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Notes -
This weekend, I witnessed the Vibe Shift firsthand.
When we met for lunch, my mother’s first topic was the DNC. Who spoke and how great they sounded. How excited she was about the whole thing. She corrected me on “Comma-lah’s” name, which I’d apparently been mispronouncing, and used that as a springboard to discuss Kamala t-shirts. She didn’t mention that watching the DNC had been inspiring enough to get her volunteering to write postcards and stuff mailers. It was clear that she was all-in on the program without ever discussing policy—or even Donald Trump.
Dad chimed in a couple times to note that the overall messaging was much more positive, except for Bernie Sanders, who sounded unchanged from the last ten years. He appreciated this. I’d say he represents a section of the populace with immense distaste for Trump, but a comparable disdain for politicians who spend too much time talking about the man.
I had been under no illusions that Mom would vote anything but Democrat. Dad, not so sure; I’d have given good odds of a protest vote if the Libertarian candidate wasn’t such a non-entity. More likely that he abstained. But the last couple weeks appear to have left him much more comfortable voting D. The same has to be true for Mom, too, as I never saw this level of enthusiasm for anything Biden did or said.
That’s the Vibe Shift: apathy to enthusiasm.
It doesn’t take a coordinated blitz of friendly op-eds, since my parents were getting this straight from the TV. It doesn’t take an iron grip on that TV presentation; the DNC herds their cats, but they can’t convince Bill Clinton to get off stage. And it doesn’t even take a winning policy slate. The Democrat base, the casual never-Trumpers, maybe even the grillpillers? They’re just glad to have a candidate under the retirement age.
It would seem obvious to me that there are, in fact, a lot of Americans who like what the Democratic Party has on offer - obviously! A party can't survive for ages if no-one likes what it has on offer! - and are happy to have it represented by what has always seemed to me a basically (though not expectionally) competent politician (competent at politics, that is) who happened to have an off-season in 2020 and doesn't have an off-season now. Thus, there is not anything particularly special to what is happening now.
What I wonder about is how hard it seems to be for American conservatives to believe that there exists a non-astroturf sentiment (and what does astroturf even mean these days, anyway? Both major parties have well-honed political machines to make basically literally any movement existing within their purview at least partly astroturf if you choose to look at it that way) supporting American liberalism organically. Why wouldn't there be? The last four years have seemed to be quite good for a fair few Americans, materially, especially compared to what is the most natural comparison to me - Europe's continuing malaise and doldrums.
I have no trouble acknowledging that there are many people that support a bunch of Democrat policies that I don't like much. If, for example, someone just doesn't think they should have to pay their student loans, they're probably going to vote Democrat.
On the flip side, the enthusiasm for Harris is genuinely hard to understand. I accept that the firmware update worked as intended and people really mean it, but it is genuinely puzzling to me what they're seeing that they're excited about. The answer is apparently as simple as the fact that she's 60 and lucid rather than 80 and comatose, which is fine as far as it goes, but doesn't really get me to understanding excitement.
As a bit of an extra point, I think if you'd told me this was how it was going to go down a few years ago, I would have thought a bunch of Democrats would be annoyed that they didn't get a say in picking their candidate. Instead, everyone just happily agreed that they're coconut-pilled now, that they're not going back, and that it's time embrace what can be, unburdened by what has been. That, above all else, is why I can't stop thinking of the situation as embodying the NPC meme. It is very hard for me to believe that people authentically watched some teleprompter speech and thought, "wow, now I can't wait to get out there and campaign"; I don't think it was astroturfed, but I do think that this is almost entirely an exercise in groupthink.
The idea that you were, at one point, bound to lose (particularly immediately after the assassination attempt) and, all of a sudden, you're now bound to win is pretty exciting in itself, no?
One could argue that the Dems had a say in picking their candidate - in 2020, when they accepted Harris as the person who would take the reins if the President became killed or incapacitated. Now the President is sort of incapacitated - yes, it's a very odd sort of incapacitation that apparently means you can no longer run for Presidency but can still function as a President, technically - so Harris takes the reins for that one particular thing.
Personally, I'm not too sure whether the tension inherent in Biden being smoked out by the media and party elites has been quite resolved yet and might still come up and bite Harris on the butt after the convention fever is out, and it is certainly not confirmed that Harris's current lead will continue, but I guess it'll take until November to see what will happen.
huh? there was a primary for the VP slot that I didn't know about?
No, but there's an election where you vote for a ticket consisting of a president and a VP.
but that election is between the two major parties, not a selection of VP candidates.
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Look me in the eyes and tell me that you, personally, believe that this constitutes picking your candidate.
I dunno? It's not my job to pick the US Democratic Party's candidate.
A lot of people do seem to think that way, though, from the speed at which they united behind Kamala. I'm just spitballing for reasons why that happened. I could, of course, also just go with "they're dumb lib NPCs who do what they're told", but that doesn't seem quite the satisfactory explanation.
Well then - you might have your answer for why some people have such a hard time believing it's not an astroturf.
I don't see how that follows.
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