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The way I see the things in my bubble.
Watching the Democrats media machine spinning at full gears is impressive. Trump's assassination attempt is old news. It never happened. The iconic Pulitzer and election winning picture is nowhere to be seen. A lot of dem aligned twitter accounts suddenly are active and on the attack. Felon and rapist are everywhere. Suddenly Trump's age is a problem. Absolutely no accountability demanded from the people that were telling that Biden is ok. No talks if he is fit to be president. Their reality building efforts are smooth and from what I can see effective - no one seems to remember critics of her that they wrote from the ancient time of June 2024, let alone before. All in all makes you believe that Snowcrash's ur-language was not pulled out of Neil Stephenson's imagination.
On my side - Republicans are high on copium, seems to not have been prepared for Kamala, lack message and message discipline, and are on the defensive. JD Vance seems to be bombing. And for it - the election moved from landslide to at best narrow win. I still think that she is the second worst possible candidate after Joe Biden but probably ok enough to win.
The quantity of vitriol on both sides is extremely high, the quality is lacking. But I would say the Democrats are better right now. I feel that it is manufactured enthusiasm, but has the chance to become real one.
All in all bad news for everyone that hopes that mass migration to the west will be curbed before the mid 2030-s (lately I have become single issue on that issue).
Yes, the whole Biden/Harris thing reminds me of the bit in 1984 where Oceania goes from being at war with Eastasia to being at war with Eurasia in the middle of a speech, and everyone just turns on a dime (even as Winston and his colleagues at Minitrue have to go into crunch to rewrite their entire history.)
Complete with the memory-holing of articles that might be used to undermine Harris.
I've tried with good faith efforts to ask any blue-teamer including on this forum whether it matters to them that Kamala was in on the deceit around Joe's health, and whether allowing her to be chosen as candidate without following the prescribed process is rewarding her for such deceit.
I've heard no good reason for ignoring this factor. Just a kind of willful ignorance of the past because the consensus of the day demands it.
At this point, I do think the Democrats should literally just skip primaries going forward. They CLEARLY do not need them to form a consensus around a given candidate. Just let the Dem power-brokers make deals behind the scenes and present the winner at the convention. This would make the power-brokers happier as they can do what they normally do without having to worry about an upstart like Bernie Sanders upsetting things, and it would make the constituents happier because they never have to risk breaking with the crowd by accidentally supporting a different candidate than the ultimate winner.
I don't think Kamala should be judged for being in on it. I think a lot of people overestimate how plugged in VPs are. The President has no responsibility, none at all, to keep the VP in the loop on anything. So we don't know if Kamala knew anything.
Secondly, she's responsible and accountable to Biden, not the media. A VP that undermines the government she is in is acting irresponsibly. That loyalty isn't infinite, but it doesn't extend to making a judgement call that Biden isn't competent and then revealing it publicly. That's not just undermining Biden, it's undermining the position of the US Government.
Thirdly, had Kamala said something, you would as sure as sunshine be carping about what a disloyal, ambitious snake she was for doing so.
I don't think her actions were terribly unusual. It is very typical of politicians (or businessmen) to say that Mr X has their full confidence a day before firing him, or rebelling against him, or whatever. It is dishonest, sure. But such dishonesty is in some ways, necessary to keep organisations running. Certainly the alternative - for people to immediately blurt out every doubt and negative thought they have about each other - is unthinkable.
Well she should probably not be making statements supporting the president's and his mental acuity as though she's actually aware and in the loop, eh?
This is a bit ridiculous to argue if the premise is that Kamala didn't know what apparently, as we have recently learned, was evident to tons of people in Biden's orbit for months and months.
Like, she must have been intentionally ignoring it at that point.
Nope. I don't go caring about how politicians treat each other in almost any context. The whole problem is that they're TOO loyal to each other and view their whole political class as an ingroup.
Funny, I would have argued she's MORE responsible and accountable to her constituents. The ones she lied to. But as we've seen, the Dems don't actually need their voters input, so maybe you're right.
So what, if any, punishment is proper for when the dishonesty actually had tangible consequences and is finally revealed to truth?
Or should we promote the dishonest person to a higher position?
I dunno, just seems like you'll get more dishonesty, which TO ME is a major detriment to having functional, accountable organizations.
There's a difference between something being known and something being known. There is no reason to believe that Kamala knew anything that wasn't published in the New York Times. And when I say "know", I don't mean in the smug way that people online apparently know everything, usually after it happens and rarely before. So what actually, should Kamala have said or done? Given a press conference to say that he stopped calling her? To say that he's old? To say that China should invade now while Biden's napping?
You do understand, I hope, the difference here? That actually, every level of government and business in the universe is built upon a certain expectation of loyalty and trust, and that is infinitely more true when we're talking about POTUS? It's not the job of the Vice President to brief the media against the President. If it's believed he's truly incapable, invoke the 25th. Otherwise, what exactly would be gained by gossipping to journalists who have no power?
There's no reason, either, that Kamala would, or should, see undermining the President and her party's Presidential candidate as good for the country.
As far as I know, there are no tangible consequences to the revelation that Biden is losing it, aside from him stepping aside as candidate, which is not even a tangible consequence yet (it might be in six months if Kamala becomes President instead of Trump). If there was some aspect of his responsibilities that was neglected, you'd say so. The real shocking part is not that the President is a vegetable, but that nobody really noticed any material difference in the operation of the country.
If I point out that there's literal millions of illegal border crossing happening on his watch what would you say to that?
Does "controlling the influx of foreign citizens entering the country" count as an "aspect of his responsibilities?"
Does allowing millions to enter and remain in the country without documentation count as 'neglect' of that aspect?
Then that's one. I could go on but I don't think that's the actual topic we're on.
I don't think you're adding much to my judgment of her character or fitness, just further deflections.
I stand by my position that I cannot choose Kamala due to demonstrated incompetence, dishonesty, and lack of actual tangible support for her candidacy because she skipped the normal process.
And you've provided the same weak excuses as everyone else. "SHE COULDN'T HAVE KNOWN!"
A competent leader would have. And would have said something. And wouldn't have lied.
So I will not reward the deceitful, incompetent leader with a promotion.
Oh, I don't think that Kamala is honest or competent. But I don't put this debacle on her. It's ultimately Biden's fault, he's the President and 100% responsible for his decision to seek reelection.
Uh, there's a point here where if the whole argument is that he's becoming senile, then his 'decision' to seek re-election is, in a deeper sense, NOT his responsibility, because SOMEBODY WHO NOTICED HIS DECLINE COULD HAVE STEPPED IN, noticing that his judgment is faulty.
There is in fact an existing precedent for removing an unfit president and of course the Democrats can choose to hold primaries and candidates can choose to run against Biden, so I think 100% is a tad high.
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