The poll, which was conducted from July 7 to July 9, found that 73 percent of Democratic voters “somewhat” or “strongly” approve of Harris as Biden’s replacement. In an earlier iteration of the same survey, conducted from July 3 to July 6, a 66 percent majority of Democrats approved of Harris as a replacement.
It’s less that she’s universally disliked and more that she’s not particularly liked. In her most prominent appearances in the past 4 years, she’s lacked charisma and not taken stances notable enough to distinguish her from the administration. She’s heavily disliked on the left-wing of the Democratic Party for being a DA who laughed about jailing people for drug crimes she herself had committed in the past (possession), and not particularly popular on the right-wing of the Democratic Party because they’re still racist, just LESS racist than Republicans.
She may be the best choice to go with at this junction, but she wouldn’t be my first pick if the field was open. But the field isn’t open, so we make do with what we have.
I do very much like one thing about her. In a race where we need to be hitting Trump very hard on the campaign trail, a former prosecutor should be extremely well-practiced and good at that.
But otherwise I agree.
Prosecutor vs. convicted felon. Who wins? Watch our brand new reality show!
I bet I know who the party of “Law and Order” will vote for!
And to that end, I think Newsom would be the safest choice for a pivot by far.
Reasoning:
We’re trying to stop the fascists from winning. Anything else is (unfortunately, but necessarily) secondary at this point. Pragmatic triage of the situation MUST be the mindset with which the party is evaluating their choices.
Of course, the DNC is neither triaging the situation, nor being pragmatic about the candidate who can actually fucking win and stop the fascists, because from where I’m standing, it looks like Biden hasn’t done a great job at any point in his term of slapping down the Nationalist Christians + MAGA crowd (and friends).
Oh, and by the way I love the idea of Newsom, for exactly all the reasons you lay out.
It’s been a long time, and I don’t remember the exact quote and the entire context, but I remember Trae Crowder (the “liberal redneck”) on Real Time just after donnie was selected by the EC and people were trying to do some kind of post mortem on just how the hell we ended up with donnie.
And Trae Crowder says something like, “…or do you want to fucking WIN?” I remember Ana Marie Cox looking kind of put out by the comment, but IIRC, it was about pragmatism. I’m pretty sure exchanges like that went on, in various forms, all around the country during 2015-2016 and they are playing out again…
If anyone has a link to that full exchange, or to a transcript of it, I sure would appreciate it, by the way.
Republicans hate few people in the nation as much as Newsom. They would rally hard against him as the Uber-Liberal boogeyman.
If you think about the Democratic parties base, two groups stand out. Lefties (like most people on Lemmy) and people of color, particularly black women. If you select Newsom over Harris you i.) deal an enormous insult to people of color, and ii.) don’t go nearly far enough left to satisfy Lefties. What part of the base would be enthusiastic about such a milquetoast replacement?
The part of the base that doesn’t want fascism (I.e. literally anyone who is sane) would be fine with a pragmatic choice.
Don’t fight all battles all the time. In this situation, it would be a grave strategic mistake to try to tick all the boxes in the face of an imminent fascist threat. Pick the guy who’s not going to offend (regressive-minded) people in flyover states, in the interest of, you know, not letting the fascists win.
I’m not saying those goals aren’t important. I am saying that those goals need to take a backseat for the moment to the goal of “let’s not elect the First American Reichschancellor in November”.