Kamala Harris

[Xanthangum]

... has been selected as Joe Biden's running mate.

Important for all sorts of reasons I feel

twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1293281838337871875?s=20

ed.ted.com/lessons/does-your-vote-count-the-electoral-college-explained-christina-greer

wejust
Tulsi Gabbard - indeed looks very very interesting
but still much too young (as in what would she do with herself after the 8 years were up)
and I'm not at all sure about her abortion and gay rights views this being a feminist forum

Sanders is IMHO the US Corbyn - and would be just as useless when push came to shove.

I guess the cool thing is that the Democrats have some really rather good people coming along
and the GOP do not

Biden is very much a stopgap stop Trump
as I said way up thread
baby steps - Biden is a baby step

@ListeningQuietly

Anybody who thinks that the GOP will stand by Trump if Biden wins needs to give their heads a wobble.

Ditto anybody who thinks that US forces and civil servants who pledge allegiance to the flag rather than the president will stand by a former president

If they kill Biden between November and January then Harris gets sworn in
I can live with that

Anybody who thinks that the GOP will stand by Trump if Biden wins needs to give their heads a wobble.

100% agree with you there

Ditto anybody who thinks that US forces and civil servants who pledge allegiance to the flag rather than the president will stand by a former president

100% agree with you there as well

If they kill Biden between November and January then Harris gets sworn in I can live with that

That is disturbing... so you are pushing to vote someone in as POTUS that you are totally okay with being assassinated? I don't like Biden but I would never be okay with him being assassinated. Your logic is um... interesting.

Fireunder
Re swearing in - another poster seemed to be predicting civil insurrection and Trump staying around.
I merely pointed out that there is a protocol for if the Pres dies before being inaugurated

I think Biden will be another Reagan - a happy bumbling old bloke who lets the system regroup in a positive way

Biden is a baby step

In the wrong direction.

Wejustdisagree
November 3rd is a binary choice
coming out of a divided polarised country
Sanders would (like Corbyn) have repelled the middle and handed it back to Trump.

Trump is the wrong direction
anything other than Trump is an improvement

@ListeningQuietly

Fireunder Re swearing in - another poster seemed to be predicting civil insurrection and Trump staying around. I merely pointed out that there is a protocol for if the Pres dies before being inaugurated

I think Biden will be another Reagan - a happy bumbling old bloke who lets the system regroup in a positive way

If Biden is another Reagan we are looking at another ugly path just different than if Trump stays in office.

Reagan was a mess of contradictions between his assertions, his intentions, and his actions.

• Reaganomics (trickle down) bolstered income inequality

• War on Drugs; spotlight beginning of mass incarceration for nonviolent offenses (most notably of the socio-economically challenged)

• Disability Amendments Act of 1980, Reagan ordered SSA to tighten restrictions (so much my Aunt with brain damage from having brain cancer removed... who can't work or drive or remember much of anything was denied Disability as she can walk and hold a conversation and seem 'fine'... she doesn't 'look disabled' so she gets nothing after working and paying into the system for 40yrs)

• Contributed to SSAs continued decline (still ongoing) by taxing annuities (even though bipartisan it was signed into law by Reagan and it is a shit thing to do to retirees... super long topic so I won't expand)

• Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA), lower earners effectively pay higher taxes while businesses and high earners pay less (and still do)

• Nat'l debt increase of 186%... took federal debt held by the public from $738 billion to $2.1T... triggering the greatest recession since WW2.

• Altered political perspectives so much that the Democrats became more conservative (that is how we ended up with what happened in the 90s - a conservative decade)

• increased military spending (lending so much to the build up that a crazy amount is still wasted on manufacturing of tanks/Hummers/planes/etc that sit in warehouses unused until pieced out, discarded, or given to US 'allies' to form new governments that are more often than not corrupt); overseas missions 16 times in a total of 12 countries over his 8yrs in office... US involvement in Iraq/Iran war propped up al-Qaeda and bin Laden (outside of ISI payments connected with CIA); put Habre in power in Chad via CIA support, etc., etc., etc.

So please explain to me how Biden will be 'a happy bumbling old bloke [like Reagan] who lets the system regroup in a positive way'.

Fireunder
I reiterate
November 3rd is a binary choice
which one gives the best hope of taking the USA to where you want it to be?
Other options are NOT available

chewing over 40 year old legislation is looking backwards
it serves no purpose
you have to start from where you are

@ListeningQuietly

Fireunder I reiterate November 3rd is a binary choice which one gives the best hope of taking the USA to where you want it to be? Other options are NOT available

chewing over 40 year old legislation is looking backwards
it serves no purpose
you have to start from where you are

You brought up Reagan as a way to further soften the optics on Biden pushing the impression that Biden's impact would/will be minimal (like Reagan's).

It was logical to conjure Reagan's legacy to refute your assertion.

What's with the astroturfing? You guys know this is a UK based board? And that Trump is wildly unpopular in the UK? We at least like our fools to be erudite, and Trump is a barely literate moron. He has damaged your country and your reputation, overseen the deaths of ~170,000 people in the last few months and openly admits he plans to interfere in your democracy to ensure he stays in power. I mean, there's no way Biden could be anything other than an improvement. Shit is shit, but a small shit is preferable to a large one.

What Honeysuckle said^^
Also, Trump is so damaging to all he comes into contact with that any Dem candidate will be tainted by just going up against the crazy. We’ve seen time and time again that rational arguments and genuinely good intentions and sensible policies just get trashed by lies, insults, name-calling and deranged tweeting. Biden is right at the end of his career so is safe. In fact presenting himself as the kindly, empathetic elder statesman he shows up Trump in a way no one else can. Harris is probably - I hope - strong enough to survive.
There seem to be a number of seriously credible younger Democrat politicians coming up. Pete Buttegieg (spelling?) seems exceptionally good. Better for them to wait until the Trumpian madness is out of the way.

Also, yes, to what Honeysuckle and borntobequiet says.

It's worth asking yourself why, a few months before the election, some people are so invested in presenting two false narratives: that your vote doesn't count and that both sides are equally bad.

chewing over 40 year old legislation is looking backwards
it serves no purpose

It’s usually helpful to look backwards to see how we might attempt to avoid making the same mistakes. FireUnderTheHand makes a lot of very good points.

It's worth asking yourself why, a few months before the election, some people are so invested in presenting two false narratives: that your vote doesn't count and that both sides are equally bad.

They aren’t equally bad, but they are both very bad in somewhat different ways. As for my vote counting (I get to vote in both the US and the UK - yay?), the only thing I know is that it probably does, indeed, get counted.

bad in somewhat different ways
Really. Understatement of the year there.
As in the difference between “often well-intentioned but unfortunately often bad” and “duplicitous, malevolent, criminal and ill-intentioned from the start”.

It's worth asking yourself why, a few months before the election, some people are so invested in presenting two false narratives: that your vote doesn't count and that both sides are equally bad.
If anyone is posting on a UK forum in the hope of influencing a US election may I gently suggest they are wasting their time. Most of us have no vote but we are watching and talking and speculating and working things out, as you do on a talk forum.

As a left leaning outsider, I am exasperated by the Democrat party. Four years on they still seem to me to have no clue as to why people voted for Trump and no idea how to deal with him. And when the pro Democrat arguments presented on here can be pretty much summed up as, 'There is no choice so shut up and vote Biden' then all it does is confirm my opinion.

I like Sardonicky’s take on this:
Joe Biden is being sold as a warm, fuzzy security blanket covering an entire planet that is currently writhing in pain on a bed of Trumpian nails. We'll finally feel so safe huddling beneath his platitudes, his gaffes, his gropes, his empathy, his decency, his bereavements, his humanity, that we won't even realize that Blankie Biden is smothering us with all that warmth. If you lost a loved one prematurely or have untreated medical issues yourself because of lack of health insurance, you'll forget all about Uncle Joe's adamant opposition to Medicare For All. Because he'll always give you a pat on the head or get your phone number in an elevator while you suffocate to death under all that folksy, toxic warmth. At least you'll find comfort in the fact that, as you turn blue in the face, you'll have Voted Blue, No Matter Who.

Anything is better than Trump. Anything at least allows you to vote again.

Biden seems OK. Not amazing, but who's hoping for amazing? Just normal, as decent as US Presidents ever get, as sane as they ever get, with some empathy.

You have to be insane or a white male racist to vote for Trump.

I cannot think of a better way of winning back voters than telling them they're either insane or racist.

I'm not trying to win back voters. I'm not suggesting that Biden use my post as a campaign advert.

I'm posting on a UK site, and I don't work for the Dems.

Who do you work for?

Ha ha so that's the only reason I would post on here is it? Because I work for a US political party?

I'm posting because I'm interested in what's going on. And because I saw what piss poor arguments did to the Remain campaign and the UK left.

Crack on with the insults if you're not interested in winning back voters, fair enough. But I assume that's what the Democrats want to do. What they need to do. No?

As a poster said upthread, what's with the astroturfing?

This is a UK site. We're discussing the US election here, not changing it or voting in it.

If you want to change the results, you're posting on the wrong site, in the wrong country.

I don't see any need to lie here and pretend that Trump supporters aren't racist or are sane.

If you don't diagnose the problem, how are you planning to solve it?

As to what the Dems should do about it, they seem to have chosen, with Biden and Harris, a pair who seem as likely to be successful as any. Certainly better than the alternatives who stood.

Bang to rights. I joined Mumsnet 7 years ago and have been posting extensively on Feminism and Style and Beauty purely so I could work undercover and influence the 2020 US election.

If you don't diagnose the problem, how are you planning to solve it?
I agree with you on that actually. The trouble is, it seems to me that the Democrats are no closer to diagnosing the problem than they were in 2016.

Before this thread, and the other Presidential one, I actually thought the Democrats must surely have a pretty good chance of winning. But having seen the accusations and paranoia whenever anyone even questions the narrative, I'm afraid I'm fast revising that view.

Bang to rights.

Nice to meet you Floisme. I’m a sleeper agent myself, and was only recently activated when a potted plant in the village was moved several inches to the left. My training consisted of binge watching The Americans.

Hi @Floisme and @wejustdisagree - I came on here to fulfil my quota. I too was accused of being a bot on the other Biden thread - really, is it any wonder the left keep losing?????

And all the while, women lose even more.

You must have done the advanced training then wejustdisagree?
Mine was watching The Man from UNCLE. Illya Kuryakin was my mentor.