Komm, Kamala, Komm and Save the Nation!

[Stavros]

Not a 'heritage American', as Tucker Carlson might put it, and not eligible for vote either, but for different reasons. Imagine, it is 2024 and the argument comes from the first half of the 19th century. No going back? Sometimes it seems some Americans have never gone forward.

Republican group cites notorious Dred Scott ruling as reason Kamala Harris can’t be president | The Independent

[Luke Warm]

I do find it fascinating that someone who did so incredibly poorly in the primaries is now way out front.......
But then again, the Democrats didn't hold a process for nomination (Like Black Lives Matter wanted).....

She did pretty well in the primaries, one of the last people to drop out, and impressed people enough to be selected as VP.

As far as Black Lives Matter wanting an open primary at this late stage of the game… first of all, which chapter of Black Lives Matter? My understanding is that there are several different chapters. Also, as we have been told many times here, black voters are not a monolith. If one limited faction of black voters wants something, they only speak for themselves. It’s just one voice out of many. And an open convention would be a total disaster, they would have to invent that whole scenario out of thin air. Everybody who voted for Biden also voted for Kamala. If something were to happen to Biden, Kamala would automatically become president, as everyone knows. Kamala as candidate is clearly the fairest, most logical choice.

[Luke Warm]

Not a 'heritage American', as Tucker Carlson might put it, and not eligible for vote either, but for different reasons. Imagine, it is 2024 and the argument comes from the first half of the 19th century. No going back? Sometimes it seems some Americans have never gone forward.

Republican group cites notorious Dred Scott ruling as reason Kamala Harris can’t be president | The Independent

Today’s conservative movement is a joke. One moment they are strict originalists, the next they are making up new ideas that have nothing to do with the Constitution (example - the “major questions doctrine”). What these clowns do is start with the results that they want to see, and then work backwards from there to justify it. What do conservatives believe any more, besides unlimited access to guns, hating uppity women and queers, and giving tax breaks to millionaires? I hate what Trump has done to America but as a democrat, I love how MAGA has absolutely eviscerated conservatism. Trump has done more to single handedly destroy conservatism than any smelly hippy could ever dream of.

[MrFanti]

As far as Black Lives Matter wanting an open primary at this late stage of the game… first of all, which chapter of Black Lives Matter? .

The "main group"
Read this--> https://blacklivesmatter.com/black-l...ratic-nominee/

[Stavros]

The "main group"
Read this--> https://blacklivesmatter.com/black-l...ratic-nominee/

"“Black Lives Matter is independent of any political party...".

So, if they are not members of the Party, but

"Black Lives Matter demands that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) immediately host an informal, virtual snap primary across the country prior to the DNC convention in August. "

-Should they mind their own business instead of interfering in a Party they are not members of -or join the Party and influence it from within?

[Luke Warm]

Stavros makes a good point, that anyone who isn’t active in party politics shouldn’t expect to dictate the direction of the party. If you don’t participate in the party (or even vote, for that matter) nobody in the party cares about your opinion.

Also, I don’t think BLM would get a candidate that they like more, in an open primary. I think it’s very likely they would get a candidate that they liked even less.

A bunch of people in the media also wanted a last-minute open primary, and it was a bad idea when they pushed it too (I’m not singling out BLM)

[blackchubby38]

And of course I would appreciate your reaction to the Convention, and how you see the campaign(s) going from now to the 5th of November (which is Guy Fawkes night here in the UK, that moment when a band of men tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament -and failed).

As an Independent voter, I'm indifferent to political conventions. They have become 4 day jerk-off sessions for the respective parties. The only difference between the two being, that with the Republicans its about "look how bitter and angry we have become". With the Democrats, "its look how cool and progressive we are". I have no idea what their respective platforms were, which used to be a staple of the conventions.

As for how Kamala did, of course she didn't mention anything about immigration and the border. She is part of an administration that had three years to do something about it and pretty much failed in doing so. It was only until the year of the election did the Biden finally take executive action.

And before anybody runs up in here and says something about Trump telling the Republicans in Congress not to vote on the most recent immigration bill and therefore killing it. That's a byproduct of waiting until an election year to do something.

I will say this though. There is no denying the enthusiasm for Kamala Harris that was on display during the week of the convention and in the media. The shift in tone of many of the people who spoke was also noticeable. It was no longer about, "When they aim low, we aim high" and it was about taking the fight to the Trump and the MAGA Republicans. I don't think you would have saw the same thing if President Biden was still the nominee. Which has led me to come up with this conspiracy theory:

That even without his poor debate performance, the Democrats were going to find a way to replace Biden as the nominee, with invoking the 25th amendment as the nuclear option.

[MrFanti]

Also, I don’t think BLM would get a candidate that they like more, in an open primary. I think it’s very likely they would get a candidate that they liked even less.

We'll never know one way or the other since the Democrats didn't hold a "due process". I would debate that if BLM really wanted Harris, they would not have the point about having an open process.
I do know that during the primaries, there were quite a few of us within the Black community that did not like Harris and contrary to what Liberals believe, we don't all back someone solely on color of skin.

[Stavros]

As an Independent voter, I'm indifferent to political conventions. They have become 4 day jerk-off sessions for the respective parties. The only difference between the two being, that with the Republicans its about "look how bitter and angry we have become". With the Democrats, "its look how cool and progressive we are". I have no idea what their respective platforms were, which used to be a staple of the conventions.

As for how Kamala did, of course she didn't mention anything about immigration and the border. She is part of an administration that had three years to do something about it and pretty much failed in doing so. It was only until the year of the election did the Biden finally take executive action.

And before anybody runs up in here and says something about Trump telling the Republicans in Congress not to vote on the most recent immigration bill and therefore killing it. That's a byproduct of waiting until an election year to do something.

I will say this though. There is no denying the enthusiasm for Kamala Harris that was on display during the week of the convention and in the media. The shift in tone of many of the people who spoke was also noticeable. It was no longer about, "When they aim low, we aim high" and it was about taking the fight to the Trump and the MAGA Republicans. I don't think you would have saw the same thing if President Biden was still the nominee. Which has led me to come up with this conspiracy theory:

That even without his poor debate performance, the Democrats were going to find a way to replace Biden as the nominee, with invoking the 25th amendment as the nuclear option.

Thank you for your views. I think you are right on some things. With regard to the Border, what I think was missing was a candid discussion of what her mission was and what it did -or rather did not- achieve. The aim was to send her to Central America to address the origin of the problem of migration, yet it is clear that the causes of that Exit are beyond the ability of the Vice-President of the US or even the President(s) of Central America to control. At the core is corruption, violence and States that do not function in a world contaminated by the global trade in narcotics, where the largest single market is in the US itself. Harris could have given a speech about this, but too full of negatives to win her votes -best to avoid it altogether. Using the speech to campaign against recreational drug use in the US would also be futile, even if there is a strong message there -eg, 'every time you snort a line, someone in the South has had their time'.

Conferences in the US have long been ad campaigns that are carefully choreographed to trumpet success, and just as people were worried that Chicago in 2024 could be a re-run of Chicago 1968, so they underestimated the control at the top making sure this did not happen. But yes it does mean there is no serious presentation of policy, as that is no longer the purpose of the Conference just as the system of Primaries means that in most cases the candidate arrives knowing he or she will get the delegates votes. But if across the US, the party activists chose the Presidential candidates, who would they end up with?

Now consider why: in the UK, it used to be the case that the annual conference of the Labour Party was a policy making conference that established the agenda for the Party. The policies came from the members -the Parliamentary Party of MPs, the Trade Unions who helped create and still to this day are the major financial backers of the party, and the individual members who pay an annual fee and send in Resolutions to Conference as voted on by activists in the Constituency parties. And there is the problem and one that I think the Democrats have dealt with -activists are more radical than average voters. Thus, in 1981 the Labour Party Conference voted to abolish the UK's 'independent' nuclear deterrent, ie 'Ban The Bomb' became party policy; and it voted to Leave the European Union, 35 years before Brexit.

Because the Party then became saddled with policies that were trashed in the mostly pro-Thatcher media, when the succession of defeats in elections forced the party to change is messaging, Conference ceased to be a policy-making event, and under Blair it became like the American version, a holiday camp of positive messaging and feel-good messages, though one must say before Iraq there was a lot to feel good about. Just as the power of Murdoch's The Sun media at the time meant Blair had to invite Murdoch into No 10 Downing St to assure him that his plans for Labour had little or nothing to with the Party's Socialist origins, just as Harris has rejected the New Deal framework that led to increases in personal taxation, though these days nobody wants to point out that such taxes were at their highest when Eisenhower was President and the US experience economic growth that these days are the stuff of dreams.

Key takeaway: never let the activists in the party, or the delegates to Conference set the agenda. In fact: keep them out.

So I guess as an Independent you are living in a policy desert in which the media does not address your concerns, whatever your priorities are, and that when they do, it is all done as a confrontation between two sectarian campaigns that never accept that anything on the other side has any merit. You have ended up with a political landscape in which the Conferences tell you nothing, and in which a lot of day to day messaging doesn't tell you either. Referring back to my Hegel quote, who would ever have imagined a world in which one Presidential candidate refers to blow-jobs in campaigning literature as if that sort of language was normal? The media driven need for a constant stream of positive-negative messaging has corrupted the actuality of democracy, which was always supposed to be shaped by citizens debating which policy is the best for all, and then deciding to implement it.

It is a depressing situation, made worse by the fact that one of the candidates had refused to accept he lost one election, already claiming that the fixed elements of the previously 'rigged' election are still in place, even when his own people are busy shredding voter rolls and attempting to put in place partisan election workers who may yet do the fixing on his behalf. All of this inconceivable in years gone by.

I don't know if you feel disenfranchised, but I do understand how in this landscape of sectarian bitterness, the alternatives may be there, but also be ineffective in changing the game. You are stuck in a loop, and the only hope for some is that at least Trump will not be President.

None of which addresses the most difficult problem the US has right now: if social policy is 'returned to the States', it doesn't matter what the Federal Govt or Congress wants, the power of control has shifted to the States and I don't see how that process can be reversed unless the State itself changes, which would mean solid Republican States becoming Democrat, though I suppose it is not absolutely impossible.

[BostonBad]

Kamala's policies will make us more equal and poorer off as a result. Poor people will always exist so long as television, Doritos, cheap beer and sofas exist.

Trying to help people that won't help themselves by hurting others financially is unfair.

She's wrong on the economy, energy, the border and drugs.

In support she incarcerated over 1500 Black men for a little weed, yet hard, dangerous drugs enter our nation's borders everyday. She's a joke of a border czar.