security-ukraine-2024
She literally got up on national TV and when was asked a direct, completely basic question about whether or not she supported trans peoples most fundamental issues, deflected, dodged and refused to give a vocal endorsement of their rights. You can not be serious with this answer, you know how bad this looks. Literally all she had to do was say āI support trans rightsā or any other generic statement but she didnāt because she thinks trans people are a liability to her campaign and sheās hard pivoting to the right.
Haha, incredible. Do you think that Biden IS committed to climate change? Like in a meaningful, taking it as seriously as the end of the world doomsday scenario it is? His administration straight up lied about āno new drillingā. They laughed at the Green New Deal. Democrats are all talk on the environment.
Will she prioritize it? Or will she pull an Obama who had the chance to do it but said āIt wasnt the highest priorityā? You think itās just gonna land on her desk with a wave of a magic wand? Will she FIGHT for it? Or are we getting another āI think we should obey the lawā in a couple years.
Itās about more than one single issue. Its about having a defined set of values that you care about and can be held accountable to. Being āNot Donald Trumpā isnāt that. You know why most Americans like Bernie Sanders? (Yes even the conservatives who scream about socialism) Because heās been saying the same shit for 30 years. You donāt have to worry about him going up on a stage and wonder if heās going to suddenly backtrack on Medicare for All with some āI think we should follow the lawā non-answer. He has values that he expresses, even when theyāre unpopular. Do you even really know what Kamala believes in? Or is she campaigning on whatever happens to be polling at 51% or better? For better or worse we all know what Trump believes in.
No youāre not going to flip any single voter by saying you want to end the fillibuster or any given single policy issue. You get them to flip by demonstrating a clear set of values and sticking to them, so that when they have doubts about fascism they can look at the other side and know what it stands for. They know that thereās a moral argument to be made for any of these policy decisions because the democratic leadership has spent every opportunity to educate about them.
These people are inundated with propaganda 24/7. If all they hear from the right is about how immigrants are rapists who steal our jobs and are flooding the border like a zombie apocalypse movie, and then they go to the left to see that the Democrats kind of agree but think we should only deport 50% of the immigrants instead of 100% of them and want the border to be only slightly more lethal, what conclusion do you think theyāre going to draw? Imagine for a second we had democratic leadership that werenāt straight up cowards and NOW when undecideds look to the left they hear about how the vast majority of illegal immigration is due to overstayed visas and the border is kind of a sham topic. Now they hear that the border is already the deadliest border crossing in the world by a large margin and making it 5% deadlier isnāt going to fix the issue. Now they hear that immigrants pay taxes into the system and donāt get them back out, and are the foundation of many of our industries that would collapse without them (thereās other issues here obviously). Now they hear about the cost of detaining and deporting people and they hear about what asylum means.
THATās what it means to present an alternate world view. If youāre offering people a choice between a Republican who is going to 100% deliver on fascism or a Democrat who barely knows what they stand for and is going to diddle around for 4 years and never make a coherent case for anything, or at best offers some Diet Republican policy, people are gonna just pick the fascist.
I canāt take you seriously. Not after you post a lazily constructed list of links, some of which are your response to me calling your border claim false, only for you then to be like āno actually wait here are more links for what I was actually trying to sayā, only for the links to still not back your BS that democrats went āto the right of republicansā. (If you wanna point at anything specific to actually attempt to make your point, then go for it, but if it doesnāt actually back you then stop wasting my time with this).
Also not after you again ignore the specific question she was asked (do you support gender affirming care) and the answer I already quoted her giving (yes, itās a matter between doctors and patients) so you can claim to know that the precise reason she used her words and not yours is āshe thinks trans people are a liability to her campaign and sheās hard pivoting to the right.ā
Not after claiming to believe that Biden doesnāt care about climate change - no wait, that maybe he does, but not āin a meaningful, taking it as seriously as the end of the world doomsday scenario it isā kind of way, as though the policy matching that intensity (shutting off all fossil fuel production tomorrow) isnāt a move thatāll DEFINITELY get Trump elected so he can steer us full speed ahead into a climate catastrophe.
Not after acknowledging yourself that āyouāre not going to flip any single voter by saying you want to end the fillibusterā but playing that off like itās just a random āgiven single policy issueā.
And certainly not after evoking Bernie Sanders as a positive figure, who is himself urging people to vote for Kamala.
The rest of your comment makes it very clear that youāre dug in, that you earnestly believe your projection onto all 70+ million people who are gonna vote for Trump, and that if Kamala was exactly the candidate you wish she was, that sheād magically sway people inundated with Fox News 24/7 because you have it all figured out.
Based on what youāve said I wouldnāt be surprised if you either intend to vote for Stein or De La Cruz, or just want to push other people to do that.
Bro how desperate are you? The links all say the **same **thing. I could find you hundreds more that ALSO say the same thing. This was a HUGE news story a while back, this isnāt even controversial. Republicans openly admitted that the bill went farther than the one they previously wrote and only killed it because Trump told them to. Are you gonna keep whining the more links I show you that prove me right?
https://newrepublic.com/article/178860/republicans-border-deal-michael-bennet
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/31/biden-border-deal-progressives-00138687
https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/2/5/24062710/senate-immigration-bill-border-security-ukraine-2024?utm_medium=social&utm_content=voxdotcom&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=vox.social
Youāre not arguing in good faith at this point.
Timestamp me the part where she says āyesā. Thatās not what she said and you know it. Youāre just lying now.
Thatās the ONLY WAY TO CARE ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE. If you just pay it lipservice and then do all the bad things that are making the world boil, guess what! You donāt actually care about climate change.
Yeah buddy the problem is structural. Selling out your values to chase after the mystical āundecided middleā doesnāt work. Democrats need to be a party of values that they live up to. If you donāt see the difference between those things then I canāt help you.
Where did I ever say anything about not voting for Kamala? You just donāt have a leg to stand on.
Yes, I do as a matter of fact tend to argue for the things that I think are right and correct. Is this supposed to be some own? Since youāre so right and smart why canāt you even form a coherent response that doesnāt involve straight up lying about the democrats own words.
I donāt live in a swing state so yeah Iām gonna vote for PSL and talk about why I think that is good. Again, is that supposed to be some damning argument? Lol youāre so out of steam.
Crying and shaking RN.
My guyā¦can you quote anything that specifically suggests democrats went to the right of Rebuplicans.
Here, Iāll help you: if you can link me anything that says that republicans killed the bill ābecause it goes too far to crack down on the borderā, then thatād be democrats moving to the right of Republicans. Simply quoting that Republicans shut it down isnāt enough - they shut it down because Trump told them to, because he wanted to campaign on immigration. Youāre quoting all this extra stuff about Democrats moving right, but you havenāt quoted a single thing to suggest theyāre moving further right than Republicans. That was and still is the part I called BS on. Do you think you can manage that? Or are you gonna keep wasting your own time?
First offā¦technically, she does say āyesā, 17 seconds in. XD Iām starting to think you didnāt even watch the video.
Secondly, itās an open-ended question. āLet me ask you this question, very broadly speaking here. Do you believe that transgender Americans should have access to gender-affirming care in this country?ā Then, mid-answer, sheās asked āTheyāre trying to define you on this. Iām asking you to define yourself, though. Broadly speaking, what is your value? Do you believe they should have that access?ā She gave an open-ended answer about gender affirming care, to an open-ended question about gender-affirming care, asserting that legislators shouldnāt be overruling doctors on gender-affirming care. I bet if sheād just answered the question with āyesā but no broad explanation, youād complain that āshe doesnāt have any beliefs, sheās just saying yes without thinking so trans people will elect herā.
Follow-up for you: tell me how her answer implies ānoā. Oh, but wait, youāre a stickler for the exact words used, so Iāll speak in your language: Timestamp me the part where she says ānoā. Because thatās not what she said, and Iād like to say āyou know thatā but you probably didnāt watch the video.
Awfully convenient of you to cookie-cut straight through my statement mid-sentence to make it look like I donāt care about climate change, and to ignore the second part of that sentence. Yāknow, the part you chose not to answer to because it was too hard.
The trump voters and the undecideds are the ones who are okay with Trumpās fascism, from supporting it to simply not caring about it. The group you started this whole discussion attempting to explain. Those voters donāt want Kamala to end the filibuster or to reign in the SCOTUS because thatās bad for moderate and conservative politics, the politics those people believe in. If she proposes doing those things, those people will be more inclined to vote Trump, meaning theyāre more okay with him, either in spite of or because of his fascism. The subject of Kamala appealing more to guys like you or I with her campaign promises is a separate subject altogether.
Are you saying Iām wrong to assume YOU arenāt voting for Kamala, or to assume youāre talking about not voting for Kamala in general? Iāll hold onto both those assumptions for a bit longerā¦
Again, it doesnāt matter what you think, it matters what targets of Trumpās appeal think. You position yourself as someone whoās not okay with Trumpās fascism, but you think people who ARE will react positively to Kamala vocally taking a stronger left-leaning stance on a variety of issues. Even though thatās just what YOU want, hence my accusation of projection that youāve so far not addressed.
Hey, thereās more of that projection I was just talking about
ā¦Good thing I held on to those assumptions from earlier!
Lol
Oh I get it. You literally canāt read anything longer than a tweet. You should have said that before hand. Again, the bill was a clone of a far right Republican bill from a year before that had even more items that Republicans wanted.
https://dondavis.house.gov/media/in-the-news/us-house-votes-down-border-bill-favored-conservatives
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-border-bill-wrong/
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/analysis-senate-border-bill
Literally can do this all day. You want me to go on? Probably no since youāre not gonna read any of that anyways or pretend those things donāt actually say what they say. You argue like Ben Shapiro (pejorative).
Lol, desperate, desperate, desperate. Thatās not that I said and thatās not why they killed it. The bill IS farther right than anything that Republicans passed through the house. As you even admit, they only killed it because Trump didnāt want to give Democrats a āwinā. Then every Republican internally admitted that the border bill was the ābest oneā they would have ever gotten and gave them everything they wanted and more. Like it or not, that IS running to the right of Republicans. Can the Republicans change their stance and go farther right? Yeah of course, theyāre fascists. But it doesnāt change the fact that Democrats were willing to go farther right than even fascists were proposing.
So she didnāt substantively say what youāre straight up lying about her saying? Apology accepted.
So āopen endedā that she actually said nothing of substance. Iāve been arguing with people on the internet for decades and this is probably the most pathetic attempt to weasel away from a politicians words Iāve EVER seen. Itās a yes or no question and she refused to answer.
She didnāt say no. But thatās not how political support works. When you support something you say it loudly and clearly (e.g. āI support M4Aā) When you donāt support something you weasel out of it. (āDo you support M4A? - Well I support Americans getting access to the coverage they need as part of an important conversation between themselves and their doctorsā). Thatās how politics works and only a literal child doesnāt understand that.
Because it was irrelevant and you were rambling. I never said shut off all fossil fuel tomorrow and you are once again just making up stuff to respond to and get big mad about. Why would I respond to you just making new stuff up when thereās so many other places in this conversation that youāre also making stuff up that need to be addressed.
Bro they donāt want any of Kamalas policies either! Thatās the point. If you want ANY chance of getting these people out of the grasp of fascist Trumpian progapanda you need toā¦ articulate. a. clear. alternate. vision. to. fascism. You are NEVER going to win them over by doing fascism lite. You are never going to win them over by running to the right - because the fascists can always just move more right. You will never win them over with feckless centrism. You MIGHT win them over by confronting their world view over a long period of time and making a MORAL case for why fascism is wrong. If you are not confronting the MORAL implications of fascism because you are agreeing with the base premises you are going to lose.
Again, I personally am not voting for Kamala because our election system is a joke and I live in a safe blue state and do not have to vote for her. I have not said anything about telling anyone else how to vote - I canāt speak to anyone elseās personal situation.
Do you not know how arguments work? Do you know where you are right now? What Trump supporters are part of this conversation? This is an online argument between you and me. I am arguing the things to you that I believe are correct. Because thatās how arguments work. Did you expect me to come out here and argue for the opposite of what I believe?
Yes, itās the strategy that I PERSONALLY BELIEVE is the best. That is why I am arguing for it, here on the internet. Presumably you donāt believe the same which is why youāre arguing something different. Thatās how conversations work. Jesus Christ, can you even pass the Turing test? You see a turtle in a desert lying on itās backā¦
You appear to be conflating bills.
HR 3602, the focus of your first 2 quote blocks AND your first link is a REPUBLICAN bill. It was shot down overwhelmingly by democrats. Even Jerry Nadler, the guy your 2nd quote mentions, is a Democrat badmouthing the bill. (You conveniently cut right through the part of the text that said he was a Dem, which couldāve clued you in that this doesnāt back you.)
HR 3602 IS a clone of HR2, the Republican immigration proposal from last year, but itās the wrong bill. The bipartisan border bill was HR815, before the border provisions were ripped out. BEFORE that happened, your very own 2nd link had this to say about the billās substance:
Your āthenationā quote acknowledges that it is, in fact, written in part by Republicans. But it otherwise doesnāt really get into policy details so as far as Iām concerned itās just prose.
And your āamericanimmigrationcouncilā quote conveniently leaves out the very next sentences: āIt would expand additional visas and future green card availability and offer a pathway to citizenship to Afghans, while also significantly increasing detention capacity. It is a mixed bag.ā I wouldnāt interpret āmixed bagā to mean āright of fascismā.
What you said was itās āright of fascistsā. To me āright of fascistsā either means thereāre Republicans saying āwhoa, this might be too extremeā or it means that comparing the democratic proposal and the republican proposal, the democratic proposal goes further right. In this case, HR2 is the republican proposal, HR815 was the bipartisan proposal. Can you come up with substantive differences where HR815 is MORE radical? If not, what you meant by your exaggeration doesnāt matter, itās still an exaggeration.
We agree that Democrats moved right on immigration. But thatād necessarily mean that this proposal is to the right of previous compromises made in the House. Doesnāt mean āto the right of fascistsā.
Yes
Slow down a sec. āEveryā Republican said it gave them āeverything they wanted and moreā? Again, youāre exaggerating. Yes, āsomeā Republicans admitted that it was āthe toughest deal they were gonna getā, but that just means it was āthe best compromise Dems were willing to giveā. (Like your own 2 links said, the substance of the bill contained stuff obviously to the left of Republicans.) From my POV, this was 2 parties meeting in the middle, closer to the right than democrats have ever gone, but still the middle.
Lol, you donāt have to make it a big deal, just proof-watch your own stuff next time
Firstly, when you have to say youāve been āarguing with people on the internet for decadesā, either thatās true andā¦something you should reflect on, or youāre just a kid lying about his/her age.
Secondly: again, her answer was āthat is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary. Iām not going to put myself in a position of a doctorā How is that not equivalent to āwe shouldnāt be restricting access to gender-affirming careā, gender-affirming care being the specific focus of the question she was asked?
Yay! We agree!
Disagree with your analogue. The real question/answer is closer to āBroadly speaking, do you support abortionā - āWell, I belive that Americans should be able to have that conversation with their doctors, and I shouldnāt have a say in thatā. Iām personally fine with that answer to that question.
No, you said we should be ātaking it as seriously as the end of the world doomsday scenario it isā. And the most appropriate action combat a threat of that magnitude is to shut off fossil fuels tomorrow. But thatās obviously not pracical, because it can lead to backlash and the US doubling down harder on fossil fuels. So the point is: where do we draw the line between urgent climate action and practical, long-term climate action?
āget big mad aboutā? Kinda outting yourself further as a kid there, lol
I feel like weāre going back and forth as far as the next paragraph is concerned, except for this nugget:
I agree with you on that. I think thatās what many of those people need - someone to confront them with patience and empathy, who can slowly deradicalize them over time. But itās not Harrisā job to deradicalize them, or to show them an āalternate worldviewā, thatās the job of a Trump supporterās loved ones. Harrisā first job is to win the election, no matter what she needs to say (āweāll be tougher on immigration going forwardā) or not say (āweāre gonna overhaul the courtsā). Her second job is to do the things that need to be done as president. And if Harris gets elected and she neither does anything about the courts, nor does she do anything about the filibuster by end of 2028, then youāll have been right to suspect her of not being āTHAT strongā on abortion. But no matter what she says now, we simply wonāt know that until end-of-term.
Yes, a discussion between you and meā¦that started with being about Trump supporters. The beliefs that Trump supporters have is relevant to a discussion about Trump supporters.
Not saying I donāt want her to BE a progressive candidate. Iām saying itās foolish for her to campaign like sheās the polar opposite of Trump. I donāt really care how she campaigns, as long as her campaign sits literally anywhere on the spectrum between āunabashedly socialist/communistā and āa little left-of-centerā. I think sheās closer to left of that spectrum than youāll admit, but regardless of how she actually leans, I donāt think itās wise for her to campaign to the left side of that spectrum - there are MILLIONS of centrists looking for an excuse not to vote for Trump, and there are WAY MORE of them than progressives who will ONLY vote for her if she campaigns like a radical leftist.
The harder you go on the insults, and the exaggerations, the more convincing it is that youāre either too chronically online for your own good, or a kid, or both.
But Iām actually not saying those things to insult you, just trying to point out behaviors that you should consider toning down on. Iām sure flaming can be fun, but itās not very good for your own mental health - it can degrade your ability to empathize and affect your real life relationships more than you might think.
I know Iām just a random internet strangerā¦but just food for thought.