It probably didn't help, but I think racism and sexism were much, much bigger factors. That, and her team's change in messaging - from calling the Republicans "weird" to ... whatever their...
It probably didn't help, but I think racism and sexism were much, much bigger factors. That, and her team's change in messaging - from calling the Republicans "weird" to ... whatever their advisors told them to do.
No probably being a lack luster candidate even when picked as VP (yeah half the country is rioting due to police violence but sure lets grab a prosecutor) and then having half a campaign after a...
No probably being a lack luster candidate even when picked as VP (yeah half the country is rioting due to police violence but sure lets grab a prosecutor) and then having half a campaign after a no primary fuck fest debacle cost her the campaign.
However the Dems have loved the death by a 1000 cuts method to losing so yes you can also throw in racism, sexism, and a million other things.
Was Gaza on the scale? Of course. Did it change the election? I doubt it. The states where dems stayed home because of Kamala's Gaza stance aren't the states she lost.
Edit:
There's a nice chart here about halfway which tells and interesting story, especially with the one following.
Harris lost a TON of voters in CA/NY. These are dem strongholds, and also where I expect the "but what about Gaza" crowd to show up the most. Partly because they've got a large dem base, and party because dems know they're not going republican even if they stay home.
Looking at the second chart, where she lost her battle ground states, the key ones she did worse in were AZ, MI, PA. Maybe i'm wrong, but I kinda doubt that AZ has a strong list of democrats who decided Gaza was the tipping point. Especially because in AZ/MI it looks like some of the under performance might have actually been independents who flipped (guessing completely as you can't tell from this data and it might just be coincidence).
MORE IMPORTANTLY is how well Trump performed in all of those states compared to 2020. It's almost like the economy was also kicking people in the teeth, which motivated voters who stayed home in 2020 but probably would've voted republican anyways.
Now I can't read the article, but to respond to the headline, even discussion of it strikes me as the democrats doing what they do best. Identifying the problem (oh fuck we lost) and blaming every useless side note rather than just fixing the obvious.
I know a lot of people here feel differently, but a progressive wave or a strong stance on a middle east conflict which has basically never affected the average american's lives isn't going to win you AZ, MI, PA, NV, NC, WI, GA.
I appreciate the response and I encourage you to read the article because it really isn't about what's in the headline. Rather than responding to a bunch of people individually, I'm going to clunp...
I appreciate the response and I encourage you to read the article because it really isn't about what's in the headline. Rather than responding to a bunch of people individually, I'm going to clunp a few responses together and put them here since your comment covers the most ground. As for your comment, yeah, there's not a whole lot I really disagree with here. It was death by a thousand cuts. Personally, I'd say the most significant gashes were Biden's refusal to step down, misogynoir, lackluster candidate/campaign, inflation, and finally, Gaza, which I'll expand upon later.
There have been countless articles and think pieces about Harris's loss, and most of them approach it from one specific angle. One of the better, more complete breakdowns that I remember from after the election was this video from FD Signifier where he makes a very strong case for racism and misogyny being the deciding factor. I think he's right. I think that specific campaign failed because she is a black woman. A white man who is seen as too progressive will have a much easier time changing voters minds as he moves to the center. Kamala Harris ran a campaign that was for a white man, and she lost because she's a black woman. Apologies in advance, but I like to use a football analogy for this. In football, you can have a mobile quarterback who runs the ball like Lamar Jackson, or you can have a slow, old statue like Joe Flacco. With the right gameplan, you can win with either quarterback; however, if you take take Joe Flacco and try to make him run 15 times like he's Lamar Jackson, it's probably not going to work. Kamala Harris positioning herself like a tough moderate without any signature positions that address cost of living is like trying to run the ball with Joe Flacco.
I've written at length about my criticisms of the Harris campaign, so I'll spare everyone the old song and dance, but I do want to touch on something related to Gaza that I don't see mentioned often. First, there's what we knew before the election (sorry, I know I've shared this with you before), which is that voters in pivotal swing states were more likely to support a Democratic candidate who took a strong position on restricting weapons to Israel. But more importantly, I think we are severely undervaluing the people that Harris lost because of her stance on Gaza. To be clear, I'm not saying that those votes in particular are what cost her the election. When it comes to the voting booth, their vote is equal to the person who doesn't pay much attention and votes based on a combination of vibes and cost of living, and the vibes people vastly outnumber the pro-Palestinian protesters and activists. However, in the run up to the election, those protesters and activists have significantly more value than random vibes guy.
Ezra Klein likes to talk about the attention economy and how Kamala lost that battle to Trump. Having the support of the 'loud minority' would certainly help as a signal boost for her campaign online, but I think it also goes far beyond that. Think about type of person who would take part in a student encampment, or organize 700,000 people to vote "uncommitted" during an uncontested primary. They're not just going to share a few social media posts, those are your canvassers and phone bankers. That's millions of phone calls and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of doors that could've been knocked on, and the Harris campaign told them to fuck off
A Harris organizer who worked on youth turnout said that senior campaign officials gave them an order: When they sent out mass volunteer or fundraising emails and people replied by asking about Gaza, they were told to mark it as “no response.” The result? They seldom ended up engaging with voters on that issue.
“We also didn’t create a new category for Gaza responses out of fear that category would be leaked. Instead we were told to mark them as ‘no response,’” the organizer said, faulting top Harris campaign leaders for failing to address the issue.
We'll never know if that single change could've been enough to tip the scales, and there are plenty of other significant factors that we can point to, but it's definitely not something to balk at.
The Gaza protesters are a very loud but very small minority. I don't think they matter at all. The problems she had were Biden refused to rescind until too late Trump almost got assassinated Even...
The Gaza protesters are a very loud but very small minority. I don't think they matter at all. The problems she had were
Biden refused to rescind until too late
Trump almost got assassinated
Even after Biden's fumbles, I think she would have easily won without the assassination attempt. The Gaza stuff is a rounding error compared to both of those things.
My knowledge is limited and I'm open to correction. Some random kid getting access to a rooftop and hitting Trump in such a way it injures him in such a way that it boosts his ratings out of sheer...
My knowledge is limited and I'm open to correction.
Some random kid getting access to a rooftop and hitting Trump in such a way it injures him in such a way that it boosts his ratings out of sheer sympathy. IIRC there's no real motive that was brought up either? Or explanation for how the kid was able to post up in his spot without being investigated? As I recall, multiple people brought things to the attention of security and they disregarded it.
Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to be a conspiracy nut. The recent slew of well timed "assassination" attempts also seems... Convenient?
I think the strongest evidence that it wasn't a fake shooting is that Crooks shot three people in the audience, one of whom died, while trying to hit Trump.
I think the strongest evidence that it wasn't a fake shooting is that Crooks shot three people in the audience, one of whom died, while trying to hit Trump.
It would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in...
It would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in the ear instead of hitting him in the head, especially for a relatively untrained shooter. Trump would be taking a massive risk of blowing his own head off to maybe potentially win an election. Like, it would be more likely to hit him in the head or completely miss than graze him like what actually happened.
The shooter fired a bunch of shots in pretty rapid succession and only one grazed Trump. I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but this one wouldn't make much sense.
It's a lot more likely that someone who really hated trump (no shortage of that) and didn't really have much to live for decided that this was his moment to do something about it, and his lack of training and planning made it so it didn't go how he thought it would.
I despise this so much. I agree, guns are a major issue that needs to be legislated better. That's why I learned about guns, so I could understand what's actually meaningful progress and what's...
because they don't understand guns.
I despise this so much. I agree, guns are a major issue that needs to be legislated better. That's why I learned about guns, so I could understand what's actually meaningful progress and what's bullshit.
It drives me up a wall when you get something akin to "we're making flying safer by forcing boeing to put feathers on the wings!", or literally anything RFK JR has said about vaccines, in gun legislation and everyone eats it up or swears that anyone opposing it is someone looking for an excuse to hunt humans (which, yes, there are people opposing it for that reason, but that doesn't make it smart legislation).
I have 0 personal experience with weapons outside of some extremely rare range days and trips with friends. I do have friends/family in the military which can help give a primary source, but it's not hard to research the basics of what a firearm can and cannot do. We all acknowledge how unrealistic movies can be with gunplay, but then suddenly everyone thinks you just point the dot on a spot and that's what you hit when it comes to these theories.
That one is mostly weird for not ever hearing anything about the shooter. Especially with political assassinations, people tend to leave a "note" of some sort. Making their case and such. The Las...
That one is mostly weird for not ever hearing anything about the shooter. Especially with political assassinations, people tend to leave a "note" of some sort. Making their case and such. The Las Vegas shooter was the last major one before that where I felt we just never got answers.
There is a distinct lack of trust in the government though as the response I saw to the most recent attempt was "yeah sure, I guess" and "seems convenient" like... By the majority of real people I know. But I also wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't a bottle of champagne or equivalent in reserve in most of their fridges for a future celebration. So I know they're biased, they're just not the usual conspiracy theorists.
If we are going to postulate that the Trump shooting was staged, I don't see why we would assume that the shooter was handling a real weapon and ammo at all. You could rig up something behind...
If we are going to postulate that the Trump shooting was staged, I don't see why we would assume that the shooter was handling a real weapon and ammo at all. You could rig up something behind Trump's ear to make it look it had been grazed, no actual grazing shot would be required. And if we're going this far into the conspiracy, I don't see why the organizers wouldn't be willing to sacrifice someone in the crowd to make it believable.
I think there was also a hypothesis that some part of the podium was hit and he was grazed by some of that material rather than a bullet. One could point out that Trump's ear looks suspiciously fine and it healed pretty quickly.
To be clear, I don't actually think the shooting was staged, but I think your objection assumes certain invariants which aren't necessary to hold up the conspiracy.
As @eji1700 says below, that becomes past the point of reasonableness. Potentially coordinating with one guy to miss the president intentionally is kind of plausible I guess? You'd need someone to...
As @eji1700 says below, that becomes past the point of reasonableness. Potentially coordinating with one guy to miss the president intentionally is kind of plausible I guess? You'd need someone to cook up the scheme, someone to handle the shooter, maybe someone else to secure access to the site. We've already covered why that is not realistic though.
Rigging up a squib to damage Trump's ear though? Now we're talking about a whole other thing. Coordination with the secret service, Trump's makeup people, everyone around him that would have clearly seen a device on his ear, all the doctors and medics that would have examined him afterwards, anyone who happened to be standing behind him. It's completely beyond any level of plausibility, and you'd still need the shooter, because people really did get shot and killed, including the shooter himself.
Conspiracy's are endless goalposts. Russell's teapot and all that. Why not assume there's secret space lasers than can pinpoint accuracy rip off part of his ear put there by lizard people? There...
To be clear, I don't actually think the shooting was staged, but I think your objection assumes certain invariants which aren't necessary to hold up the conspiracy.
Conspiracy's are endless goalposts. Russell's teapot and all that.
Why not assume there's secret space lasers than can pinpoint accuracy rip off part of his ear put there by lizard people?
There are rational, and more importantly, verified answers to everything you've pointed out. A huge one that gets look over is why would the Biden admin hide ANYTHING about this? What conspiracy somehow dodges literally every level of government, law enforcement, and recorded evidence, that still requires some level of conspiracy in the first place rather than just rigging the election which is certainly easier?
So i get you don't think it was staged, but there's always some "well actually even if that's true then..." around the next corner.
"Oh he wasn't shot it was shrapnel"
"oh actually it wasn't shrapnel it was a device"
"oh actually there were REAL bullets fired at the same time but only to hit members of the crowd"
If someone is willing to look at that image and still continue coming up with excuses (or more often than not, ignore that it exists or not even attempt to look for it), then there's never going to be a line that's good enough.
The Democratic Party-endorsed approach is to blame Americans supporting Palestine left and right for the loss, then re-evaluate about a year and a half later and realize it wasn't actually them so...
The Democratic Party-endorsed approach is to blame Americans supporting Palestine left and right for the loss, then re-evaluate about a year and a half later and realize it wasn't actually them so you can continue ignoring them.
…truthfully, I don't think it was ever Gaza. She was just an uninspiring candidate. Most Americans don't vote based on foreign policy. In fact, most Americans straight up don't vote.
I kept the original title, but I don't think it's a clear summation of the content in the essay, which examines the Civil Rights movement, the Palestinian cause, and the contradiction of Kamala...
I kept the original title, but I don't think it's a clear summation of the content in the essay, which examines the Civil Rights movement, the Palestinian cause, and the contradiction of Kamala Harris, a product of the former, distancing herself from the latter during her presidential bid.
I don't know where we're at with archive links these days, but this is behind a paywall. It's available with a free trial, but you know where to go if that's not what you're into. Here's a snippet if you're on the fence:
When you live as black Americans do, in a constant state of emergency, it can be hard to look across an ocean and see what the long arm of your country is doing to people like Dima. What is already blurry is rendered almost imperceptible by the spectacles of American racism. Because when those whom America kills come to this country, the one sure way for them to advance is to become white, and the one sure way to become white is to put as much distance between oneself and black people as possible. Knowing this, the temptation to adopt a more siloed strategy, one that eschews coalitions with allies who have disappointed us, is strong. This is a very bad idea.
If only because we are a minority, we need the numbers that come from alliances. And then there are certain moments, when a particular issue multiplies the power of certain allies. The Arab American vote is relatively tiny and constrained to a few states. But much as the advance of broadcast news made it hard for Southern white supremacists to hide their brutality, the sweep of social media has made it impossible for Israel, and thus the American empire, to hide its own. And just as the image of black people beaten for trying to cross a bridge resonated beyond our community, the image of a Palestinian hooked up to an IV, writhing in agony and burning alive, resonates far beyond theirs.
This resonance was not appreciated in 2024. A party that was deeply identified with destroying apartheid within its borders attempted to win by ignoring apartheid abroad. It did not work. “There was an underestimation of what was really afoot and how much it meant to so many people from many different walks of life,” says Pressley. “And I would say especially the younger generation. And I do believe it is why so many young people just did not participate and stayed home.”
There is another way.
...
Harris recalls the walls of her day care center as decorated with posters of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman. The nursery’s matriarch made pound cake and flaky biscuits, and played Aretha Franklin’s rendition of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” She recalls being sent on Sundays to the 23rd Avenue Church of God, where Harris and her sister, Maya, sang in the children’s choir. They were reared in a social justice Christianity, which called upon them, according to Harris, to “defend the rights of the poor and needy.” This does not strike me as the biography of someone who needs lectures on the nexus between the black freedom struggle and its import to the broader world. To the contrary, it reads like the story of someone steeped in that knowledge.
And that story forces a very basic question: What was the point of all this? Why the invocations of Tubman, the readings of Du Bois, the visits from Hamer? And did the advocates of this collective pedagogy imagine their children rising to heights of power, only to view the darker nations of the world through the same violent lens as their oppressors? And if they did not, if they believed that the “poor and needy” meant those within the empire as well as those without, then what moral mandate does that place upon their children?
And if their children have come only to praise, not check, empire, then why have they come at all?
I think the big reason is that Kamala didn't have very much visibility as VP and then suddenly was thrust into the nominee status without really having built up any real following.
I think the big reason is that Kamala didn't have very much visibility as VP and then suddenly was thrust into the nominee status without really having built up any real following.
I agree. If Biden had stepped aside earlier in the campaign, I think it could have been different, because she could have felt like the chosen candidate, not the default option. I don't think we...
I agree. If Biden had stepped aside earlier in the campaign, I think it could have been different, because she could have felt like the chosen candidate, not the default option. I don't think we ever got to know her. She certainly wasn't able to generate the excitement as the (potentially) first female, second non-white president the way Obama had.
I'd love to see establishment democrats stand aside for the greater good instead of this "It's my turn" bullshit. I think if Hilary has stood aside for Bernie Sanders, or brought him in as a VP, we'd be in a different timeline now. If Biden had had the gumption to stop at 1 term from the beginning (or not run at all), we might have seen our first female president.
Hell, even if they aren't particularly progressive, I'd just love to see a candidate in their 40s or 50s instead of their 70s.
Gaza was important. Make no mistake. The decision to back the Israeli government's war crimes was a serious own-goal and should have been a very easy thing to avoid, not just for strategic reasons...
Gaza was important. Make no mistake. The decision to back the Israeli government's war crimes was a serious own-goal and should have been a very easy thing to avoid, not just for strategic reasons but for moral ones as well, and those responsible for that blunder should feel nothing but shame for it.
And yet, I disagree with the title. As it stands, I don't think there was a "single cause" at all, and I think trying to find one is foolish. Trying to boil out the nuance like that is absurd to begin with, and especially so when Harris' campaign screwed up in so many different ways. Kamala's campaign failed because it was trying to sell a poor candidate while being run by incompetent buffoons who had no understanding whatsoever of the people she was supposed to represent.
If you want to know what mistakes to avoid in future elections, I recommend "as many as possible."
The real villains in this story are the ones who encouraged voting for Trump or staying at home because of Kamala’s position on Gaza. To anyone with two brain cells to rub together, it was obvious...
The real villains in this story are the ones who encouraged voting for Trump or staying at home because of Kamala’s position on Gaza. To anyone with two brain cells to rub together, it was obvious that no matter what Kamala’s position was, Trump would be orders of magnitude worse. My mind boggles at the “Muslims for Trump” groups.
I argued against a similar position to this for months way back in 2024, and to some degree I stand by that. Don't get me wrong; anyone encouraging a vote for Trump in response to this was either...
The real villains in this story are the ones who encouraged [...] staying at home because of Kamala’s position on [Gaza].
I argued against a similar position to this for months way back in 2024, and to some degree I stand by that. Don't get me wrong; anyone encouraging a vote for Trump in response to this was either a grifter or completely insane, and I do think nose-holding was necessary, but the constant critique and focus on this has some problems. These days I phrase it differently, though.
For me, yes, voters deserve some blame. I didn't focus on that in the past for a few reasons; firstly, I obviously didn't think about that very much. But also, even in retrospect, I don't think that's what needed to be said. A fundamental issue with the attitude that tends to come with blaming voters is that it loses sight of any agency the candidate has. Yeah, voters who stayed home made a mistake, and that's some blame — but what would've been better is if the candidate's campaign hadn't abandoned morals and stuck the war crime-laden foot in its mouth in the first place. That's a way bigger share of the blame,1 and I think that needed to be pointed out.
There's also the problem of voting being so focal here, which I think is a big mistake. It needs to be remembered that 1) voting in such a broken (and in some ways rigged) system is hardly the most important strategy you can pick, and 2) a lesser-of-two-evils candidate has no reason to improve if they aren't accountable to you.2 Neither of these require that you not vote to demand change – although the Uncommitted movement was a fantastic idea since it highlighted discontent without actually withholding votes – but they do mean that your tactics can't end at "vote blue no matter who."
If you're going to vote for a terrible candidate because they're less bad, that's good, but you have to pressure them in other ways. If we don't, we'll be stuck holding our noses forever.
1. I think of this like I think of "carbon footprint" arguments. Yes, how much you as an individual recycle and bike and all that matters, but industrial utilization and waste matters a whole hell of a lot more. Focusing on the former and forgetting the latter is a massive error. 2. Lesser-evil voting is also exploitable, too. While I can't find a link at the moment, I've seen it happen that some candidates deliberately funded specific opposition members in the hopes that the primary winner they'd face off against would be so insane as to make anything they do look reasonable by comparison. If I recall right, this is part of how we got Trump in 2016.
Normally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so... I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely...
a lesser-of-two-evils candidate has no reason to improve if they aren't accountable to you.
Normally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so...
I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely ignoring the primary because it just assumes that the person in power is automatically the best one for the job, which is totally nonsensical. Presidents should have to fight for their jobs every four years, not just from the opposing party, but from their own.
I also wish the DNC would get their thumb off the scale more generally. The name is the United states democratic party, so be democratic. If democratic primary voters nominate an establishment candidate after all, so be it, and at that point if you're not showing up to the election because of sour grapes about your preferred candidate losing the primary, basically everyone can agree that you need to grow up and stop being a child. If we don't actually have a real choice in candidates at every election though, I mean, it's still an irrational choice to not vote for the least bad candidate, but I at least understand why someone would.
The problem I have with the argument that Gaza cost Harris the election is that the analysis only considers how many votes or money not supporting Gaza cost Harris. But they also fail to consider...
The problem I have with the argument that Gaza cost Harris the election is that the analysis only considers how many votes or money not supporting Gaza cost Harris. But they also fail to consider how many votes or dollars would have been lost if she did. There was still a lot of sympathy for Israel post 10/8 by the US presidential election nevermind the general support that they enjoyed prior.
The lens I always come back to is that there are a lot more voters more conservative then Biden. If you're pushing for a position that is further left then he was, your candidate is probably going to have a bad time.
I mean, most people were more left-wing than Trump in 2016, and that didn't stop him.1 The way I see it, yeah, being more openly left-wing might get you less funding and big-tent support.2 But in...
The lens I always come back to is that there are a lot more voters more conservative then Biden. If you're pushing for a position that is further left then he was, your candidate is probably going to have a bad time.
I mean, most people were more left-wing than Trump in 2016, and that didn't stop him.1
The way I see it, yeah, being more openly left-wing might get you less funding and big-tent support.2 But in times like these where trust in the government is at such a ridiculous low, I think someone being willing to say "Too fucking bad, I have principles" would work really, really well when it came to getting people to actually believe in them.
As important as money is for a campaign, I think having people actually trust you is more important. People who see you as another politician will find it hard to motivate themselves to vote. But people who believe? They'll haul ass.
1. Yes, I'm aware it's more complicated than that. But it illustrates my point. 2. It should be noted here that the sort of money you'd lose out on the most also has a tendency to be the kind of strings-attached funding that undermines noble goals if you win. Receiving donations from billionaires means an expectation that you won't raise their taxes.
Trump had enough support to win and so he didn't need to moderate to the center. Other further right republicans have had that problem where they went to extremist to win their primary - Dan Cox,...
Trump had enough support to win and so he didn't need to moderate to the center. Other further right republicans have had that problem where they went to extremist to win their primary - Dan Cox, Kari Lake, Doug Mastriano, etc.
I agree that people have to have trust - but, the counter is that would you vote for someone who supports Israel full throated and says, "Too fucking bad, I have principles. Israel is the only real democracy in the middle east, it has support for LGBT rights, and it has to go all out to protect it's existence" Does that candidate get your vote?
I see it a lot in online discourse where only the more extreme position is considered trustworthy. If someone takes a moderate position and they come to it honestly, through careful thought, and hold it deeply, lots of people still discount it as pandering or being cynical.
My argument there had to do with how he got his support, so this becomes tautological: "He had support because he had support." This is because it's a lot harder to believe someone's belief is...
Trump had enough support to win
My argument there had to do with how he got his support, so this becomes tautological: "He had support because he had support."
If someone takes a moderate position and they come to it honestly, through careful thought, and hold it deeply, lots of people still discount it as pandering or being cynical.
This is because it's a lot harder to believe someone's belief is genuinely held when it also happens to be the default opinion that costs the least to have. "I have principles" means a lot if saying so is viewed as a risk. If it's not, then there's no weight, which makes it insufficient for trust.
Does that candidate get your vote?
If you want to know if I'd be willing to vote for a principled candidate who has some principles I'd hate, then it depends on what other principles they hold; if the good ones outweigh the bad, absolutely, yes, I would. And even if they didn't, I could at least see them as more genuine.
But if you're asking if the above would apply if "bad principles" included "supporting genocide," then I doubt there's enough good principles available to outweigh that. That kind of belief is so horrible and weighs down the scale so badly that genuineness becomes worthless by comparison.
If the desired point here was that there's a limit to how extreme a principle can be before it loses its value, then I didn't really think that needed to be said. It remains true that picking someone who's milquetoast center-of-the-isle is still obviously not working, and that picking someone who's actually different can easily be very inspiring to voters, even if those voters would usually disagree.
I understand where you're coming from, and this was a very common perspective at the time. I'm not sure that isn't the case either, and at the end of the day we'll never know. If I set aside the...
I understand where you're coming from, and this was a very common perspective at the time. I'm not sure that isn't the case either, and at the end of the day we'll never know. If I set aside the whole "crimes against humanity" thing and put on my rat fucker anything-to-win hat on (a Carville cap, if you will), I think there are important factors related to Gaza that are worth considering.
First, you're absolutely right in pointing out how sympathy for Israel was high after the 10/7 attacks. However, that sympathy waned considerably over 2024 and completely bottomed out among Democrats and left-leaning independents in 2025. I suspect that part of that bottoming out is due to partisan Democrats only recognizing what was going on once Trump took office, and that a little nudge from someone like the VP would've gotten them there sooner.
In my reply to Eji, I made the case for a weighted value for the pro-Palestinian vote, and included a link to polling from 2024 that suggests voters in battleground states were more willing to vote for a candidate that would restrict military aid to Israel on account of all the atrocities that were taking place. As for a counterweight, I don't think that existed in the Democratic coalition, at least not to a significant degree. Most voters are/were pretty indifferent about foreign policy, especially in a cost of living election. Those who would change their vote solely on maintaining support for Israel (Israel or bust) tend to fall in one of two camps: Evangelical/Christian Zionists, the vast majority of whom serve as the backbone of the Republican party, and older Jews/Jewish Zionists, who are a tiny portion of the electorate and predominantly live in solid blue states.
I think the more pressing issue for the Harris campaign was probably the threat of big money going against her and negative media attention. I can't say for sure, but from some of the things I've read about the campaign, that was their biggest fear when it came to Gaza. Conventional wisdom would say to avoid both of those things, but we saw how money can have diminishing returns as the Harris campaign spent a whopping 1.5 billion dollars and still lost. Furthermore, I think we should reconsider the impact of negative media attention now that Donald Trump has won two elections.
There's also a case to be made that taking a firm position on Gaza would alienate the pro-Israel Democrats who hold office, like Schumer, Gottheimer, Fetterman, and many many others, but I think they would save their torpedoes until after the election. After all, they were able to bite their tongue while the senile old man was the nominee. But again, who knows what would have happened.
The lens I always come back to is that there are a lot more voters more conservative then Biden
This is true when it comes to perception and self-identification. However, when you go issue by issue, that isn't the case. You'd be surprised by some of the things people support.
I looked at the polling data a bit. In the voting base of America, 37% of Americans identify as conservative, 34% as moderate, and 26% as liberal according to Gallup. That means that a Democrat...
I looked at the polling data a bit.
In the voting base of America, 37% of Americans identify as conservative, 34% as moderate, and 26% as liberal according to Gallup. That means that a Democrat has to get part of the independent vote to get elected and independents lean more conservative. Obviously those breakdowns change over time, but they're broadly right for the past 20+ years.
In 2023, Gallup polling showed that independents were at +30 favorability for Israel while democrats were +11 for Palestine.
That suggests the core problem - the core of the democratic party favored Palestine while the independents that the democrats need to win a significant portion of did not.
...Why on earth would you pick a poll from March 2023? That's not only prior to Israel's genocide in Gaza, it's even before the October 7th attacks. In effect, this is discounting the biggest...
...Why on earth would you pick a poll from March 2023? That's not only prior to Israel's genocide in Gaza, it's even before the October 7th attacks. In effect, this is discounting the biggest changes to public opinion of Israel that have happened in years, if not decades.
That last one is really important, because even independents disagreed with Israel's action, 60% to 29%. Even in July 2024, when this went up slightly, agreement only rose to 34%. Hardly enough to suggest that pushing back against Israel would've cost an election. If anything, it suggests the opposite.
It probably didn't help, but I think racism and sexism were much, much bigger factors. That, and her team's change in messaging - from calling the Republicans "weird" to ... whatever their advisors told them to do.
But mostly the racism and sexism.
No probably being a lack luster candidate even when picked as VP (yeah half the country is rioting due to police violence but sure lets grab a prosecutor) and then having half a campaign after a no primary fuck fest debacle cost her the campaign.
However the Dems have loved the death by a 1000 cuts method to losing so yes you can also throw in racism, sexism, and a million other things.
Was Gaza on the scale? Of course. Did it change the election? I doubt it. The states where dems stayed home because of Kamala's Gaza stance aren't the states she lost.
Edit:
There's a nice chart here about halfway which tells and interesting story, especially with the one following.
Harris lost a TON of voters in CA/NY. These are dem strongholds, and also where I expect the "but what about Gaza" crowd to show up the most. Partly because they've got a large dem base, and party because dems know they're not going republican even if they stay home.
Looking at the second chart, where she lost her battle ground states, the key ones she did worse in were AZ, MI, PA. Maybe i'm wrong, but I kinda doubt that AZ has a strong list of democrats who decided Gaza was the tipping point. Especially because in AZ/MI it looks like some of the under performance might have actually been independents who flipped (guessing completely as you can't tell from this data and it might just be coincidence).
MORE IMPORTANTLY is how well Trump performed in all of those states compared to 2020. It's almost like the economy was also kicking people in the teeth, which motivated voters who stayed home in 2020 but probably would've voted republican anyways.
Now I can't read the article, but to respond to the headline, even discussion of it strikes me as the democrats doing what they do best. Identifying the problem (oh fuck we lost) and blaming every useless side note rather than just fixing the obvious.
I know a lot of people here feel differently, but a progressive wave or a strong stance on a middle east conflict which has basically never affected the average american's lives isn't going to win you AZ, MI, PA, NV, NC, WI, GA.
I appreciate the response and I encourage you to read the article because it really isn't about what's in the headline. Rather than responding to a bunch of people individually, I'm going to clunp a few responses together and put them here since your comment covers the most ground. As for your comment, yeah, there's not a whole lot I really disagree with here. It was death by a thousand cuts. Personally, I'd say the most significant gashes were Biden's refusal to step down, misogynoir, lackluster candidate/campaign, inflation, and finally, Gaza, which I'll expand upon later.
There have been countless articles and think pieces about Harris's loss, and most of them approach it from one specific angle. One of the better, more complete breakdowns that I remember from after the election was this video from FD Signifier where he makes a very strong case for racism and misogyny being the deciding factor. I think he's right. I think that specific campaign failed because she is a black woman. A white man who is seen as too progressive will have a much easier time changing voters minds as he moves to the center. Kamala Harris ran a campaign that was for a white man, and she lost because she's a black woman. Apologies in advance, but I like to use a football analogy for this. In football, you can have a mobile quarterback who runs the ball like Lamar Jackson, or you can have a slow, old statue like Joe Flacco. With the right gameplan, you can win with either quarterback; however, if you take take Joe Flacco and try to make him run 15 times like he's Lamar Jackson, it's probably not going to work. Kamala Harris positioning herself like a tough moderate without any signature positions that address cost of living is like trying to run the ball with Joe Flacco.
I've written at length about my criticisms of the Harris campaign, so I'll spare everyone the old song and dance, but I do want to touch on something related to Gaza that I don't see mentioned often. First, there's what we knew before the election (sorry, I know I've shared this with you before), which is that voters in pivotal swing states were more likely to support a Democratic candidate who took a strong position on restricting weapons to Israel. But more importantly, I think we are severely undervaluing the people that Harris lost because of her stance on Gaza. To be clear, I'm not saying that those votes in particular are what cost her the election. When it comes to the voting booth, their vote is equal to the person who doesn't pay much attention and votes based on a combination of vibes and cost of living, and the vibes people vastly outnumber the pro-Palestinian protesters and activists. However, in the run up to the election, those protesters and activists have significantly more value than random vibes guy.
Ezra Klein likes to talk about the attention economy and how Kamala lost that battle to Trump. Having the support of the 'loud minority' would certainly help as a signal boost for her campaign online, but I think it also goes far beyond that. Think about type of person who would take part in a student encampment, or organize 700,000 people to vote "uncommitted" during an uncontested primary. They're not just going to share a few social media posts, those are your canvassers and phone bankers. That's millions of phone calls and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of doors that could've been knocked on, and the Harris campaign told them to fuck off
We'll never know if that single change could've been enough to tip the scales, and there are plenty of other significant factors that we can point to, but it's definitely not something to balk at.
This post measurably changed my opinion on how much gaza mattered, thanks.
The Gaza protesters are a very loud but very small minority. I don't think they matter at all. The problems she had were
Biden refused to rescind until too late
Trump almost got assassinated
Even after Biden's fumbles, I think she would have easily won without the assassination attempt. The Gaza stuff is a rounding error compared to both of those things.
I still find that assassination attempt weird. Everything about it was bizarre.
What do you mean?
My knowledge is limited and I'm open to correction.
Some random kid getting access to a rooftop and hitting Trump in such a way it injures him in such a way that it boosts his ratings out of sheer sympathy. IIRC there's no real motive that was brought up either? Or explanation for how the kid was able to post up in his spot without being investigated? As I recall, multiple people brought things to the attention of security and they disregarded it.
Again, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't want to be a conspiracy nut. The recent slew of well timed "assassination" attempts also seems... Convenient?
I think the strongest evidence that it wasn't a fake shooting is that Crooks shot three people in the audience, one of whom died, while trying to hit Trump.
I'll be honest and say I entirely forgot that detail... Ok wild things rescinded.
It would make no sense to stage something like that. At 150 meters away with an AR-15 and a reflex sight like the shooter used, it would be extremely difficult to intentionally graze someone in the ear instead of hitting him in the head, especially for a relatively untrained shooter. Trump would be taking a massive risk of blowing his own head off to maybe potentially win an election. Like, it would be more likely to hit him in the head or completely miss than graze him like what actually happened.
The shooter fired a bunch of shots in pretty rapid succession and only one grazed Trump. I'm all for a good conspiracy theory, but this one wouldn't make much sense.
It's a lot more likely that someone who really hated trump (no shortage of that) and didn't really have much to live for decided that this was his moment to do something about it, and his lack of training and planning made it so it didn't go how he thought it would.
I despise this so much. I agree, guns are a major issue that needs to be legislated better. That's why I learned about guns, so I could understand what's actually meaningful progress and what's bullshit.
It drives me up a wall when you get something akin to "we're making flying safer by forcing boeing to put feathers on the wings!", or literally anything RFK JR has said about vaccines, in gun legislation and everyone eats it up or swears that anyone opposing it is someone looking for an excuse to hunt humans (which, yes, there are people opposing it for that reason, but that doesn't make it smart legislation).
I have 0 personal experience with weapons outside of some extremely rare range days and trips with friends. I do have friends/family in the military which can help give a primary source, but it's not hard to research the basics of what a firearm can and cannot do. We all acknowledge how unrealistic movies can be with gunplay, but then suddenly everyone thinks you just point the dot on a spot and that's what you hit when it comes to these theories.
That one is mostly weird for not ever hearing anything about the shooter. Especially with political assassinations, people tend to leave a "note" of some sort. Making their case and such. The Las Vegas shooter was the last major one before that where I felt we just never got answers.
There is a distinct lack of trust in the government though as the response I saw to the most recent attempt was "yeah sure, I guess" and "seems convenient" like... By the majority of real people I know. But I also wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't a bottle of champagne or equivalent in reserve in most of their fridges for a future celebration. So I know they're biased, they're just not the usual conspiracy theorists.
If we are going to postulate that the Trump shooting was staged, I don't see why we would assume that the shooter was handling a real weapon and ammo at all. You could rig up something behind Trump's ear to make it look it had been grazed, no actual grazing shot would be required. And if we're going this far into the conspiracy, I don't see why the organizers wouldn't be willing to sacrifice someone in the crowd to make it believable.
I think there was also a hypothesis that some part of the podium was hit and he was grazed by some of that material rather than a bullet. One could point out that Trump's ear looks suspiciously fine and it healed pretty quickly.
To be clear, I don't actually think the shooting was staged, but I think your objection assumes certain invariants which aren't necessary to hold up the conspiracy.
As @eji1700 says below, that becomes past the point of reasonableness. Potentially coordinating with one guy to miss the president intentionally is kind of plausible I guess? You'd need someone to cook up the scheme, someone to handle the shooter, maybe someone else to secure access to the site. We've already covered why that is not realistic though.
Rigging up a squib to damage Trump's ear though? Now we're talking about a whole other thing. Coordination with the secret service, Trump's makeup people, everyone around him that would have clearly seen a device on his ear, all the doctors and medics that would have examined him afterwards, anyone who happened to be standing behind him. It's completely beyond any level of plausibility, and you'd still need the shooter, because people really did get shot and killed, including the shooter himself.
Conspiracy's are endless goalposts. Russell's teapot and all that.
Why not assume there's secret space lasers than can pinpoint accuracy rip off part of his ear put there by lizard people?
There are rational, and more importantly, verified answers to everything you've pointed out. A huge one that gets look over is why would the Biden admin hide ANYTHING about this? What conspiracy somehow dodges literally every level of government, law enforcement, and recorded evidence, that still requires some level of conspiracy in the first place rather than just rigging the election which is certainly easier?
So i get you don't think it was staged, but there's always some "well actually even if that's true then..." around the next corner.
"Oh he wasn't shot it was shrapnel"
"oh actually it wasn't shrapnel it was a device"
"oh actually there were REAL bullets fired at the same time but only to hit members of the crowd"
"oh actually it was....." and on and on and on.
There is a photo of the bullet in flight just past trumps head. Of course it's AI or Photoshop or the fake shots into the crowd or camera's can't capture that or that journalist is a plant or whatever.
If someone is willing to look at that image and still continue coming up with excuses (or more often than not, ignore that it exists or not even attempt to look for it), then there's never going to be a line that's good enough.
The Democratic Party-endorsed approach is to blame Americans supporting Palestine left and right for the loss, then re-evaluate about a year and a half later and realize it wasn't actually them so you can continue ignoring them.
…truthfully, I don't think it was ever Gaza. She was just an uninspiring candidate. Most Americans don't vote based on foreign policy. In fact, most Americans straight up don't vote.
I kept the original title, but I don't think it's a clear summation of the content in the essay, which examines the Civil Rights movement, the Palestinian cause, and the contradiction of Kamala Harris, a product of the former, distancing herself from the latter during her presidential bid.
I don't know where we're at with archive links these days, but this is behind a paywall. It's available with a free trial, but you know where to go if that's not what you're into. Here's a snippet if you're on the fence:
...
VanityFair seems to be one of the chumps whose wall you can bypass with reader mode!
I think the big reason is that Kamala didn't have very much visibility as VP and then suddenly was thrust into the nominee status without really having built up any real following.
I agree. If Biden had stepped aside earlier in the campaign, I think it could have been different, because she could have felt like the chosen candidate, not the default option. I don't think we ever got to know her. She certainly wasn't able to generate the excitement as the (potentially) first female, second non-white president the way Obama had.
I'd love to see establishment democrats stand aside for the greater good instead of this "It's my turn" bullshit. I think if Hilary has stood aside for Bernie Sanders, or brought him in as a VP, we'd be in a different timeline now. If Biden had had the gumption to stop at 1 term from the beginning (or not run at all), we might have seen our first female president.
Hell, even if they aren't particularly progressive, I'd just love to see a candidate in their 40s or 50s instead of their 70s.
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Gaza was important. Make no mistake. The decision to back the Israeli government's war crimes was a serious own-goal and should have been a very easy thing to avoid, not just for strategic reasons but for moral ones as well, and those responsible for that blunder should feel nothing but shame for it.
And yet, I disagree with the title. As it stands, I don't think there was a "single cause" at all, and I think trying to find one is foolish. Trying to boil out the nuance like that is absurd to begin with, and especially so when Harris' campaign screwed up in so many different ways. Kamala's campaign failed because it was trying to sell a poor candidate while being run by incompetent buffoons who had no understanding whatsoever of the people she was supposed to represent.
If you want to know what mistakes to avoid in future elections, I recommend "as many as possible."
The real villains in this story are the ones who encouraged voting for Trump or staying at home because of Kamala’s position on Gaza. To anyone with two brain cells to rub together, it was obvious that no matter what Kamala’s position was, Trump would be orders of magnitude worse. My mind boggles at the “Muslims for Trump” groups.
I argued against a similar position to this for months way back in 2024, and to some degree I stand by that. Don't get me wrong; anyone encouraging a vote for Trump in response to this was either a grifter or completely insane, and I do think nose-holding was necessary, but the constant critique and focus on this has some problems. These days I phrase it differently, though.
For me, yes, voters deserve some blame. I didn't focus on that in the past for a few reasons; firstly, I obviously didn't think about that very much. But also, even in retrospect, I don't think that's what needed to be said. A fundamental issue with the attitude that tends to come with blaming voters is that it loses sight of any agency the candidate has. Yeah, voters who stayed home made a mistake, and that's some blame — but what would've been better is if the candidate's campaign hadn't abandoned morals and stuck the war crime-laden foot in its mouth in the first place. That's a way bigger share of the blame,1 and I think that needed to be pointed out.
There's also the problem of voting being so focal here, which I think is a big mistake. It needs to be remembered that 1) voting in such a broken (and in some ways rigged) system is hardly the most important strategy you can pick, and 2) a lesser-of-two-evils candidate has no reason to improve if they aren't accountable to you.2 Neither of these require that you not vote to demand change – although the Uncommitted movement was a fantastic idea since it highlighted discontent without actually withholding votes – but they do mean that your tactics can't end at "vote blue no matter who."
If you're going to vote for a terrible candidate because they're less bad, that's good, but you have to pressure them in other ways. If we don't, we'll be stuck holding our noses forever.
1. I think of this like I think of "carbon footprint" arguments. Yes, how much you as an individual recycle and bike and all that matters, but industrial utilization and waste matters a whole hell of a lot more. Focusing on the former and forgetting the latter is a massive error.
2. Lesser-evil voting is also exploitable, too. While I can't find a link at the moment, I've seen it happen that some candidates deliberately funded specific opposition members in the hopes that the primary winner they'd face off against would be so insane as to make anything they do look reasonable by comparison. If I recall right, this is part of how we got Trump in 2016.
Normally the reason they're accountable is primaries, but we barely have those for incumbents, so...
I hate the convention of the incumbent being the automatic party pick and just completely ignoring the primary because it just assumes that the person in power is automatically the best one for the job, which is totally nonsensical. Presidents should have to fight for their jobs every four years, not just from the opposing party, but from their own.
I also wish the DNC would get their thumb off the scale more generally. The name is the United states democratic party, so be democratic. If democratic primary voters nominate an establishment candidate after all, so be it, and at that point if you're not showing up to the election because of sour grapes about your preferred candidate losing the primary, basically everyone can agree that you need to grow up and stop being a child. If we don't actually have a real choice in candidates at every election though, I mean, it's still an irrational choice to not vote for the least bad candidate, but I at least understand why someone would.
The problem I have with the argument that Gaza cost Harris the election is that the analysis only considers how many votes or money not supporting Gaza cost Harris. But they also fail to consider how many votes or dollars would have been lost if she did. There was still a lot of sympathy for Israel post 10/8 by the US presidential election nevermind the general support that they enjoyed prior.
The lens I always come back to is that there are a lot more voters more conservative then Biden. If you're pushing for a position that is further left then he was, your candidate is probably going to have a bad time.
I mean, most people were more left-wing than Trump in 2016, and that didn't stop him.1
The way I see it, yeah, being more openly left-wing might get you less funding and big-tent support.2 But in times like these where trust in the government is at such a ridiculous low, I think someone being willing to say "Too fucking bad, I have principles" would work really, really well when it came to getting people to actually believe in them.
As important as money is for a campaign, I think having people actually trust you is more important. People who see you as another politician will find it hard to motivate themselves to vote. But people who believe? They'll haul ass.
1. Yes, I'm aware it's more complicated than that. But it illustrates my point.
2. It should be noted here that the sort of money you'd lose out on the most also has a tendency to be the kind of strings-attached funding that undermines noble goals if you win. Receiving donations from billionaires means an expectation that you won't raise their taxes.
Trump had enough support to win and so he didn't need to moderate to the center. Other further right republicans have had that problem where they went to extremist to win their primary - Dan Cox, Kari Lake, Doug Mastriano, etc.
I agree that people have to have trust - but, the counter is that would you vote for someone who supports Israel full throated and says, "Too fucking bad, I have principles. Israel is the only real democracy in the middle east, it has support for LGBT rights, and it has to go all out to protect it's existence" Does that candidate get your vote?
I see it a lot in online discourse where only the more extreme position is considered trustworthy. If someone takes a moderate position and they come to it honestly, through careful thought, and hold it deeply, lots of people still discount it as pandering or being cynical.
My argument there had to do with how he got his support, so this becomes tautological: "He had support because he had support."
This is because it's a lot harder to believe someone's belief is genuinely held when it also happens to be the default opinion that costs the least to have. "I have principles" means a lot if saying so is viewed as a risk. If it's not, then there's no weight, which makes it insufficient for trust.
If you want to know if I'd be willing to vote for a principled candidate who has some principles I'd hate, then it depends on what other principles they hold; if the good ones outweigh the bad, absolutely, yes, I would. And even if they didn't, I could at least see them as more genuine.
But if you're asking if the above would apply if "bad principles" included "supporting genocide," then I doubt there's enough good principles available to outweigh that. That kind of belief is so horrible and weighs down the scale so badly that genuineness becomes worthless by comparison.
If the desired point here was that there's a limit to how extreme a principle can be before it loses its value, then I didn't really think that needed to be said. It remains true that picking someone who's milquetoast center-of-the-isle is still obviously not working, and that picking someone who's actually different can easily be very inspiring to voters, even if those voters would usually disagree.
I understand where you're coming from, and this was a very common perspective at the time. I'm not sure that isn't the case either, and at the end of the day we'll never know. If I set aside the whole "crimes against humanity" thing and put on my rat fucker anything-to-win hat on (a Carville cap, if you will), I think there are important factors related to Gaza that are worth considering.
First, you're absolutely right in pointing out how sympathy for Israel was high after the 10/7 attacks. However, that sympathy waned considerably over 2024 and completely bottomed out among Democrats and left-leaning independents in 2025. I suspect that part of that bottoming out is due to partisan Democrats only recognizing what was going on once Trump took office, and that a little nudge from someone like the VP would've gotten them there sooner.
In my reply to Eji, I made the case for a weighted value for the pro-Palestinian vote, and included a link to polling from 2024 that suggests voters in battleground states were more willing to vote for a candidate that would restrict military aid to Israel on account of all the atrocities that were taking place. As for a counterweight, I don't think that existed in the Democratic coalition, at least not to a significant degree. Most voters are/were pretty indifferent about foreign policy, especially in a cost of living election. Those who would change their vote solely on maintaining support for Israel (Israel or bust) tend to fall in one of two camps: Evangelical/Christian Zionists, the vast majority of whom serve as the backbone of the Republican party, and older Jews/Jewish Zionists, who are a tiny portion of the electorate and predominantly live in solid blue states.
I think the more pressing issue for the Harris campaign was probably the threat of big money going against her and negative media attention. I can't say for sure, but from some of the things I've read about the campaign, that was their biggest fear when it came to Gaza. Conventional wisdom would say to avoid both of those things, but we saw how money can have diminishing returns as the Harris campaign spent a whopping 1.5 billion dollars and still lost. Furthermore, I think we should reconsider the impact of negative media attention now that Donald Trump has won two elections.
There's also a case to be made that taking a firm position on Gaza would alienate the pro-Israel Democrats who hold office, like Schumer, Gottheimer, Fetterman, and many many others, but I think they would save their torpedoes until after the election. After all, they were able to bite their tongue while the senile old man was the nominee. But again, who knows what would have happened.
This is true when it comes to perception and self-identification. However, when you go issue by issue, that isn't the case. You'd be surprised by some of the things people support.
I looked at the polling data a bit.
In the voting base of America, 37% of Americans identify as conservative, 34% as moderate, and 26% as liberal according to Gallup. That means that a Democrat has to get part of the independent vote to get elected and independents lean more conservative. Obviously those breakdowns change over time, but they're broadly right for the past 20+ years.
In 2023, Gallup polling showed that independents were at +30 favorability for Israel while democrats were +11 for Palestine.
That suggests the core problem - the core of the democratic party favored Palestine while the independents that the democrats need to win a significant portion of did not.
...Why on earth would you pick a poll from March 2023? That's not only prior to Israel's genocide in Gaza, it's even before the October 7th attacks. In effect, this is discounting the biggest changes to public opinion of Israel that have happened in years, if not decades.
Just going to March 2024 already shows significant changes. Sticking to Gallup, this poll show's that 2023 to 2024 saw a decline of 3 points for Israel for the exact same measure as what you linked, with an even larger decline of 5% for independents specifically. A different one from March 4th 2024 shows American support for Israel dropping ten points YoY. And since this thread is about Gaza, a crucial one is this poll also from March that indicates that support for Israeli action in Gaza plummeted fast.
That last one is really important, because even independents disagreed with Israel's action, 60% to 29%. Even in July 2024, when this went up slightly, agreement only rose to 34%. Hardly enough to suggest that pushing back against Israel would've cost an election. If anything, it suggests the opposite.