He then ends up suggesting the reason they don’t like Harris is because she’s a woman -

“Because part of it makes me think – and I’m speaking to men directly – part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”

  • chemical_cutthroat@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Black celebrities have been poisoning the community against Obama for over a decade now. Parading him around as the “token black guy” of the liberal movement isn’t the move. Making policies that help the community, and actually getting them passed, is what will make the difference. Until the Democrats start actually giving a shit about black people, instead of virtue signalling, then the black voter doesn’t have any reason to vote. No one is on their side. Will Kamala change that? Honestly, probably not. Tim Walz has a better chance of that.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      Making policies that help the community, and actually getting them passed, is what will make the difference.

      We can’t pass any policy anywhere in the country without bipartisan support and the blessing of the courts. Since the Republicans are in opposition and the courts are stacked with cranks, that means the best we can promise is that one day we’ll have a Democrat Supermajority capable of passing compromise legislation with its more right-wing members.

      Sorry, but these are just the rules, which are immutable and which we must abide by no matter how much pain they cause to our constituents.

      Also, please note that conservatives are fully unbound by these rules. They can and will inflict incalculable harm on you if any single branch is in their control. There is, unfortunately, nothing liberals can do about this because interrupting the harm caused by the rules-breakers would be against the rules.

      So the message we need to bring to black voters is that they only have themselves to blame if things get worse. It’s cake or death and we’re all out of cake.

      No one is on their side. Will Kamala change that? Honestly, probably not. Tim Walz has a better chance of that.

      Glances at Walz’s record during the Minnesota BLM protests

      Oof. I would not bank on it.

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        2 months ago

        The answer when facing opposition isn’t to throw up your hands and declare it too difficult. Keep pushing, keep fighting, keep trying to improve the lives of marginalized groups. The fact that the Democrats aren’t willing to put in the effort is all you need to know for the lackluster support.

        Side note, don’t fucking blame marginalized people when things go sideways.

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          The answer when facing opposition isn’t to throw up your hands and declare it too difficult. Keep pushing

          That is, unfortunately, not the message that modern liberals seem to adhere to.

          Side note, don’t fucking blame marginalized people when things go sideways.

          But it’s the American Way.

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            2 months ago

            Liberals know voters want to hear the message ‘vote for me and I will fix the problems’.

            They know voters would be turned off by the more accurate message: vote for me and we can turn the steering wheel of this massive machine slightly left for 4 years, and if we keep that up for a few cycles we can eventually solve the problems.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              They know voters would be turned off by the more accurate message: vote for me and we can turn the steering wheel of this massive machine slightly left for 4 years

              That’s exactly the message they’ve been running on since 2008.

              Obama’s “the long arc of history bends towards progress” speech was this practically verbatium. And it was popular precisely because it was seen as modest and achievable. The problem is that Obama didn’t achieve it. He spent eight years treading water from the Bush Era, during which he normalized a bunch of the illegal, unconscionable, and ultimately detrimental practices of the Bush Administration before handing the reins over to… Donald Trump.

              History didn’t bend towards progress. It whipped directly back in the face of those enthusiastic moderates. But the only lesson it appears to have taught them is that even Obama was too ambitious and too extreme, despite bending over backwards to appease moderate Republicans. So Biden stepped in as an even more conservative version of Obama. Two years into office, he too gets hit with a backlash, which the party took to conclude they were too radical under Biden.

              Now we’ve got Harris, a candidate who has fallen fully in line with the Cheney family on litany of domestic and foreign policy issues. Will this turn voters off? Will it prove that the Cheneys are too left-wing for the American voter? Only time will tell.

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                2 months ago

                Biden stepped in as an even more conservative version of Obama. Two years into office, he too gets hit with a backlash, which the party took to conclude they were too radical under Biden.

                Biden has been firmly left of Obama on economics, environmental, and foreign policy.

                What makes you say Biden has been more conservative? What aspects specifically

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  Biden has been firmly left of Obama

                  He campaigned by co-opting a number of Bernie’s platforms in 2020 and immediately abandoned them on taking office.

                  What makes you say Biden has been more conservative?

                  He cut back a bunch of progressive social programs on the back end of COVID, then ratcheted up military and police spending and sent big financial kickbacks to a bunch of morbund corporate interests. His DOJ has fixated on drug crime and immigration crime, while going nearly blind to financial crime and civil rights abuses. O&G drilling surged on his watch, particularly on public lands. He’s been steadily privatizing everything from the post office to the space program.

                  Dude’s to the right of Ronald Reagan.

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        No one to blame but themselves? That’s a great message.

        “Hey, you’ve been marginalized your entire life by a system that has hated every generation of your family because of the color of your skin. I’ve got news for you, bucko, fix my problems, or I’ll just keep blaming you.”

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        Isn’t the problem when the Democrats controlled the house and senate with Obama he did nothing with it.

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          I’m not an American, but didn’t Obama’s administration make an enormous positive change to healthcare in the US via the ACA?

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            They did, and shit like that takes years to make happen thanks to how slow the government was intentionally set up to be.

            But that’s a convenient fact that is often left out.

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            No, it was very similar to a 1993 republican backed bill. It still left millions of people without care and did nothing to curb the actual cause of runaway medical costs in the US. Obama campaigned on getting affordable healthcare for all Americans then in classic Dem fashion intentionally fumbled the plan because the same wealthy donors that fund republicans also control the Dems.

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          Obama explicitly stated that his goal for immigration and climate reform was 70-80 “Yes” votes in the Senate. He spent months attempting to negotiate with Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and Susan Collins, who just ran him in a big circle to burn out the clock until mid-terms.

      • archomrade [he/him]OP
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        So the message we need to bring to black voters is that they only have themselves to blame if things get worse. It’s cake or death and we’re all out of cake.

        Is that sarcasm…? Honestly, I can’t tell.

        If it’s earnest, then i would have to guess that what you’re after isn’t electoral victory but radicalization. I’m not sure how you expect to tell a marginalized minority ‘you have only yourself to blame’ and have them turn out for you, that’s just… Hopeless?

        It’s an excellent message to turn progressives into anarchists and revolutionaries, though, and I’m actually kind of here for it.

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    Obama is full of shit on this, and a person worth ~$150 million assuming black men’s political motivations are so superficial is pretty upsetting to read regardless of his race. The issue isn’t gender, at least not primarily, but rather the Democrats’ growing disconnect with working-class voters of color. Harris (a woman) is actually performing better than Biden (a man) did with Black voters, but that doesn’t change the broader trend: the Democratic Party is steadily losing support among people of color, particularly those without college degrees. Instead of addressing economic and social concerns that matter to these communities, Democrats seem to be pushing them away, allowing Republicans to gain ground. Obama implying black men are sexist if they don’t vote for Harris instead of recognizing this complexity feeds the trend of alienating core democratic constituencies.

    This trend is most evident in the party’s shift toward becoming the choice of wealthy, college-educated white voters. As polarization based on education deepens, Democrats are doing better with white voters who have college degrees, but they’re struggling to maintain their traditional base. Black, Hispanic, and working-class voters without degrees are feeling left behind.

    What we’re seeing is a realignment where the Democrats are slowly becoming the party of affluent, educated white voters, while Republicans are making gains with working-class and nonwhite voters. The erosion of Democratic support among these key constituencies isn’t because voters don’t want to back a woman—it’s because the party has lost touch with the issues that matter to them. If this continues, the demographic foundations that have long been assumed to be Democratic strongholds could shift in the GOP’s favor.

    Recent polling data, including surveys from sources like New York Times/Siena and NBC News/Telemundo, highlights these shifts in voter behavior and the growing educational divide within party support, and it has been covered by Nate Silver and the NYT in terms of racial-political depolarization, so this isn’t just me talking out of my ass.

    Edit: It is deeply ironic to see all these anonymous downvotes for a person of color daring to call attention to the growing white affluence of the Democratic Party. It’s as if pointing this out is too much for some people to handle, which really speaks directly to the issue.

    I imagine this situation would be even more dire if democrats weren’t running against a literal fascist. One can’t simply downvote away the reality that democrats are steadily losing the support of racialized minorities and the working class. Imagine how much that support will erode once the Republicans aren’t running Orange Jesus.

    • GeneralInterest@lemmy.world
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      the Democrats are slowly becoming the party of affluent, educated white voters

      Except if your name is Elon Musk, or Peter Thiel, or David Sacks, or you’re an affluent educated white supporter of them…

      Some of your points might well be supported by polling (I don’t know enough to say) but I’m sure there are plenty of affluent educated whites who support Trump.

      • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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        Yes, obviously. The point is that the democratic party has consistently become more and more the party of white, affluent, and college educated people. That has not historically been the case, and democrats seem to get mad when people point out that their base is shifting.

        And the super wealthy are like their own bizarro class. It’s quite easy to list off names of billionaire democratic supporters as well. I am talking more about Tesla owners (before Musk took the mask off) than the owner of Tesla, if that makes sense.

        • GeneralInterest@lemmy.world
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          Here’s just one source but it shows the Dems’ lead over the GOP declining among white college grads between 2016 and 2020. But the Dems’ lead over the GOP among all college grads, of any race, increased between those elections.

          Sure that’s only one source. Maybe there are polls supporting what you say, I dunno. I could be totally wrong with what I’m saying.

          • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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            Thanks for sharing that source. While it shows a small decline in the Democrats’ lead among white college graduates, this is largely a blip compared to broader and longitudinal trends if you extend this further and bring it current. The rise of affluent, college-educated white voters in the Democratic base is well-documented, including in the sources I originally mentioned as well as Brookings, Politico, and Pew itself. This slight decline reflects specific dynamics in the 2020 election, such as a shift in voter focus toward economic issues and populist appeals. Overall, affluent, educated, and suburban whites continue to strengthen their role in the party, confirming the growing influence of white affluence in the Democratic coalition.

            It’s strange to me that this fact is so upsetting to people. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a well-documented change emerging in the demographic base of democratic support.

            Edit: look at non-college-graduate Hispanic support even in this small snapshot. It’s pretty wild, and it’s something democrats will have to contend with eventually. Ideally once Trump is out of the picture.

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                Hey, all else aside, I really appreciate you for constructively adding to the conversation and being so humble. In a post that took me a while to research and write that seemingly induced a lot of denialist-downvotes, it is refreshing to at least see someone willing to listen and think about it.

                • GeneralInterest@lemmy.world
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                  Well I’m just saying there’s certainly a lot of statistics I haven’t seen.

                  Also in the Pew polling I linked to, it shows the Democrat lead among black college grads increasing between the 2018 mid-terms and 2020. It’s only a 1 point difference but at least it hasn’t gone backwards.

                  Maybe the Dems are doing better with more educated voters, but not necessarily white ones. I dunno. I guess for these matters a person would have to see lots of data points to really understand the trends going on.

      • archomrade [he/him]OP
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        2 months ago

        One party is reactionary populism, the other is pinkwashed corporatism

        Neither one is responsive to minority working-class interests, but they both support white and capitalist-class interests.

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        Truth. To be clear, I’m not trying to dismiss that fact. But it’s important to realize this is a “men” problem, not exclusively or especially a “black men” problem. There’s more going on here in terms of political realignment.

        To be clear, black voters still vote overwhelmingly democratic, but it’s continued to shift over the last eight years, with Trump continually picking up more and more POC votes. He doubled black support, and the Hispanic vote is the closest to even it’s ever been – Harris still leads by 14 points in that demographic, but that’s a big change that is part of a broader trend.

      • archomrade [he/him]OP
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        Newsflash: Democrats shouldn’t be taking minority votes for granted or dismissing their concerns as veiled misogyny

    • archomrade [he/him]OP
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      Democrats just can’t help themselves when it comes to condescending to their constituents, it seems. Giving big 2016 Hillary vibes

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        I’ve read your posts before, bro. You’re a clown shoe. My post, this article, and Obama’s comments have nothing to do with you.

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          Well you are responding to the article I posted, so it does have something to do with me…?

          Not sure what inspired the hostility, I was agreeing with you, but to each his own I guess.

          edit: lmao, you must have a fan, because someone definitely is downvoting you immediately but it aint me

      • archomrade [he/him]OP
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        2 months ago

        When people interpet your intent to vote for someone as an endorsement, but the candidate is un-endorseable, the only reasonable response to this question is “none of your fucking business”

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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          Okay keep your endorsement to yourself but look around at all the women who Trump and McConnell raped by packing the Court and remember, it was voters who “just couldn’t quite trust Hillary” who made that happen. Nobody will ever be good enough for you, so you would rather we fall to the Nazis.

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            Hillary lost because she openly mocked and derided the people she needed to vote for her, marginalized people who had real needs that weren’t being met by her policy proposals and who were urging her to take more progressive stances.

            so you would rather we fall to the Nazis

            Better to fall to the nazis fighting them than welcome them to the table. Fuck the Cheney’s, and fuck the democrats for proudly welcoming them into their coalition and then condescending to voters who rightfully see them as war-mongering demons.

            Democrats will lose if they keep daring people not to vote for them rather than addressing the interests of their constituents. It is the single worst campaign strategy I’ve ever seen, and it amazes me that it isn’t even the first time they’ve decided to fuck themselves in the ass with it.

            • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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              I heard a commentator yesterday state: “Democrats can not fail; they can only “be failed” by their voters.”

              Its always “the voters” who are to blame when Democrats fail. I’m not interested in voting for the party of Cheney; I’m not interested in voting for a pro-genocide party. And maybe I’ll be able to suck it up enough to as so many would have you believe, “do the right thing”, as if voting for a pro-genoicde, pro-buisness, now also neo-conservative party is really that. But what really matters is that there are people far more who are better than I, who simply won’t vote in favor of a genocide. But yeah Obama. Keep telling the voters its their fault.

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                It’s amazing how one country committing genocide on another 6,000 miles away from the US is the fault of the Democrats.

                The moment I hear anyone talk about genocide when referring to the US elections, I write them off as a useful idiot or Russian troll.

                • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  The moment I hear anyone talk about genocide when referring to the US elections, I write them off as a useful idiot or Russian troll.

                  Glad to know that Ukrainians getting murdered by Republican polices isn’t enough for you. China killing Uyghurs? Not important for this dude. Moral consistency is for suckers!

                  That’s how you sound right now. Murder is bad, and I am opposed to it whenever its happening. Be it neighbors, countries, systemic, or individual. Sorry that being aginast to my tax dollars going to helping people be free from harm and helping people live better lives is somehow too much of a “single issue”.

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                Democrats will tell you that nothing can change in FPTP voting, and in then spend 100% of their time every 2 years directing their efforts towards a FPTP election system.

                I swear to god, electoralism is sisyphus’ fucking boulder, and libs are completely convinced that if they push that damned thing up the mountain just a few more times they’ll finally escape the task

          • GlobalCompatriot@lemm.ee
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            Democrats are directly responsible for 3 of the current conservative justices that took away women’s rights. Hillary’s hubris and arrogance caused her to lose.

            • CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world
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              And here I thought it was not having the needed amount of votes that caused her to lose.

              I’m sick of people blaming Hillary‘s campaign for all the horrible shit that ensued afterwards. Candidates campaign because it is in their best interest to do so, but at the end of the day, this is our government. It’s our job as citizens to educate ourselves on the candidates, the voting system, and the stakes of the election. We should be figuring out who best to vote for, whether they are good at campaigning or not.

              So, while Hillary might have won with a better campaign, the blame for Trump getting into power firmly rests with the voting public. We knew what kind of person Trump was before he was elected, and we knew there was a vacant Supreme Court seat.

              Don’t blame it on the fact that people weren’t manipulated well enough by a giant ad campaign.

              • GlobalCompatriot@lemm.ee
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                Dems never learn from their mistakes, because they never take accountability for their actions. Always blaming someone else for their failures

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      Not really. We had already elected delegates and those same delegates cast their votes.

      • Tiefling IRL@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        We also voted for Biden-Harris knowing that Harris was backup in case anything happened to Biden

        (Disclaimer, am PoC but not Black)

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        No buddy Biden stepped down. There should have been emergency primaries, Harris would have won but I enjoy the illusion of choice.

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        Sure I agree people voted Biden/Harris, and ill vote for the best choice but I at least would like the choice. That is the only bad taste in mouth.