Summary
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has criticized the Harris-Walz 2024 presidential campaign for playing it too “safe,” saying they should have held more in-person events and town halls.
In a Politico interview, Walz—known for labeling Trump and Vance as “weird”—blamed their cautious approach partly on the abbreviated 107-day campaign timeline after Harris became the nominee in August.
Using football terminology, he said Democrats were in a “prevent defense” when “we never had anything to lose, because I don’t think we were ever ahead.”
While acknowledging his share of responsibility for the loss, Walz is returning to the national spotlight and didn’t rule out a 2028 presidential run, saying, “I’m not saying no.”
If by safe you mean ignoring your constituents and only listening to your wealthy contemporaries. Then yes you were too safe.
If you read the article, that’s EXACTLY what he means. They told him the reason for this is that they could avoid “Having any public gaffees”
The idea is that by just not being Trump they were “Ahead”, and any public misstep would put Trump in the lead.
Walz now believes he and Harris were “never ahead” and it was arrogance that lead to them thinking they were the “Default Choice” for America
Democrat politicians should level with you all. Politicians need a tremendous amount of money to stay viable. They can only answer you their donors and they get donors only if they can accomplish their goals which they do with the support of their constituents. They don’t just support their constituents out of feel good stuff. Republicans give them a free pass to do whatever they want. So they get lots of donors. The left groups do not do they don’t get donors. We’re fucked.
Look into how many call centers are around Washington. They’re all call centers for the different politicians. They’re calling donors 24/7 trying to get more funding. All the time. The Reason leftist do not get anywhere, we don’t generate money
The DNC is pretty much always playing it too safe…
People really need to accept that the Democratic Party is the conservative party in the US. The Republican Party is the nationalist, authoritarian party. The US does not have a major progressive party.
They represent who votes for them.
Wanna change? Vote in the primaries. Hell, run in the primaries.
No shit. I didn’t feel like I was voting for progressives. It left like I was voting for “not Trump.” You could have put a piece of corn-bread at the podium and I would have voted for it instead of Trump. But still. I didn’t vote for them because I just loved what they had to say… Because they weren’t for changing anything. They wanted to keep the status quo where it was. They were only listening to their wealthy donors. It was sad to watch.
What an absolute fucking champ-
While acknowledging his share of responsibility for the loss, Walz is returning to the national spotlight and didn’t rule out a 2028 presidential run, saying, “I’m not saying no.”
Both of those things are such music to my ears (although ofc we should all know that it was Harris’s brother-in-law Uber exec lawyer who muzzled Walz and deserves that blame that Walz is selflessly taking on here).
Sadly I’m not even sure the US will exist by 2028.
If they had focused their campaign on helping the middle class, helping the poor, and acknowledged that Palestinians are people too, they would have a chance.
If they focused on environmental issues and the rights of individuals they would have had a chance.
If they had called Trump a criminal, because he is, at every stop, they would have had a chance.
If they did all of those things, and meant it, they would have won!
Instead they tried to appeal to business owners, Republicans who don’t like Trump, and people with money. That’s not what Democrats want. That’s not who Democrats are. That, is why they lost.
If they had focused their campaign on helping the middle class
I agree with most of that except this. They basically ONLY focused on the middle class. All the tax break incentives were great. But they never offered a damn thing for the working class. And that’s who they SHOULD have focused on.
That’s not who Democrats are.
unfortunately, yes, it is
Not only that, but they stuck to the corporate response on nearly every single question. They almost never went off script and it was just so fucking obvious and robotic. And for me, Tim’s complete lack of consideration for truth and evidence on its face and in a vacuum was nothing less than trumpian. In RL, I lie about being an OIF Veteran. At first it was shame, guilt, and self destructive tendencies but I’ve been to a LOT of therapy and I’m living better. But during that time I realized that there were others who would speak a bit more “freely” about things they may have done. If they assume you know nothing about the military then they can say whatever they want. Hearing someone mince words about their service is fairly common and IMHO - innocuous. It’s a nothing burger of exaggeration. Had Tim just admitted what was clearly on video and just said, “I was using more colorful language to affect the crowd, my bad.” I would have honestly commended him.
Instead, they lied. About the most mundane shit imaginable.
“the middle class” does not exist, they should focus on helping the homeless, jobless and working class.
This and/or healthcare for all, and it wouldnt have even been close, they would have won easily
Maybe they should have held primaries and let Americans choose who they wanted to be for the Democratic candidate. Harris was never going to win no matter how she campaigned.
They should have stuck with the “they’re weird”. And they definitely shouldn’t have tried courting Republican voters. All that yielded was pushing away Dem voters and Republican voters aren’t going to vote for Dems, they will just not show up for Trump. They shouldn’t have constantly called them a danger and threat because we’ve been saying that for years, and at some point people stop listening. Instead, they should have leaned into the “they’re weird” and the weird things they want to do. Making them sound like an existential threat, even if they are, just sounds like someone yelling the sky is falling, and people ignore it. But we’ve already seen how they can’t handle being mocked. So mock them. Belittle them, make them out to be the buffoons they are.
They were too far right. They pursued the “moderate republican” vote and lost spectacularly.
It is a politically suicidal idea. But they just can’t stop themselves. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is what they do best.
That was what they thought the “safe” thing to do was. “Decorum” and “reaching across the isle”. All that “when they go low, we go high!” shit, in the face of actual Nazis.
More like “when they get votes, we go bye”
Democrats think they’re in a fairy tale, still asleep having the American dream. It’s all offices with rich histories and Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades in their world. Their campaign donors are “good proud American businessmen (and WOMEN!) who show the world that evil communism isn’t the answer and only centrist cooperation can achieve freedom!”
It’s why they thought they’re could win by having a brat summer. They thought “we’re clearly the good guys, the ones who like civil rights, hell we’re running a half black, half Indian woman!”
And now that they fucking lost their answer is “wear pink and sing ‘We Shall Overcome’ on the house floor” when the ONLY ONE OF THEM to stand up to Trump, in the most minor of ways mind you, is censured - and fucking 10 OF THEM VOTED FOR IT! YOU WEAK, INEFFECTUAL ASSHOLES!
Decorum and traditional norms will not save you now. Get out and speak truth to power. Shit all over them on the news. EASY QUOTES THAT GO VIRAL. Vote as a bloc against everything they try to do. Filibuster, stall, use procedure against then whenever you can. BE FUCKING BULLIES for your cause, because they sure as shit have been doing it to you for 50 FUCKING YEARS. The SAME GODDAMN GUY WITH NIXON is running around dressed like a CARTOON VILLAIN who ties women to train tracks and is still RATFUCKING YOU
god DAMMIT if I’d have known that the majority of adults in this world were so goddamn stupid I’d have made much different decisions in my life
No excuse for the DNC, but I think seeking the “moderate Republicans” is a condition of their big donors. Every time the Democrats lose, since Reagan won, they move right because they think they lost because they weren’t conservative enough. And despite all polling that suggests otherwise, they keep doing it.
In general, they would get more money and power if they won, so why do they keep shooting themselves in the foot every fucking time? In my mind, even if you factor in that they don’t give a shit about the common people and are motivated by money, it only makes sense if they are being manipulated by their big donors to do this stupid shit.
They get far more money being the foil of leftist movements by making themselves the only option for anything less far right than the conservatives and then paying lip service to the left while continuing to support moderate conservative policy.
Every time the Democrats lose, since Reagan won, they move right because they think they lost because they weren’t conservative enough.
That was true thru Obama but it stopped with Biden. Biden was the most progressive president since LBJ, even though Dem voters could have chosen even more progressive candidates.
You mean touting the endorsement of war criminal Dick Cheney wasn’t a good thing?
Harris’s husband and brother in law steered Harris right into defeat. She shouldnt have trusted a word those two idiots said.
See that’s funny because every single left leaning moderate I know (including myself) thinks they were/are way too left and they need to “come back towards center” so to speak.
For people even sorta in the middle both parties appear to be playing a game where they sprint as fast as they can towards extremism and most people aren’t down with that.
They don’t need to try and court moderate Republicans. They need to gain back the moderate lefties they lost over the last 10+ years.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/24/politics/democratic-party-left-liberal-q-poll/index.html
I know that Lemmy has very different views on the topic, but you guys are the extreme left. So of course you find the Democrats trying to go back towards getting moderate vote again as the “wrong move”. Unfortunately you guys (I am speaking broadly at the general political leanings of Lemmy I know you guys arent all far left) are the minority of the total political spectrum these days.
Hey I’m curious, what do you think about the Democrats is “too far left”? Like actual policies because the article you linked lists 4 positions that aren’t a part of the parties platform and never have been.
I was really curious. Hopefully they will come back.
They did and are refusing to answer. They’re just a conservative that’s larping as a Democrat for internet points.
If you’re a ‘left leaning moderate’ that thinks the democrats are too left, you’re right-wing. The democratic party in the US is a center-right party.
My political stances didn’t change. I was firmly left in ~2012 and now you guys call me right wing. Who moved?
You do know the American political compass is special among political compasses, right? Compared to Europe (or even Canada), our definition of “moderate” is their equivalent of “conservative”. Likewise, our “left” is “center”.
Wishing the already-not-left Democratic Party starts shifting even more right is wishing for a two-party system where the options are conservatism and fascism.
I’m not talking about a global scale. I’m just talking about the US and how those terms are used here.
I’m not touching that broader conversation about political scales globally.
Here in the US both parties have been running in opposite directions and in most people’s eyes the left has been running faster. Hence the article. One of many that found similar data when polling americans. Most Americans are somewhere in the middle and that is crux of the issue.
Yeah, no.
The only thing that has shifted left in the Democratic Party is the public’s perception of them. They intentionally fuck over actual leftists (aka progressives) within their party while offering up milquetoast policies that look progressive on paper but are either completely toothless or designed to benefit to their corporate lobbyists first and foremost.
They’re a conservative party who used rainbow capitalism to masquerade as the comparatively left-wing alternative to the Republican Party. The reality is that every election cycle in the past two decades, they’re promising more “liberal” ideas while acting more conservative. Do you know who had a record number of deportations under their administration? It’s not Trump. It’s not Obama. It’s Biden.
Anybody that thinks the Democratic Party is sliding any direction other than right is either right-wing and arguing in bad faith, an anti-“woke” moron like Elon Musk, or consuming too much Fox News.
The old guard (both literal and figurative) need to get the fuck out of the way for the AOC’s and Crockett’s who will actually speak to power instead of cowering in the corners.
The other big problem is that politics have become such a negative impact on people’s lives in the US that regular people don’t want to run for office anymore, which is what we really need.
It’s to the point that I might prefer either a direct democracy with no representatives at all or electing reps via a lottery system. Most of the people with the desire to run for office, and all but a handful of those with the characteristics necessary to wade through the muck of special interests and campaign finance to actually get in office, are the kind of people you want as far away from power as possible.
The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke has government by lottery.
Test potential politicians for mental illnesses and make sure they have empathy etc. Make them do mandatory counselling. I mean, counsellors and mental health workers have to do this because they’re working with vulnerable people, but politicians don’t??? Their decisions affect everyone, including vulnerable people.
Impossible. You can’t have tests like that for candidates or voters. You just end up reinventing literacy tests.
People working in psychiatry are judged in this way, but not politicians? Politicians have way more responsibility over people’s lives. They should be under maximum scrutiny and we should be as sure as we can be that they’re the best of us, including morally. We already make them have health checks.
i don’t love the implication here that politicians are corrupt due to mental illness. they can be perfectly average mentally and still be corrupt because corruption is an innate and ever-present exploit of human psychology. empathetic people can be mistaken of where to place their empathy. mentally ill people can be a better option for a public office than someone else who is neurotypical, it all comes down to their platform and record of reliability. disability should not be mutually exclusive with ability to govern.
Power corrupts, yes, but you must see it in your life, and certainly if you’ve ever had dealings with the police or been mistreated by a teacher at school… Not all but some people in those roles are doing it precisely because they get a kick out of misusing their power, often when people are vulnerable and so can’t defend themselves.
This is a character flaw at a minimum but can be part of a mental illness. I don’t think the line is so definite between mental illness or health. People can have traits of illness without enough dysfunction to be diagnosed with the illness.
Disability which is incompatible with kindness, understanding, decency etc should not be allowed power over people, especially vulnerable people. Most people who were ill and were decent would not want to be in a position where they could harm people. Cluster B’s and such wouldn’t care. If they don’t care (consistently), then they shouldn’t be in a position of power over people. There are plenty of other jobs.
Looking at trump in particular the reliance on voters being good judges of character has to end, which means there must be a mechanism in place to prevent people like trump ever getting near power.
Yep. Every time I hear Jeffries talk I am thinking “shut the fuck up and go fetch AOC”.
Putting Liz Cheney on stage was a pretty risky move if you ask me.
Part of the problem was not saying the word Fascist enough
Harris initially said she was going to “prosecute” the case against Traitorapist Trump but then never did anything like that. All she had to do to win was use way more aggressive rhetoric. She never used the phrase “Convicted Criminal Trump” or “Treason Trump” She never used the phrase “legally certified rapist Trump”. She never pointed out that Trump hates the Free World and freedom and democracy. She never reminded voters that Trump had a 29% approval rating at the end of his term. She never pointed out that Trump is very disloyal to our longstanding core values. She never reminded people that Ted Cruz said that Trump “lies practically ever word that comes out of his mouth”.
Dems NEED much more aggressive candidates. No more of that business as usual shit.
Played it safe by not holding more in person events? What? They didn’t question the legitimacy of the winner when clearly there were outliers that needed to be investigated.
Gee, it’s almost as if all that bribe money ehhem I mean campaign finance donations have corrupted and shackled the Dems into consistently losing strategies.
Gee, it’s almost as if all that bribe money ehhem I mean campaign finance donations have corrupted and shackled the Dems into consistently losing strategies.
They would be getting 3x more money if they had consistently winning strategies.
If I may abuse a metaphor, the money they are getting now is the bird in the hand, and the money they could be getting from a enthusiastically supportive base is the two birds in the bush. Why chase what they might get, when they can hold on to what they have? Especially when they consider that letting go of the bird in the hand will cause it to fly straight over to join the birds already in their opponent’s hand.
Now, we might say the bird in the hand is poisonous, and should be discarded regardless, but a look at longtime party leadership makes me think they know, and they don’t care. Those people haven’t cared for a long time, if they ever did. As long as the likes of Pelosi can keep their own seat, it doesn’t matter how much damage is done to the country, they can keep enriching themselves while claiming to care.
Or, at least that’s what it looks like from where I’m standing.
deleted by creator
Says a lot about how out of touch and relatively conservative they are that they think their behavior was “safe”
Safe for whom??
Neocons.
