Democrats in Array

August 16, 2024 9:34 PM

In only three days, the Democratic National Convention for the U.S. Presidential election will take place in Chicago, Illinois from August 19-22. Final plans are being settled and delegates are preparing for the historic event.

The convention will take place after a historic series of summer upheavals in the US Presidential race, including the collapse of President Biden’s campaign following a disastrous debate, an astonishingly deft transfer of the campaign and subsequent nomination to VP Kamala Harris, and her selection of “happy warrior” Governor Tim Walz as her running mate.

This has taken place against the backdrop of a Trump campaign in shambolic disarray, including public appearances often marked by a rambling mishmash of personal invective and lies, and the selection of an uninspiring running mate with one of the lowest approval ratings in modern history.

The result has been a 180-degree shift in Democratic hopes and renewed optimism for victory in November, as poll after poll shows Harris/Walz climbing to erase Trump’s lead in the battleground states, hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into the campaign, and enormous crowds are gathering to support the candidates, all of which has rekindled the joy and hope for Team Blue.

posted by darkstar (31 comments total)

Good post, though it probably could have waited until Sunday... who knows what's going to happen this weekend.

This is going to be a historic convention, given the sudden shift just weeks ago. Let's hope plenty of people tune in and get questions answered and convictions stoked. Main programming kicks off Monday at 6:30 PM EDT.
posted by netowl at 9:41 PM on August 16 [5 favorites]

Trump is over if you want it
posted by philip-random at 9:41 PM on August 16 [30 favorites]

The post title makes me feel an unfamiliar happiness.
posted by bigschmoove at 10:13 PM on August 16 [8 favorites]

But is the array zero-indexed or one-indexed? The last thing we need is an off-by-one error.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 10:39 PM on August 16 [16 favorites]

The last thing we need is an off-by-one error.

That's actually the second-to-last thing we need
posted by aubilenon at 10:45 PM on August 16 [49 favorites]

the economist have overhauled their presidential race forecast model, their current estimate is that the presidential race is a coin flip. Might take another month or so for more meaningful/representative polls to start flowing in that can be fed into the models - the polls following the DNC may not be so representative.
posted by are-coral-made at 10:45 PM on August 16 [1 favorite]

We should give the Dems some pointers. Wait, that’s worse.
posted by credulous at 10:46 PM on August 16 [7 favorites]

Trump is over if you want it

T-shirts, bumper stickers, and signage. In a variety of colors and fonts.
posted by vrakatar at 11:09 PM on August 16 [6 favorites]

Pro-Palestinian activists plan to march on the DNC, hoping Harris will hear them - "A coalition of some 200 social justice organizations is going forward with their plan to march at the Democratic National Convention on Monday..."

The march will represent a contingent of historically Democratic voters who have said they will refuse to vote for the party nominee this time unless the White House puts conditions on its support for Israel.

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May, some 44% of Democratic registered voters disapproved of Biden's handling of the war.

Can Harris win back Biden's Israel-Gaza critics? - "Harris has a challenge, and an opportunity, to define her stance on the war."

Where does Harris stand on the Israel-Hamas war, and will she satisfy voters who are upset about the crisis in Gaza?

[...]

Every year since 2000, Gallup has asked American adults, "In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?" Through 2019, an average of 59 percent answered the Israelis, 17 percent said the Palestinians and 24 percent said both. In the past five years, though, the average percentage who said the Israelis was down to 56 percent and the share who said both was down to 18 percent, while those who answered Palestinians rose to 26 percent. Democrats and people under 35 were especially likely to answer Palestinians, at 43 percent and 45 percent respectively in Gallup's most recent poll...

For her part, Harris hasn't outlined a detailed policy plan on the issue since entering the presidential race on July 21. However, she has called for a ceasefire, though her national security advisor has said she does not support an arms embargo on Israel. At a rally in Arizona, she called for respect for the protesters and said she and Biden were working for a ceasefire deal and a return of the hostages still held by Hamas. Last month, she met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and did not attend his address to Congress because of a scheduling conflict. (She was previously scheduled to appear in Indianapolis that day.)

Many voters, however, aren't satisfied with the Biden administration's actions thus far. In a YouGov/The Economist poll from July 21-23, a plurality (38 percent) of Americans favored decreasing military aid to Israel, while 21 percent wanted to maintain the same amount and 18 percent wanted to increase it.

With that in mind, those "uncommitted" voters from the primary, and others who want the U.S. to scale down its aid to Israel, could split from the Democratic coalition if they're unhappy with Harris's response. Members of the Uncommitted National Movement met with Harris briefly outside her rally in Detroit and said as much to her, said Waleed Shahid, a Democratic strategist and one of the founders of the movement. "Michigan voters want to vote for you, but we need to see some change, some policy change, or some commitment to policy change from you about the bombs being sent to Netanyahu," Shahid said they told her.

Shahid thinks Trump would be even worse for their cause. During his first administration, Trump bragged that he "fought for Israel like no president ever before" by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing it as the country's capital, a provocative move. And while he's been mum on plans for his second term, the Republican Party outlined support for Israel in its platform at the Republican National Convention.

Yet Trump hasn't been the focus of protests. In fact, Shahid said his group formed in an effort to encourage Democrats to address their concerns so that voters wouldn't sit the election out or vote for Trump. They want their voters back into the Democratic fold.

"We are deeply afraid of Trump and Vance winning," Shahid said. "Our understanding of Donald Trump's plan for Palestinians is to accelerate violence against Palestinians in Gaza and in the West Bank."[1]

Voters aren't as aware of Trump's positions, though, because Trump isn't currently in the White House, Shahid said. "I am surprised by how little people know about Trump's positions on some of this stuff or Trump's history on some of this stuff."

Republicans in general also are much more likely to support Israel. Eighty percent of Republican identifiers told Gallup their sympathies lay with Israelis more than with Palestinians, and in March, 64 percent of Republicans said they approved of Israel's military actions, down slightly from 71 percent in November.

viz...
-Trump taps major donors to lead transition effort should he return to power
-What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign[2]
-In undercover interview, Project 2025 architect gets candid on the initiative's radical goals and connections to Trump[3,4,5,6]

cf. Factbox-Where abortion will be on the ballot in the 2024 US elections - "Abortion will be on the ballot in at least eight U.S. states for the Nov. 5 election, including battleground states likely to play critical roles in the presidential race and the fight for control of Congress."

The states where voters will decide whether to guarantee abortion rights include Arizona and Nevada, which are not only likely to be among the states that decide the presidential contest but also feature high-profile Senate races that could determine which party controls that chamber.

The issue has bedeviled Republicans since the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision to eliminate a nationwide right to abortion. Anger over the ruling was widely credited with limiting Republican gains in the 2022 midterm elections, as well as boosting Democrats' performance in state races in Kentucky and Virginia last year.

Voters have chosen to protect or expand abortion access in all seven statewide ballot measures put to a vote since the court's decision, including in conservative strongholds such as Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas...

FLORIDA... Once a perennial battleground state, Florida has leaned Republican in recent elections, voting twice for Trump and electing Governor Ron DeSantis in a landslide in 2022. But Democrats believe they may be able to put Florida back in play in November.

posted by kliuless at 11:56 PM on August 16 [23 favorites]

If you told me last year that we'd have a 2024 with attempted assassination of a candidate in this race, the eleventh-hour stepping down of the democratic incumbent, and a DNC in Chicago, I would have felt an intense sensation of dread. I'm sure there are other parallels to '68, but the important thing is just how hopeful we all are in this round!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 1:05 AM on August 17 [17 favorites]

And a vice president as the replacement candidate who refuses to establish any distance from the boss' direly unpopular war!

Perhaps Harris should make different choices than Hubert Humphrey.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:24 AM on August 17 [7 favorites]

Well Harris is walking the line of being part of an administration that she is not the leader of (VPs often have no portfolio or power at all). The obsession with trying to force her to pick a fight with AIPAC before the election is an exercise in self-defeat. It's a good thing that Uncommitted has seats at the table inside the Convention as well as protesters outside. But considering that January 20 is the earliest policy can change, and there are good and sensible reasons not to telegraph that change, continual shitting on the candidate for not making a big policy announcement on it is bewildering behavior.
posted by rikschell at 4:24 AM on August 17 [23 favorites]

Supplying weapons to a state that is being investigated for Genocide is bewildering behavior. Being upset about it is pretty understandable, imho.

I get that we don't want any turds in the punch bowl, but let us not slide into the rich Dem tradition of hippy-punching, and dismissing the anti-war crowd.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:40 AM on August 17 [11 favorites]

Speaking for myself, I agree that the I/P confilct is the worst fucking thing, but if you approach it from a systems perspective, none of the worst fucking things are going to get addressed if Harris is not going to be elected so could we focus on that in these threads? Please?
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:49 AM on August 17 [27 favorites]

Agreed
posted by mumimor at 4:52 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

And a vice president as the replacement candidate who refuses to establish any distance from the boss' direly unpopular war!

I wish it were the case that the war was direly unpopular, but I found the statistics quoted above by kliusless pretty sobering. 56% of Americans still fall into the 'more sympathetic to Israel' category and only 38% favour decreasing military aid to Israel. Granted, per the same statistics, the sympathy for Palestinians is higher among Democrats and under 35s, but it still doesn't command a majority among either.

On preview, that doesn't mean the anti-war crowd should be dismissed. It does mean that the anti-war crowd (in which I'd include myself) needs to come to terms with the fact that it's still an electoral minority. It's outrageous that the Amerian electorate doesn't care more about the slaughter in Gaza, but that is the electorate that will determine the presidency whether we like it or not.
posted by nangua at 4:55 AM on August 17 [14 favorites]

It's really not hippie punching to point out that one side is focused on winning the election so that change can happen while the other side states over and over again that if change doesn't happen first (even if it causes their side to lose the election), then both sides are equivalent and voting won't matter. The arguments have been laid out clearly so many times now, no one is likely to shift their positions, and emotions are such that people get accused of making bad faith arguments, which I don't think is true on either side. But it's not helping. As was said above, it's a turd in the punch bowl. I get that you don't want anyone celebrating anything until you get what you want, but the tactic of contaminating everything with shit in order to get it isn't likely to earn many friends.
posted by rikschell at 4:55 AM on August 17 [12 favorites]

What I want is for Palestinian children to not be blown up by American bombs while in school, or in the hospital, and I'm not concerned about waiting until after the election to say it.

If that position costs me friends, so be it.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 5:03 AM on August 17 [6 favorites]

Come on, you guys! It's only five more months of little kids getting their arms and legs blown off in a bullshit war, and then it's yas queen slay! We can do this!!!

I mean, it's a tough sell, right? It kinda sounds like piping hot garbage. But it is somewhat true that Harris is in a position where contradicting Biden's policies on the war would put her in a bind. Bummer, but I have big expectations for the president. I think she can do it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:04 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

Yes but is pointing it out in these threads, constantly going to change any fucking thing? No, so I am asking you once again, can we please
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:17 AM on August 17 [8 favorites]

Moratorium request on endless celebrations then? I mean, it's not even news at this point.
posted by cendawanita at 5:23 AM on August 17 [6 favorites]

Politicians are like sailboats. They go where the wind pushes them.

Saying "let's not talk about the war until after Kamala wins" is a recipe for never talking about the war. I want her to win, and I want her to commit to upholding US law re: selling weapons to humans rights abusers. These are not mutually exclusive concepts.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 5:28 AM on August 17 [8 favorites]

What's more, I think she has to do it, or -- purely from a spin perspective -- she has to seem to want to do it, not just in a vague arm-wavey "I wish we could all have peace!" way but in a way as real as sending billions in arms to Israel, because here's the thing: at every turn in the last month, she has walked up to a huge patch of quicksand and done what democrats don't do -- not walked into it. People have the sense that it could be different this time, and every inkling they get that that is not true raises the spectre of reBidenization. We do not want that. So if she chooses to ignore, or worse yet belittle, literally two hundred social justice groups protesting the convention, that would be bad. Because it makes cynics like me look right, and guess what? I want to be wrong. Every cynic wants to be wrong! But they don't want to be browbeaten and gaslit until they concede they're wrong when they're actually still fucking right, they want to be wrong for real!

So anyway, she has to do something better, something different from Biden. She has to be able to say Biden's a great guy, he means well, but there's a new sheriff in town and things will not go on as before. I hope she does that.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:28 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

I would like to know if there are protests planned of AIPAC, who have shown willingness to retaliate against politicians who take a pro-Palestine position.

I do imagine we're going to need a different thread for the actual convention, at this point, given this one has basically become about I/P again

So anyway, she has to do something better, something different from Biden. She has to be able to say Biden's a great guy, he means well, but there's a new sheriff in town and things will not go on as before. I hope she does that.

I feel like she's doing that? Her position when interrupted by protestors during a stump speech has been markedly more conciliatory and much less about Israel having the right to defend itself.
posted by Merus at 5:29 AM on August 17 [3 favorites]

The constant demand to stop talking about Harris' response to the genocide in Gaza takes up far more space than just letting people comment on what is clearly a relevant issue.
posted by pattern juggler at 5:33 AM on August 17 [13 favorites]

continual shitting on the candidate for not making a big policy announcement on it is bewildering behavior.

It’s not that bewildering, really. It’s classic “True Believer” activist mindset, where all other considerations are subordinated to the activist’s interests.

I’ve worked in community development with all kinds of folks, including some True Believer political activists, as well as some religious ones. They absolutely have a similar approach in some ways. Some of them absolutely feel justified in burning it all down if they don’t get their way. They don’t couch it in those terms, of course. They may not even see themselves in those terms. But they will absolutely throw around the gasoline and matches, and if things catch fire, they then shrug and say how terrible it is that everything is burnt to a cinder and how unfortunate they didn’t get their way.

Many probably don’t actual make the connection between their behavior and the outcome at all, and aren’t arguing in bad faith. They just have a righteous cause and anyone who stands in their way is complicit, and if their activism actually makes things worse, well, not their fault. They may even embrace accelerationism, and feel that if things get worse because of their approach, then surely that is only setting the stage for them to get better in the future, and more swiftly.

Hell, there are Nader voters today that, even knowing what they know now, still maintain that their vote was the right one, and if Gore wanted to win, he should have given them more, and how sad it is the world had to deal with Bush Jr for eight years and two multi-trillion-dollar wars and millions of people dead and displaced, and the opportunity to have a climate conscious President lost, in lieu of having one from an oil family who appointed two conservatives to the Supreme Court. But you know, if only Gore had given them something more to earn their vote, it might have all been different…

Many activists understand the idea of pragmatism and “politics as the art of the possible”. You can work with them to get things done and make progress. Form coalitions, make allies, and leverage change.

But there is a whole subset of activists who are not interested in that kind of work at all. They are absolutely convinced of their righteousness and their in-your-face approach, and for whom interest based negotiation and compromise and trying to be strategic is anathema. They’re the ones who play this game every election, making demands of a candidate that would sink their candidacy, and then when the candidate predictably fails to do what they want, then withhold their vote out of principle.

It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the protestors at the DNC use the opportunity to cause a complete horrorshow and destroy whatever momentum and goodwill the event might engender for Harris. I don’t doubt that some might actually prefer it, as it would draw attention to the righteousness of their cause.

And if that means Trump is re-elected — which they will absolutely tell you that they agree is the worst case scenario — well then, they can still walk away from the smoking wreckage still feeling clean. Because after all, Harris just should have given them something more…

This bullshit is never ending. I sincerely regret making this post, and I regret forgetting, yet again, that we sometimes can’t have nice things on MeFi.
posted by darkstar at 5:34 AM on August 17 [50 favorites]

So, I guess the question becomes, why is the expectation always that people who want better things be pragmatic, and people who don't want better things just keep on keepin' on?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:37 AM on August 17 [5 favorites]

My mind has certainly been changed by reading the same dozen or so people argue with each other for the eighth time. I’m voting for Kodos!
posted by Captaintripps at 5:44 AM on August 17 [4 favorites]

I'm old enough to remember when all the people who wanted Biden to drop out were being told to shut up, they're just being naive, and to stop ruining the vibes. I was even one of those people who thought that even the discussion of a replacement candidate was silly and self-defeating. Boy was I wrong.

People who want things always seem unreasonable, right up until they get them.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 5:45 AM on August 17 [5 favorites]

Need someone to pitch a piece on how that was evidence of Biden's decades-long plan for a free Palestine.
posted by cendawanita at 5:47 AM on August 17 [6 favorites]

People who want things always seem unreasonable, right up until they get them.

Moral progress is annoying.
posted by Captaintripps at 5:47 AM on August 17 [5 favorites]