How Kamala Harris abandoned “saving democracy” and thus may have saved democracy

And?

does anyone know how to clean grime from white sidewall tires?🫠

I'm glad that Harris has changed the messaging and made it more relatable, but I'm a little confused. Isn't her campaign team mostly the same people as Biden's team who are now staying on to work for Harris? They could have been doing this kind of messaging all along.

Project 2025 may have been one of the reasons the message changed along with Trump saying you will never have to vote again.

The campaign infrastructure is the same, the brain trust is different. Biden’s brain trust is Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti. Harris’s people took over immediately.

“[Harris] speechwriter Steven Kelly and communications director Brian Fallon were at the residence, working with top adviser Adam Frankel, who was remote. They recast the 2024 presidential campaign around a new theme — a former prosecutor taking on the convicted criminal Donald Trump. Harris offered edits, cutting some details of the perpetrators she had put in prison. Then she added a line. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

“Team Biden and Team Harris were like two high-speed trains running in parallel, with folks on board tossing bags back and forth,” Flaherty said.

She's kept on several of Biden's campaign people but Mike Donilon has exited. She's a younger, more visionary candidate and needed a fresher, more visionary message. Sounds like they've got it honed, and are running with it (successfully, so far).

[quote] Harris offered edits, cutting some details of the perpetrators she had put in prison. Then she added a line. “So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type.”

That was the best line. It's awesome that she wrote it herself. She has great instincts, and she's turning out to be a far more impressive campaigner than anyone imagined.

I cheered when Kamala started referring to Iowa's recent "Trump Abortion Ban." That really resonates and will drive Donnie nuttier than he already is.

[quote]Fucking Boomers were going to drive the country into a ditch because they can’t shake their Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan fetishes. “Saving democracy” was only appealing to voters 65 and over.

Shut the fuck up, OP. Democracy is still at the center of the campaign; they've reframed it by positioning a prosecutor against a felon — which is brilliant wordsmithing — with a central focus on Project 2025 and working to maintain our hard-fought freedoms. What exactly do you think democracy is about? Are you so stupid that you can't see the connection? Ever heard of Reagan's "shining city on a hill"? What Harris and her team did was use words that appeal to the a younger audience, and specifically words drawn from, oh, I dunno, the leading pop artists' recent hits titles so that they can be meme-ified and drilled into the heads of people who get their news from TikTok and Instagram.

Before you revel in the brilliance of messaging to Millenials and Gen Z, remember two things: Harris is a boomer being born right at the cusp between them and Gen X, and it was Nancy Pelosi, who might even qualify as a member of the Greatest Generation she's so old, who was the driving force that convinced Biden to step aside. I'm thrilled that the Democratic party has turned the reins over to a younger generation; that Gen Z is finally starting to act like they have a stake in the country and the planet and step up to run for office, and that the endorsement of Harris activated the backbone of the Democratic party: black women.

For the first time in my life (and I'm the same age as Harris), the Democratic party has started acting like they want to win and are willing to do what it takes to win. We owe Biden an enormous debt of gratitude for both his victory in saving democracy in 2020, and his willingness to put his own ego aside for the good of the nation. To say that his message of "finishing the job" was somehow lacking is preposterous and insulting. And it's a divisive argument to posit intergenerational warfare within the Democratic party when it's time for us all to come together to fight for our rights, freedoms and the American way of life... you know, saving democracy for the next generation.

Hear hear, r9

The OP not only has an opinion he is now speaking for all Americans over 65 yo telling everyone what we think about things.

Guess what Biden's slogan and campaign that you “now “ don’t like was created by his senior and junior staff others who work for him who are not people 65 and over.

Its his staff that came up with his poorly run train wreck of a campaign you know , people your age,

The election has brought out the worst in a handful posters. There's the insane Pete troll(s), who make the Hillbots of yore seem considered, and there's the Boomer Hater Troll. I won't deny they're spectacularly annoying and heavy on volume, but that's about the end of it. So as accomplishments go, a pretty short list. Kinda like Pete.

[quote]a pretty short list. Kinda like Pete.

Give me the name of the Secretary of Transportation that has held the airlines to account for their dismal performance the way that Pete has.

We'll wait.

Darling, I couldn't even give you the name of a Secretary of Transportation. That's how inconsequential the job is.

I suppose we're meant to Google exactly how he "has held the airlines to account for their dismal performance", rather than you offering anything more than contrails about his magnificence?

I see the troll army has been awakened. Sorry, I thought this was a serious discussion. Nevermind.

You're not even good at dodging, R16. It's gonna be a hard week for you next week.

Really looking forward to it!

Health and Human Services. This might be a natural movie for Pete.

I take the piss out of his fangurls here, but he is a bright guy with a promising future. But he's got to win an election to a serious role - ideally governor - and show some innovative policy accomplishments.

Secretary of Desperation

[quote]Harris has shifted her campaign to “future”

Biden couldn’t campaign on the future. His future is a nursing home and then the grave.

[quote]It's gonna be a hard week for you next week.

Are you kidding? I've been looking forward to Kamala's pick announcement and then the DNC since Joe stepped aside. I think you have me mistaken for someone who thinks she should pick Pete; I do not. Yes, I'm a fan of the highest-ranking out gay man in our government, think he's been an exceptional Sec of Transportation, and would love to see him ascend to a governorship, VP or even POTUS, but I bear no illusions and accept the fact that he's young and has a lot of work to do. But don't get too excited for his demise: he's going places and will be a prominent politico in our future.

That said, trolls, the choice is narrowed to three: Shapiro, Kelly and Waltz. I doubt it will be Shapiro given the Gaza-children's sense of power at the moment. Both Kelly and Waltz bring the temptation of securing a battleground state, but Waltz is vulnerable simply due to his age (and we don't need to go there again). That leaves Kelly. I'll be happy with any of these three (and/or a few more).

[quote]future is a nursing home and then the grave.

Yours too, R21.

Walz is five months older than Harris, R22.

The goal here is winning not outing the vile character of Trump or educating the American public.. His supporters all know he is a liar and don't care. They certainly have no real interest in the structure of our constitutional republic. They know nothing about the Constriction except for general lip service to it and maybe the First and Second Amendments.

[quote]Democracy is still at the center of the campaign; they've reframed it by positioning a prosecutor against a felon — which is brilliant wordsmithing — with a central focus on Project 2025 and working to maintain our hard-fought freedoms. What exactly do you think democracy is about?

Voting. That is all democracy is. Voting. That’s why it has no resonance with young people; it does not mean much. We don’t even live in a democracy; we live in a republic.

Reframing the argument as prosecutor versus felon is not democracy. That is [bold]justice[/bold]. That people can understand.

[quote]Ever heard of Reagan's "shining city on a hill"

Yes. And I also remember Mario Cuomo’s response, delivered in San Francisco.

[quote]A shining city is perhaps all the President sees from the portico of the White House and the veranda of his ranch, where everyone seems to be doing well. But there's another city; there's another part to the shining the city; the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one; where students can't afford the education they need, and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate. In this part of the city there are more poor than ever, more families in trouble, more and more people who need help but can't find it. Even worse: There are elderly people who tremble in the basements of the houses there. And there are people who sleep in the city streets, in the gutter, where the glitter doesn't show. There are ghettos where thousands of young people, without a job or an education, give their lives away to drug dealers every day.

That speech is about justice.

Framing the argument about protecting democracy is ridiculous because democracy has supposedly existed since 1776 when you could own another person. “We must protect our sacred institutions” is not a liberal argument, it’s a conservative one. Biden was running a conservative campaign which is why the Democratic base was ABANDONING him.

[quote]To say that his message of "finishing the job" was somehow lacking is preposterous and insulting.

An 82 year old man in serious decline running for reelection, instead of handing the reigns to his - now, clearly for all to see, exceptionally talented vice president, a woman of color - is preposterous and insulting.

A bit of rewriting with the benefit of hindsight there, R25.

Biden did not have the option to hand the reins to Harris or anybody. He could only either run or not. Had he decided earlier, he would have prompted the usual open process and that does not guarantee Harris would have prevailed. She is doing exceptionally well at present, but it was hardly unanimously expected at the moment the reins passed under unusual circumstances.

Biden was struggling because of his age, and plummeted after that train wreck performance at the debate. The institutional argument had nothing to do with it.

But those are my revisions, not yours.

The move was the difference between having your objective as a strategy and enacting strategies to achieve your objective.

For the Biden team, “saving democracy” was objective, strategy, and message. Which works when your audience buys in to what that means. But look at the American electorate and tell me they understand those civic consequences.

This is a bit more intelligent. The goal is still to save democracy, but the strategy is to highlight what the loss of democracy looks and feels like on an example basis. Illustrate the negative consequences of Project 2025 with tangible examples. And the messaging is much simpler: these ideas are strange and un-American and the people driving them are a weirdos with an unhealthy obsession with intruding into freedoms you take for granted.

Hopefully they’ll stay on strategy and on message. It works much better with across a younger and less civic-aware populace who only wants to know how it affects them personally.

And so Biden did have the reins to Harris, R25. And in doing so, he protected our sacred institutions. Not all arguments remain in one political camp or the other forever; what we're witnessing is akin to the polar-flip in the parties dating back to the Civil Rights era when evangelicals abandoned the Democrats and sealed when Reagan invited them into the GOP.

Agreed, R27. The Biden campaign was talking to much about saving democracy and using the wrong words to do it.

[quote] And so Biden did have the reins to Harris, [R25]. And in doing so, he protected our sacred institutions.

But he did it much too late and we are still not favored to win the election. Our sacred institutions are very much in danger.

And one of those sacred institutions is the primary system. If you really believed in democracy, then the next President should have been chosen through the primary system (and not the rigged one the DNC ensured for Biden). Democrats were deprived of that because of Biden’s arrogance.

Spilled milk.