Two Bad Takes
Published at 08:06 on 8 November 2024
The Centrist Bad Take
If only those transgender weirdos had stayed in the closet and not opened their stupid yaps about their preferred gender pronouns, Harris would have won. Yes, I am really seeing basically this sort of stuff circulate in the Democratic Party policy wonk space.
It’s crap, of course. Harris did not focus much at all on trans issues in her campaign. It was much more about preserving democracy (as, given the context, it should have been). It wasn’t even a particularly liberal message she sent; she literally had Liz Cheney stump for her. The existence of openly trans people did not stop Biden from winning last time (or stop Michigan and Wisconsin from reelecting their Democratic senators this time).
The Leftist Bad Take
If only Harris had gone full Bernie Sanders and promised democratic socialism, she would have won. Again, yes, I am really seeing this.
Again, also crap. Biden actually, within parameters of being electable, did quite a bit for the working class, policy-wise. Yes, as a liberal capitalist, not a socialist. This is because most Americans, including most working-class Americans, don’t want socialism.
Don’t like how unwilling so many Americans are to see capitalism as the ugly thing it really is? Fine, neither do I. Do the grassroots work to turn that around first. Just running for president based on your personal pet ideology is not the way to do it. People will just vote for someone else. If Harris had gone full Bernie Sanders, she would have lost even worse.
One More Thing
Keep an eye on the Democrats. If they try to, for example, shove transpeople under the bus, challenge them, disassociate with them, or flat-out oppose them as you see fit. This is the party that sent a boatload of Jewish refugees back to Europe (where some of its passengers got the Final Solution) we are talking about. This is the party that locked American citizens up in concentration camps we are talking about. Oh yes they could get that ugly again.
When I recently wrote about establishing moral principles and guidelines, this is one of the things I was thinking about. Make reasonable compromises with reasonable people, yes, but do not sell your soul in the name of gaining the world.