Ha ha, reminds me of Murcs Law [1].
The problem is that there was no primary. That really (really) hurt Democrats not only for that election cycle, but for future ones too, where candidates could have made their names known even if they did not end up getting the nomination.
I think a primary would have led to worse results for the Dems: candidates snipping at each on the eve of an elections is a gift to the opposing candidate; who can add a final 5-seconds stinger to the end of the many intra-party attack ads against the nominee to say "I am _, and I approve of this message".
No, the damage was done before that. Harris ran the best campaign she was capable of running. We know that because she ran a terrible campaign in 2019, even with all the Obama people backing her. I went to the Iowa primary campaigning in 2019. I saw Harris several times, including at a small event focused at Asians. She’s an abysmal retail politician. Warren was hugging people and taking selfies while Harris was hiding in her tour bus. Harris is obviously an introvert who doesn’t really like people.
Given Biden’s age and early talk of being a one-term president, the smart choice was to nominate Elizabeth Warren, who is a fantastic campaigner. But Harris was the choice to appease the identity activists. They killed Dems’ chances in 2024 even before Biden’s term began. That’s a gift that will keep giving because South Carolina is now Democrats’ first primary. If Harris runs again she’s virtually guaranteed to begin the campaign with a strong primary start.
The better choice would have been Biden stepping out earlier and having a real primary, of course.
That's the reverse: Warren wasn't nominated because she's progressive and beloved by people who care most about diversity.
The centrist Dems supported Harris - Biden's VP - and hate progressives more than they hate Republicans (they do everything to show how they work with Republicans) - look at the NYC mayoral race, where the Dem candidate was opposed or not supported by many Dem leaders.
And back when we had an actual primary (rigged, with an overcrowded field), Warren was the choice to appease the 'progressive' identity activists who attempted, with the help of Warren, to tar & feather Bernie as an old white misogynist. They all pretended to have some knock-off version of Medicare For All because it polled so well, only to rugpull the concept as soon as Bernie was booted out.
Dems know how to win, but it's against capital's wishes, so they obey accordingly as controlled opposition via illusory democracy and choice.
What's your stance? "We should just ask the Republicans nicely to stop"? Will that work? What happens if they just keep being evil?
When examining why someone lost you generally don't insinuate that the loser did everything right and the other side are just bad people and that's why they won. That's a recipe for learning nothing and repeating the same mistake over and over again. Which unfortunately seems to be the national policy position.
[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/08/harris-biden-the-vi...
But it probably wouldn't have made a difference in the end. It was all mostly over when Biden decided to run again in the first place. Kamala moved numbers in states she campaigned in, and she probably could have moved more with enough time.
Mistakes were made - but most important and most blameworthy mistake came from the Republicans 4 years earlier, when they rejected their obligation to impeach and convict after Trump nearly killed them all on TV.
It’s more about how demonized the libs have been, dissatisfaction with “woke culture,” certain groups of conservatives who will never vote pro-choice, and certain populations not feeling like they have a spot in liberal dialogue. (Young men.) and partly because she’s a black woman.
I would argue the election had almost NOTHING to do with actual policy or cabinet choices, because Trump should have easily lost if it was. His previous cabinet was a disaster and he can no longer attract the best and brightest due to his controversy. So, exactly as expected, his cabinet is a fucking disaster. People are attracted to the guy who will go apeshit on a system that doesn’t seem to work for them, even when stability & slow progress is actually better. (Fast progress is even better, but that’s not what Trump provides)
However, as someone who has worked at NCAR for many years, I can tell you that the place is a mess. The Table Mesa facility is mostly devoid of employees, with entire floors of offices left in a state of dark decay. Most of the vehicles in the parking lot are people hiking the trails, and days of yucky weather will reveal at most a couple dozen cars in the parking lot, mainly maintenance people. Elementary school groups continue to show up for tours, but the scientists and technical staff have moved to other buildings in town, specifically the Center Green and Foothills Lab clusters.
NCAR has become a mere shadow of its former self, with > 30% of its funding being absorbed by the Directorate and President's offices, with some executive salaries exceeding half a million dollars (not bad for a non-profit). The younger talent have fled, from the engineers up to the upper management, and what remains are aged-out scientists just waiting for retirement. Internal surveys, which seem to be sent out almost weekly, tend to show very low confidence in the leadership. It's a tanker running on inertia, and breaking it up and selling it off may be the best thing for it.
Unless Congress explicitly mandates something by law, they should expect an administration to unilaterally dismantle it. Congress delegated authority assuming it’s used in good faith and courts+executive have called Congress’s bluff.
In this case it’s a facility created by NSF, but Congress doesn’t explicitly say this HAS to exist. Therefore it won’t exist any longer.
Congress has abdicated their duty of checks and balances. In a functioning government, the executive would have already been removed for not following legally mandated spending.
If you think law will stop this administration then you're not paying enough attention.
Maybe not fast enough, but it happens routinely.
The issue is that SCOTUS decides to use administration to reinterpret precedent.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again
--
It's going to take a lot of glue to try to put the United States together again. Breaking things is easy, and the Trump administration absolutely excels at it. The White House, some buildings (some occupied) in Iran, the economy, the cohesion in so far as there still was any left in the country, the scientific community and the reputation of the United States as a dependable ally.
But once broken they are not so easily restored.
Our relationships have crumbled and there's no reason to trust us: friend or foe. We're ramping up debt harder than ever, we've made tourists scared, we killed our academic imports, and we've made it impossible to start a business while letting private equity gobble up entire markets to play financial games with loans - setting up a time bomb for catastrophe. Now we're shutting down food inspection systems, disabling ecological oversight, firing every qualified person we can and installing sycophants in their place. Some with for-life positions! The economy is only desperately clinging on pretending everything is fine and they can weather the store - but the King has no clothes and has taken full control of economic levers with no oversight.
And beyond requiring regime change, the US can no longer solve such issues without constitutional amendments. Our government has proven to be fundamentally broken. Which simply will not happen because it is broken.
The US seems to be on an unrecoverable path to third world theocratic state status. We will lose our democracy and we will lose our economy. And I see no path out of it anymore.
Agreed, that's sort of the point of the rhyme. You can break stuff far easier than that you can make or repair stuff.
This is absolutely the biggest pain of today's politics. You can't argue with their dogma even when it agains literally all the facts. Needless to say, both parties are doing it. Just a little bit differently.
Federal policy by wounded ego is still wounded ego.
Another reason widely believed to be a significant factor is that it would benefit Lauren Boebert's district, and Trump wanted to punish her for siding with Democrats in the House on releasing the Epstein files.
The pipeline funding bill had been very bipartisan. It had passed the House by unanimous consent, and whatever the equivalent procedure is in the Senate.
There was an attempt to override the veto. The House vote was 248-177, which failed because a veto override requires 2/3 of the votes. It would have needed 283. All Democrats voted to override. It would have taken 71 Republicans to push it over, which would have been 1/3 of Republicans present. It only got 35, 1/6th of the Republicans.
Folks there tend to have a lot of hooks in a lot of places.
