2024 Presidential Election Thread

[Uncle Ted]

Kamala’s new ad is pretty good…

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[PaloAltoCougar]

Kamala’s new ad is pretty good…

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The inclusion of the word "parody' is the only thing protecting the ad's creator from a crushing legal judgment.

[Uncle Ted]

I think a more accurate statement would be "Harris has caught up to where Biden was before he crapped on the debate stage". This was going to be a close election when the media and Democrats were successfully concealing Biden's decline from genpop; now it's a completely different race but will likely still be close. I still think Trump wins because I don't think Harris can run from her record nor can she suppress her natural awkwardness and lack of talent long enough. Trump doesn't have that challenge because while he is supremely awkward and a buffoon, his base will never punish him for it and the middle who will vote for him have come to terms with it.

I was thinking about the VP picks. Like debates, VP picks are typically given far more weight than their actual value in winning a presidential election. But given how close this race will probably be and the dynamics of two unpopular candidates, VP pick could matter. JD Vance is an awful pick and even many Trump supporters are no openly admitting what a liability he is, especially with the new Democrat opponent. Kamala has to pick Mark Kelly, right? If he would accept, any other choice would be political malpractice. I was reading Mayor Pete is the current frontrunner which would be such a dumb choice. Another empty vessel that would never appeal to the center and do nothing for Kamala in the battleground states.

LOL... I thought you were joking:

Pete Buttigieg Emerges as a VP Favorite, According to Polls

And the Dems are already endorsing him...

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[Maximus]

Harris doing a campaign kickoff event at a drag show does nothing to ease my concerns that her administration will be double down on the governed by theater kids approach taken by Biden.

much better than the flip side of the coin

[Jeff Lebowski]

LOL... I thought you were joking:

And the Dems are already endorsing him...

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Like I said, you can always trust the Democrats to squander opportunities and shoot themselves in the foot.

[Maximus]

shell pick kelly or shaprio. hopefully shaprio.

pete would be a great president though

[YOhio]

much better than the flip side of the coin

I used to think that. Not so sure anymore.

[Northwestcoug]

Vance was a Black Lives Matter fan?

I hate the police,” Mr. Vance said in his response. “Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”

Must have been the woke mind virus. Glad he recovered!

[Uncle Ted]

Man, I was thinking when did Michael Moore become a Trump fanboy... But apparently it is a deep fake.

[Donuthole]

I used to think that. Not so sure anymore.

Uh oh. fusnik is going to be so pissed.

[frank ryan]

I used to think that. Not so sure anymore.

Uh, it still is. Even if you set aside his very dictatorial tendencies as it relates to domestic policy, the guy is a foreign policy and geopolitical disaster. Who knows what he has blabbed away to our adversaries already. Let's not give him another opportunity. He intends to gut NATO and abandon Ukraine.

[YOhio]

Uh, it still is. Even if you set aside his very dictatorial tendencies as it relates to domestic policy, the guy is a foreign policy and geopolitical disaster. Who knows what he has blabbed away to our adversaries already. Let's not give him another opportunity. He intends to gut NATO and abandon Ukraine.

I agree that Trump is awful. I just don’t think Biden has been an improvement and nothing makes me think Harris will be any better. Just because Trump sucks doesn’t make me eager for an administration that had Iranian assets working at the pentagon and as a special envoy to Iran. They stopped enforcing sanctions on Iran, giving them access to billions of dollars which they’ve used to fund Hamas, Houthis, and hezbollah. They’ve also been funding violent and disruptive protests in the US, according to Biden’s NSA just this past week. That alone is a bigger fail than any Trump FP error. So you don’t have to prove to me that Trump is bad, but if the past four years are any indication I’m pretty unconvinced that Harris is an improvement on Trump. They’re both uniquely awful, Trump is just a bit more transparent about it.

[Moliere]

Not to mention that it was under Obama and Biden that Russian aggression resulted in them taking Crimea and the eastern part of Ukraine. Hamas and Hezbollah also feel emboldened to the point of terrorist attacked that could only result in war. Biden has kept the China tariffs that Trump put in place.

Foreign policy has been a cluster under the Democrats.

[frank ryan]

I agree that Trump is awful. I just don’t think Biden has been an improvement and nothing makes me think Harris will be any better. Just because Trump sucks doesn’t make me eager for an administration that had Iranian assets working at the pentagon and as a special envoy to Iran. They stopped enforcing sanctions on Iran, giving them access to billions of dollars which they’ve used to fund Hamas, Houthis, and hezbollah. They’ve also been funding violent and disruptive protests in the US, according to Biden’s NSA just this past week. That alone is a bigger fail than any Trump FP error. So you don’t have to prove to me that Trump is bad, but if the past four years are any indication I’m pretty unconvinced that Harris is an improvement on Trump. They’re both uniquely awful, Trump is just a bit more transparent about it.

I don't think it's a reach to view Trump as an asset for adversaries (even unintentionally). Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Seb Gorka all have shady foreign connections. Trump won't raise a finger to help Israel vs Iran if Putin doesn't want him to. He intends to destroy NATO. Foreign intel agencies and governments are now game planning on the US abandoning our allies.

Trump refused to criticize Putin when reports came out about bounties being paid to the Taliban for dead American GIs. He is not strong on foreign policy. Saudi Arabia and the UAE stepped out of the US orbit during the Trump years and he betrayed the Kurds. He planned the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which included releasing thousands of Taliban prisoners before the troops were pulled out.

Trump legitimized Kim Jong Un and got nothing in return. He has antagonized Mexico and toyed with the idea of launching military strikes on their soil. He reserved Obama's detente with Cuba, pushing Havana right back into Moscow's and Beijing's orbit, and now China is setting up a sigint base there.

Harris is an improvement over Trump in many ways. She is definitely less friendly to Israel than Biden, who I do not view as being anti-Israel. She isn't going around assuring people they don't have to worry about voting again after this election. She hasn't encouraged violence to usurp election results or raped anyone. Trump is also in mental decline. I'm also concerned over Trump's thoughts on hyper-politicizing important agencies like the CIA, NSA, and FBI and opening them up to compromise.

The fact that Harris is not a cult of personality, alone, makes her less awful.

[frank ryan]

Not to mention that it was under Obama and Biden that Russian aggression resulted in them taking Crimea and the eastern part of Ukraine. Hamas and Hezbollah also feel emboldened to the point of terrorist attacked that could only result in war. Biden has kept the China tariffs that Trump put in place.

Foreign policy has been a cluster under the Democrats.

Foreign policy was not worse under Biden than it was under Trump. You can ask Ukrainians who they'd prefer. Trump did everything he could while out of office to prevent the latest round of support to Ukraine.

During Trump's admin Jared Kushner fueled a standoff between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States without any thought of how dangerous and problematic it was.

Orban in Hungary and Erdogan in Turkey also prefer Trump. That's not because Trump did better at advancing American interests.

Trump famously called nations shithole countries. He so overtly aligned with right-wing strongmen like Bolsonaro in Brazil (who tried to stage a coup exactly like Trump and it also failed) that it has invited animus and hostility from their left-wing replacements.

Russia is publicly rooting for Trump and the Russia Duma openly cheered his victory in 16. If they thought Kamala would be weaker, they'd pull for her and so would their bots and stooges.