Every headline about this man is either, "Trump unveils proposal for concentration camps," or, "Trump claims he invented waffles, poops pants at PA rally." There's no in between.

Slightly further away in the sequel trilogies, but slightly closer because it was a prequel.

In the lead up to the release of Episode 1, the Sci-Fi channel ran some bumpers of fans waiting in line arguing with each other. One of them said something to the effect of, "Given that this is a prequel, and that we know the universe is expanding, shouldn't the crawler read, 'A slightly less long time ago in a Galaxy slight less far away...'" 25 years later and that still pops into my head sometimes.

Well, first, let's look at the last 6 elections. In 2000, Al Gore ran a centrist campaign and lost. 2004, John Kerry ran a centrist campaign and lost. 2008, Barack Obama ran a very progressive campaign, promising universal healthcare, Wall Street reform, homeowner bailouts, closing Guantanamo...he wound up governing from the center, but he ran far to the left (by American standards). Even in 2012, the center of his reelection campaign was dealing with wealth inequality, and he won despite being called a communist. In 2016...well, we all know what happened there...and 2020, Biden, ran on a very progressive platform and strong support for labor (and he was actually surprisingly committed to it, especially student loan forgiveness).

But election results have many factors and are open to interpretation, so let's look at some data, specifically from 2016. Clinton and the Democrats' strategy was to go to the center to pick up moderate Republicans, but the data shows they failed spectacularly. Clinton picked up about 4% of voters who identified as Republican by going to the center, while Trump picked up 5% of Democrats by going far-right. Clinton got 42% of Independents, Trump got 43%. Even in the target demographic, people with mixed political views (AKA moderates), she got 42% to Trump's 48%. And even if she'd won the center, it's not clear that it would have helped much, as there's relatively new data that shows that moderates are less likely to get involved in politics, including voting. In short, 2016 is a case study in why centrism is a losing strategy.

It's also worth noting that, overall, Americans are not centrist. Sure, if you ask them if they like socialism, the results are pretty devisive, but if you ask them about progressive policies, they're all for them: raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, single-payer healthcare, and even Universal Basic Income enjoy widespread support across the country. Shrinking away from these policies in favor of more moderate positions simply doesn't make sense.

I broke this down in another comment, but there's really no evidence that this moderate strategy will work. Democrats win when their base turns out, and they lose when their base isn't motivated. Watching Harris campaign with Liz Cheney doesn't motivate the base. They may pick up some moderate voters in PA (though, again, it didn't work in 2016, so there's no reason to think it will work now), but it's not going to matter if she loses Michigan because of a hard-right position on Israel.

There's also the fact that this, "centrist liberal," strategy worked exactly once in 1992 (and that may have had more to do with Ross Perot than anything else), but now there's an entire pundit and strategist class built around it. Most of these people don't mind losing elections if it means they can keep their jobs.

Those are the vibes that I've been getting in the last month and it's scaring the shit out of me.

Thank you, this is a spectacular example of how Democrats use faulty logic and bad faith arguments to defeat themselves. I'm going to break it down for everybody so we can all understand why they keep losing.

The Harris campaign must pursue those voters in order to win. They are the voters who live in battleground states.

This is confidently stated as fact, but not only is there no evidence to support this statement, there's strong evidence against it. This is, at its core, the same statement that Chuck Schumer made when predicting a Democratic sweep in 2016:

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin."

Not only did this strategy fail spectacularly in 2016, we're watching it fail in 2024; Harris has recently dropped in all crucial swing states. The only thing backing up this argument is its proponents' self-confidence (or self-delusion).

Moving on:

Pursuing a hard-left strategy the way everyone on lemmy wants is a guaranteed loss.

Here, we leave behind false assertions and move into bad-faith arguments. Notice how the user completely ignored the voters I mentioned (her base) in order to pivot to what they think is an easier target: Lemmy users. Sure, if Kamala Harris came out in support of the abolition of capitalism, she'd lose, but no (or at least no one serious) is saying she'd win if she did.

What people are actually saying is much more tangible and and reasonable: sharpen your criticism of Israel and increase your Palestinian outreach if you want to win Michigan; don't just talk about the middle-class, get your working-class base out with transformative social programs (like Biden proposed in 2020; stop hanging out with Liz Fucking Cheney, for Christ sake. These are all criticisms the user sidestepped by creating a false dichotomy between the, "hard-left," and Harris' current strategy.

Finally:

This is the problem with the non-proportional EC makeup. Unfortunately it’s not going to change any time soon because the party who wins got there on the old system.

This is unrelated, but incorrect. The Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 elections; they would abolish the Electoral College in a heartbeat, but it would require a constitutional amendment, which they'll never get passed. It has nothing to do with the fact that, "the party who wins got there on the old system."

Anyway, this is how the Democrats continuously fail. First, they convinced themselves that the only way to win is to get centrist voters, even though evidence doesn't bear that out. Next, they dismiss criticism of this strategy as, "far-left." Finally, if they lose (which is looking alarming possible this election), they will blame leftists for not supporting them strongly enough, thus allowing them to continue the same strategy next election without self-reflection...assuming there is a next election, which no longer feels like a given.

Dathon has a look on his face that says, "The makeup team says I can't eat anything because it'll ruin my prosthetics, but fine, I guess you'll just have your lunch right in front of me."

Super weird that your reaction to an article about how Kamala Harris is losing crucial Muslim support in Michigan is, "Nice try , Russians!" How brain-poisoned have you become that you're rejecting inconvenient information?

Because Trump is energizing his base with lies and propaganda designed to get them angry and motivated, while Kamala has squandered the enthusiasm her base had for her by pursuing disaffected center-right never-Trumpers. It's basically the same strategy Hillary Clinton ran in 2016 and it's terrifying to watch the Democrats gamble on it yet again.

Yeah, earlier in her campaign, I was optimistic that she was just trying not to undermine Biden's foreign policy, and that she would eventually take an at least slightly more critical position on Israel. So far, though, she's seems entirely committed to Israel's escalating violence, and she won't even make the smallest gesture towards the Palestinian community. I didn't expect her to denounce Israel, but staying lock-step with Biden on this is looking like political suicide.

You probably didn't have early-onset childhood schizophrenia. This girl was undiagnosed at the time and literally thought she was talking to Slender Man, as well as Severus Snape, unicorns, and ghosts. I'm not saying she should be released, but she's been in treatment for a decade, and she's requesting the court appoint an expert to evaluate her and make a recommendation about her release. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Huh, haven't had any issues with deadzone. If anything, the deadzone is too small, especially on Goldeneye, where the sensitivity felt way too high for the software. But I found it a super smooth upgrade for pretty much everything else, especially Kart and platformers. I just looked up those steel sticks though, and they look awesome! I bet that has a nice, authentic feel to it.

Oddjob actually wasn't that bad once you realized he was at perfect headshot height when you crouched. I wrecked a lot of kids who thought Oddjob was a secret weapon.

On a related note, they can now refurbish your N64 conrollers with mini GameCube joysticks and they're fucking SICK.

No, this is literally where the U.S. falls on a global political spectrum. The Democrats would be considered center-right in most other nations. Even by their own historical standards, they're center right; if you took a Democrat from 1975 and transported them to 1995, they'd ask you why the party had adopted the Republicans' fiscal policies.

Given how Harris was chosen, I'm really not sure this is the year to make that argument.

Might want to add, "Does it consent?" to the end of that.

You think that media moguls are secretly supporting Trump, even though he has spent 8 years attacking their outlets and even recently threatened to revoke CBS' license, so they would ostensibly be acting against their self interest, while also leaving no evidence or paper trail to prove this support exists. Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, dude! Anyway, it's been fun watching how far you'll go to avoid admitting you fell for a fake meme, but it seems like we're hitting a wall here, so...bye!