• tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    A steady stream of bullshit, just like before the 2016 election. Trump won, so it’s not surprising they consider this their winning strategy.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      2 months ago

      I don’t know, 2016 had Benghazi and Killary, which is perfectly fair to someone that would campaign with Kissinger, but no couch fucking weirdos and hate speech so open even the centrists notice it.

      • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        They cooked that one up months before the campaigns even got underway. Hillary was always a terrible candidate I. this regar; that they had know she’d do a big run, and had literally decades to build oppo research and a smear campaign. I mean, it was obvious that she was a bad candidate in this regard as early as 2013.

        Harris I think really did catch them off guard. Which is a bit surprising?

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          For some reason they simply couldn’t fathom an old man giving up power for the good of the country.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          2 months ago

          Yeah, I don’t understand how Biden dropping out really surprised anyone. Even a year in advance, I gave it a 50/50 that he’d run again. Once he decided to run, I gave Harris a 60-70% chance of taking over his campaign and becoming the nominee.

          If I were on Trump’s campaign team, I would have already prepared for Biden and Harris, and maybe RFK in case he switches to the Dem ticket at the last moment (very unlikely).

          • ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Personally I didn’t think another candidate would be able to campaign as successfully as Harris has in the few short months she’s had.

            I thought it would disrupt the Dems demographic and cause the whole thing to fall apart. Kinda like what happened when Bernie dropped out.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Completely agreed. She basically took BIden’s platform, tweaked it a bit, and was able to use the Biden/Harris campaign funds that was already raised. She was also already gearing up for VP debates and whatnot, so yeah, it makes a ton of sense for her to be able to hit the ground running.

              I don’t think demographics are particularly important here since it’s a literal handoff from one candidate to another. There was no primary, so no mudslinging from other candidates and whatnot, just a smooth baton handoff.

              That said, I don’t like her as a candidate. In 2020, she was dead last in my list of candidates, and there’s a host of potential candidates I’d prefer over her. But those other candidates didn’t actually run because Biden was the presumptive nominee, so she didn’t have to deal with the polls in a primary. And that’s why I think she was able to keep the majority of Biden’s support base and get a bit of her own.

          • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            Because the last time an incumbent President didn’t run for re-election was in 1968, it happened a lot earlier in the election cycle then and it resulted in a devastating loss for the incumbent’s party?

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              2 months ago

              Sure, but Biden is also super old (way older than previous presidents) and was showing clear signs that his age was catching up to him, hence the 50/50.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          2 months ago

          Harris I think really did catch them off guard. Which is a bit surprising?

          If we were talking about the GOP of 12 years ago, they would have been able to pivot to Harris much more easily.

          Trump ate the brain of the party in an almost literal way. A lot of the people who knew how stuff worked–McCain, Paul Ryan, Dick Cheney, Romney–were all pushed away or were disgusted with Trump. Basically all the smart, Lawful Evil people. This cycle completed itself this past spring/summer, when Trump replaced all the internal GOP committee members with his own people. They were chosen for loyalty first, and competence a distant second.

          That factor of loyalty first/competence later makes fascism fall apart in the long run. However, they can do a whole lot of damage while the failures work themselves out. If we could figure out a way to get them to speedrun this process, we’d have a very effective tool to fight fascism.

    • NegativeInf@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Gish galloping requires constant fiasco. Now are they all on purpose or are some of them happy accidents?

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I don’t think they’re either really “on purpose” or “accidents”. It’s not calculated or truly random, it’s just who these people naturally are. And it plays because unfortunately a lot of us Americans are idiots.

        • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          2 months ago

          Yeah that’s how I see it too. Political strategist types can’t understand that not everything is a grand strategy. They assume if they can’t understand the strategy it must be 5-D chess or whatever. But maybe there is no strategy, and they’re just being idiots?

          • OpenStars
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            2 months ago

            It’s game theory terminology, like flight is a “strategy”, not that the bird (or bacterial spore or whatever) has the slightest clue about what it’s doing.

            It sounds better than “what works is what works”, I guess.

            • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              In the biological/evolutionary world “strategy” has a very different meaning than the colloquial usage here. we know animals, bacteria, plants, etc can’t actively “strategize” like humans do.

              • OpenStars
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                2 months ago

                If a monkey does something, sees that it works, and continues doing that, is that a “strategy”? I suppose that depends on one’s POV, at which point it doesn’t seem “wrong” to say it, nor wrong to not say it.