Summary
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign failed to connect with low-income workers due to a perceived lack of listening, according to AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US.
While union members largely supported Harris, many low-income voters backed Trump, swayed by his messaging on economic insecurity.
Despite Biden’s pro-labor policies, including infrastructure investments, the AFL-CIO now faces challenges under a likely Trump presidency.
AFL-CIO emphasized labor unions’ resilience and commitment to fighting rollbacks while advancing organizing efforts.
With public approval for unions at a near 60-year high, the labor movement plans both defensive and offensive strategies to protect workers.
“we have a concrete plan for helping you” - crickets
“my plans will hurt you but I’m pretending otherwise” - “what a brilliant businessman!”
her plan involved helping people get a home loan with no plans to raise the minimum wage
what did Harris say she was going to bring to table that would attract any voters other than high middle and above class?
That home loan was fucking worthless to boot. You know what would save Americans money? Directly building homes and selling them at cost.
Building new homes was part of the campaign plan right?
Can you link me that part of the plan, where the US government actually builds homes that private industry won’t?
I can see why you could be concerned about the details of her home building plan (I am too). But let’s face it, this election was not lost because Kamala did not provide policy details. I would love for campaigns to revolve around these, but they don’t.
She backed a plan to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/kamala-harris-says-us-must-raise-federal-minimum-wage-2024-10-21/
The much bigger issue I see is that policy choices are simply not communicated by the media. Half of this discussion complains about Kamala not adopting policies that were in fact in her platform. Only stories about the horse race and Trump outrage make the news (even in this community which is supposed to focus on policies). How can you get your message across in such a media environment?
Support for unions, getting inflation down, etc
“We have a concrete plan to help you! For example, higher federal minimum wage!”
"Okay, take my vote!
Four years later
“You’ve been in office for four years. Where is the minimum wage hike?”
“Turns out we can’t actually do it unless we have a supermajority of government. And then it’s still questionable if we will. Vote for us some more in your state and presidency. Hope that others in other states do too. Also stop bitching, we are moral and the other people are fascists, do not fail us, you must defend women and minorities by keeping us in power etc etc.”
“I had more money under Trump, fuck off.”
Tldr choosing to believe Republicans when they cause problems and blame them on others
Oh yeah, definitely, it’s all just Republican propaganda that both of the two parties in a two party system are co-responsible for national and international policy disasters. For sure. Biden definitely wasn’t a lame duck president who decided not even to fight for major proposals he promised and instead squandered political capital to defend Bibi and kill babies. Yup.
Have you not looked at what Biden accomplished even without a majority?
You wouldn’t know it looking at his approval rating…
The IRA was a bipartisan effort
Had Trump been president a similar bill would have been pushed through due to a post-COVID consensus and a concern over falling behind China. Everything else were accomolishments around the margins outweighed by serious damage to public trust, international stability and affordability.
Biden’s abysmal approval ratings are not a failing of Americans to give him proper credit. That’s the same argument Reoublicans made during the boom economy of 2017-2019.
So you haven’t actually looked at the policies he pushed through?
It’s a little telling that you have yet to refer to a specific one that you find to be earthshatteringly awesome.
Did she, though? All I remember is something about a “new small business” subsidy fund, which is… good, I suppose, but didn’t address any of the probkems the average American is facing.
Okay, there was also the suggestion of Medicare for all, which would put a dent in things, but I only heard it casually mentioned once and it sounded like something she was “open to discussing,” not a core part of her platform.
Aside from that, there was nothing directly addressing the core daily problems the majority of people are experiencing, like overpriced living expenses and underpaid wages.
The small business loan was a joke if you look at the details. First off most people dont want to start a business its a lot of hard fucking work with a lot of risk. It also had a bunch of means tests involved. Which would make it a disaster to implement and a disaster to get.
Exactly. That’s the “not addressing the actual problems” part. It’s a sounds-good, feels-good, low impact, high visibility token effort. Throw out a little morsel for the general public that doesn’t really help, but critically, doesn’t impact profits for the wealthy class.
I hate to say it, but you have a point. While Kamala had lofty plans to do right by a lot of special interests, she ignored several important ones. What really killed her chances was that, for all of her promises, she had no plan to execute them with what would turn out to be a very hostile Congress.
That, mixed with the delayed effects of both Trump’s and Biden’s influence, the dogshit-brained blamed Biden for Trump’s bullshit while crediting Trump with Obama’s achievements after Bush. And it’s gonna happen again when all of Biden’s work to improve the economy takes affect during the second of Trump term and everything Trump does wreck the economy so the next president after him will take the blame for it.
Because most voters in this country, don’t understand that economic policy rarely takes affect in fewer than 2 to 4 years, but the dog shit inside their skull makes them blame whomever is president at the moment, regardless of their actual capability.
Because the media they consume have told them it’s the fault of the current president, and they’re too simple to do any thinking for themselves.
some of us know that the Democrats and Republicans are at fault because it is us that are directly dealing with fallout from both parties
just wait until the shit that hit the fan finally makes it onto you sitting further out
and no not all of us had the option to get a backrow seat further away from the fan
I don’t understand. There is no strategy to pass legislation with a hostile (read GOP) congress. Should she only have campaigned on plans that the GOP agrees on?
That’s not the message working people heard. They heard, “we are the establishment whose theories have been fucking you over for fifty years, but in our infinite wisdom and benevolence we have decided to make some changes that WE have determined will make your lives better, and so you must vote for us. After all, we are your intellectual superiors.”
Yes. Incredibly theoretical, difficult to understand, highly abstract plans like “raising the national minimum wage”.
Wrong plans, they’re referring to the joke ‘50k small business loan with a bajillion strings attached’, ‘a maybe tax hike for the wealthy, but no transfer to middle/lower income’, ‘here are two tax credits half of which only impact parents and together dont break even on inflation’, ‘absolute refusal to commit to keeping khan’, in short dems to working Americans: fuck you, and here’s some genocide on top. Vote for us because we think we’re the only option.
The theories I’m talking about are neoliberal theories, they are the theories that essentially all economic policies have been based on for the majority of time most of us have been alive. Even if the establishment has recently decided to embrace some changes, you can’t expect people to just forget the last fifty years or so.
Yes. Incredibly theoretical, difficult to understand, highly abstract plans like “raising the national minimum wage”.
Gee. Can’t imagine why they didn’t have any fucking credibility on that one.
Thumbs down, curtsy
Because they heard that from Republicans who lied to them
They need to find a way to silence the Republicans, then. They need to ensure that people are only getting the right message.
This is why Republicans are attacking education, pressuring news companies into only presenting them positively and attacking their opposition (“here’s why Biden’s successes are bad for Biden”), attacking tech companies to pressure them into allowing their disinformation to spread, etc. They’re “playing the refs”.
Lol good luck
Similar thing happened with Hillary and the green energy jobs training.
"I have … no plan… but… uhhh… "
Say no more!
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Supporting unions and a strong FTC and fighting excess prices, versus free-for-all deregulation?
It wasn’t the policies. It was the insufficient outreach. And of course too many people in leadership not willing to push back, but that’s not the root cause
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Trump told people they were struggling and only he could fix it.
Kamala told people the economy was rebounding and they were gonna create more opportunities for the middle class.
People didn’t give a shit about what opportunities they were given. They also didn’t give a shit about a rebounding economy because none of them were feeling things getting better. Media kept saying real wages beat inflation finally. Only after 3 years of insane inflation where wages in no way kept up.
So sure, the economy is better than it was, and better than the rest of the world. But the shock happened and nothing was done to actually help the people that were suffering. Instead they were told by Democrats that ‘it could have been worse! And it will be worse under Trump’ basically admitting they weren’t really interested in helping.
So Trump, despite him not actually caring or really planning to do anything about it, stayed on message with something that resonated to voters. While Kamala assumed people wanted to start businesses? People can’t afford food but sure, let’s talk about how they have some opportunity to open a mom and pop shop across from Walmart.
She literally said, “I will go after price gouging,” which is 100% the reason prices are so high, but instead, the media focused you on starting a business. The whole price gouging thing was absent from every news article. The only time you heard it was when she spoke live. Absolutely wild.
One of the frustrations was that they would be talking about how the economy was doing great… if you were a homeowner. The inflation was also in things like rent which they have no intent on really addressing, but disproportionately gets omitted from broader stats regarding inflation despite people getting $500+ rent increases shortly after the end of the COVID eviction protections.
Can you give an example of Kamala saying that? I know Biden did, but I am pretty sure the campaign attempted to avoid this messaging.
I don’t have a citation for you of Kamala saying exactly that- but yeah that was more a Biden line.
This message fell flat. She’s the vice president, the message should have been I’m working with the AG now to investigate price to gouging, and will continue that when elected. Also the end result is just the government getting a small settlement check, that means fuck all to people.
Do… You know what the Vice President does? And she should have done all of this while she was campaigning?
If the vice president can’t be the figurehead of a taskforce in a friendly administration for an important campaign issue, they aren’t qualified to be president.
Watch this and you’ll understand.
The message was weak though. The policy was fairly limited-- like limits on gouging in emergencies-- and not expressed in terms of a tangible achievable metric. And it’s not like we have direct economic control that would allow for specific deliverables-- how exactly are you goung to get Kroger to bend the knee? A fine that’s 12 seconds of their turnover?
‘I’ll get the 99-cent Taco Supreme back’ (or the $2 gallon of milk/dozen eggs) would have helped-- a graspable specific rallying cry. “We’ll tax gougers back into the stone age” maybe too. ISTR there’s some rightwing scumball in Canada who achieved most of his political rise by literally campaigning on $1-per-can beer. Again, a tangible goal, and one more achievable because there’s direct state controlled alcohol sales in much of the country…
How the F does Trump get away with “concepts of a plan” while she should have the exact metrics in place for a very complex new policy. Are you seriously claiming that she would have attracted more voters if only she had been more precise about how to solve price gouging?
Not necessarily precise, just a more resonant presentation. She didn’t have a killer sound bite. If details actually mattered, we’d be in the closing months of the second Warren administration after all.
I literally saw scads of signs saying “Trump - Low Prices/Kamala - High Prices” and one that specifically claimed “Want $2.15 gas, vote Trump.” She didn’t counter well at the slogan/vibes level. There was no “Harris/Walz/$2-per-pound ground beef” signage.
It’s also an audience problem. The Democrats, as incumbents, were stuck with higher expectations. They couldn’t pad their numbers with low-hanging “I just want different” and “let’s burn it all down” crowds, so they have to chase voters who are harder to activate.
She literally said, “I will go after price gouging,” which is 100% the reason prices are so high
Right. She also said she wouldn’t do anything different from Biden. Whose public-facing opposition to price gouging consisted of “knock it off, guys”
Harris: ‘i will go after price gouging by firing the person actively going after companies price gouging…’ and you believed her? 🫨🫠😮💨
Source?
plenty of articles noting her campaigns refusal to commit to keeping khan.
This interview with Sarah Smarsh is good:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC-VkbEpac4
She says that the Republicans were the party that validated working class voters’ pain, even if the rest of what they said was a pack of lies and they plan to help the rich and harm the poor. The Democrats didn’t even get this far: they repeatedly ignored working class suffering while insisting the economy was good and making promises to help the “middle class” (whoever that is these days). Given the choice between one party that says “we hear your pain” and another that says “you’re too ignorant to realize things are actually going well” it’s not surprising which party got the working class votes. It’s just a shame the Republicans don’t actually plan to help these people.
It wasn’t just not validating, Trump was allowed to just promise no taxes on tips or overtime without getting called out on blatant false promises. Harris just went me too on that.
That was a legitimate weak point. Trump said no tax on tips and she just added that same plan to her platform instead of calling out that i.) Trump was not going to follow through and ii.) raising the minimum wage is much better than removing the tax on tips.
I wouldn’t say Trump stayed on message, but he included it enough in the insane rambling.
The problem is that Harris was from the incumbent party and administration at a time of deep dissatisfaction with the economy. That’s an extremely difficult position to be in, and it’s made all the worse for her because as VP she gets all the blame by association but can’t really do much personally to adjust policy. She’s handcuffed to the status quo at a time when the vast majority want change.
Biden and Harris both chose to try to defend the status quo and spin things as more positive. This waa a mistake. I don’t know if they would have won by acknowledging the problems and portraying this as them leading through a time of crisis, and how they have plans to get us through, but it probably would have had a much better chance.
It also didn’t help that most of the things they did to address the economic woes were either indirect or only narrowly targeted (or canceled out by courts). News that a factory will eventually open and add jobs in one area doesn’t alleviate the concerns of the vast majority of voters, nor does processing student loan forgiveness for a few thousand people at a time under very specific programs. These things are good, but they don’t make most people feel better the way a more broadly applicable benefit would.
The campaign connected just fine with the college educated working class. It didn’t connect with the highschool or less education working class. IMO it seems the big party divide today is higher education.
Working class should refer to people whose income is primarily derived from selling their labor vs the value of their assets.
We need to start using the term working class correctly.
certainly didn’t connect with me and my social circle and we’re all college educated working class. maybe you’re confusing people who voted for her as people who thought she was worth voting for?
I know what you’re getting at, but people who voted for her are by definition people who thought she was worth voting for. When all is said and done, that is the metric that mattered.
If you voted for Harris this past election cycle her campaign either spent the right amount or too much time catering to you… From a game theory perspective.
No, not by definition. There are many reasons to cast a vote not all votes are because the person is worth voting for.
For example i voted for Biden and he wasnt worth the time it took to roll out of bed that morning.
As for harris well, I dont support genocidal monsters who throw minorities under the bus to appease mega donors. Also why i was loathe to vote biden the first time around.
This loss brought to you by Corporate Media. We sanewash the insane bullshit and manipulate you into anything.
You know what you call someone who votes for fascism? A fascist.
How do you appeal to fascists without being more fascist than the alternative?
America is comprised of stupider, shittier people than was thought.
Perfect is the enemy of better.
This has been explained so many times.
That’s a pretty reductionist take, eh? Did it make you feel better to vent? It’s okay to vent. But also consider that you’re only seeing a small part of a larger whole.
The larger whole either voted for fascism or couldn’t be bothered to vote against it. That’s the country we live in.
Was there some other “larger whole” you were referring to?
yeah. a full 3/4ths of the country brought trump into office.
1/4th voted for him
2/4ths didnt give a damn about voting and let him in via their own inaction. and are just as responsible as the ones who voted for him.
So the voters are idiots.
That doesnt mean the democratic party arent fuckheads that got what they got cause they dont listen to what the people are screaming for.
listen to what the people are screaming for.
Progressives promise “better for the American 99%”.
People screaming for something no party could deliver or neither candidate could promise were confused. People who voted for the worst option imaginable for all factors including the impossibilities they were demanding are morons who deserve the leopards.
Sure, but you seem like you’ve already found answers that satisfy you. I’m no Sisyphus to push online boulders up a hill, but I will give you my two cents:
In essence, our perspectives differ on apportioning blame. You heap it on voters, while I would argue that, in a two party system, culpability lies with the party who failed to engage and motivate their electorate. That is quite literally their entire raison d’etre.
So it’s easy to say we have ignorant, uneducated, and mean-spirited voters- and I wouldn’t argue that those descriptors are valid in many cases. Which says nothing of decades of declining public education, massive media intervention, oligarch pie-thumbing, or unaddressed racial tensions dating back to the Civil War.
But if that is the clay that an artist is given to mold, then it is incumbent upon the ARTIST to rise to the occasion and find a way to produce a grand work. And if they are unable- if they cannot MAKE GOOD on the necessary products required for civil social union, then they are something worse than an enemy. Ineptitude (feigned or real) is simply no longer tolerable when the stakes are this high.
And the stakes ARE high, despite the constant flip-flopping of messaging from the current administration. We either face clear and present dangers to the Union, or we accept that decorum is MORE important to our leaders than efficacy and the hope of America remaining a going-concern. And if our Leadership chooses decorum over action, if etiquette is their only talent, then the harshest criticism is not only valid, but a requirement of every citizen who still hopes for the erstwhile fantasy of living in and being part of the better American Dream.
I addressed this in my very first comment.
How do you appeal to fascists without being more fascist than the alternative?
It seems you’ve put all your effort into being condescending, and none into reading.
lol, ok.
If you take any counter argument as condescension it’s probably a lot more about your own insecurities rather than the merits of the arguments. I would guess it’s a pattern in your life. Best of luck to you.
You opened with condescension.
That’s a pretty reductionist take, eh? Did it make you feel better to vent? It’s okay to vent. But also consider that you’re only seeing a small part of a larger whole.
And then left “larger whole” dangling without definition, presumably in an attempt to bait me somehow.
I didn’t play your game, and now you’re mad.
Ok, whatever makes you feel better.
imagine the dumbest person you personally know.
now realize half of America is twice as dumb.
When Democrats and Republicans work together to increase national fracking and oil production, protect polluting industries, not support living wages, gut education standards, not support universal healthcare, increase police funding it equals a stupider, shittier people that vote for the donor class puppets
bOtH sIdEs
I wonder how much this whole situation resonates with what happened in Argentina, when they elected Milei.
Milei to them was an obvious lunatic who would probably be terrible but had a small chance to be different, versus their traditional party who would very obviously just continue the country’s predictable economic decline.
Then again, I can’t really see any way Trump could be good for you if you’re poor. Not ever by the most charitable interpretations.
I think the difference is we already had Trump as President. Thinking he might be good now is admitting you have no idea how he was the first time.
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He closed that strike down in like December of 2022, the East Palestine train derailment happened on February 2023, exactly what the rail workers were warning about.
East Palestine was arguably in Biden’s hands. Maybe the regular people forgot, but a lot of union workers didn’t.
The Dems had a weak message and they struggled to deliver it where it mattered.
They raised a record amount of money, and spent it on door-knocking and cable ads talking about a rebounding economy, the middle class, and diversity.
The voters who decided the election live in apartments and listen to podcasts, and see an economy in the shitter, and see themselves as working class (not middle) and just an average schmuck.
Total disconnect.
They didn’t even need to move to the right to reach these voters, and they alienated a bunch of the left by trying.
you forgot the money spent on Fortnite
That was long term planning for the elections in 4-6 years, sadly they forgot this election.
The main problem, IMHO, has two facets: (1) the Dems seem unable to muster the courage, will, self-sacrifice, or what-have-you, to rebalance wealth in this country such that Joe Average has a fighting chance at the same life Gramps had (a car, a house, sending the kids to college, etc.); (2) the American voter tends to be dumber than dogshit, and the dems refuse to see it. Therefore, they can’t develop a message that is digestible by the masses, nor a messenger who is enough the showman to entertain the crowd. I think we’re fucked until the Dems can address these issues. My confidence is quite low. What I see coming down the pike is ever increasing socioeconomic stratification, the logical endpoint of which is some break-point event that leads to societal upheaval and a restructuring of the American system. We are headed for crisis. When exactly we’ll get there, I don’t know. It took roughly my lifetime so far for shit to get this fucked (I’m mid 40s), I don’t give us another 40 years before some bad shit happens.
Harris did not even need a plan the way she started
all she had to do was acknowledge that yes there are issues and talk about them publicly
just like at the DNC instead of taking the win she was given others were let on the stage to talk that put a lot of fire out of her campaign
Harris could have won by a landslide with all that she was given and the people that initially supported her, but she fumbled so bad it feels intentional
Harris was a real candidate as much as the Tyson Paul fight was legit. Just another scam for the rich to grift.
Assertion unsupported by any facts.
Enjoy your reality homie get used to losing elections.
I have voted blue my entire godamned life, and said something ableist and derogatory against Republicans here and got shit on. These morons here don’t understand that they can’t keep doing this any more and we will never winan election again in our lifetimes unless a drastic culture change happens.
Woke is dead; money talks. This is what everyone thinks now, and if you don’t believe me look at how badly we lost with voters to Republicans in every single aspect of government (entire fucking Congress from House to Senate, entire fucking Supreme Court, entire swaths of Blue Wall states fucking flipped, entire Executive Branch, etc.)
Wake the fuck up. Democratic Party needs to aggressively change and you should expect to be left behind.
It’s so great, after a couple of months, I’ll never have to see that losers face again. The memory of her name will also fade quickly.
It’s the small things. God surely blesses us.
If Hillary and Cheney has anything to teach us, they roll out the disgraced politicians every 4 years to demoralize the base.
First of all, fuck the Guardian; the best thing they ever did was leave X. They’ve been carrying water for the center-right as much as the left for a long time (American Granuiad that is, I dunno about the other one)
Secondly - BULLSHIT. YOU FUCKERS HAD THE CHANCE TO SAVE EARTH AND YOU DIDN’T. Don’t give me that “ignored the working poor” bullshit. FUCK OFF. Just because you see an opening to jam your moral high horse up the asshole of the election conversation YET AGAIN doesn’t mean you’re right any more than it ever did. We lost the chance to help the working poor. The working poor chose that? Fuck. They’re as evenly split as you arrogant bastards that had college paid for.
THE STAKES WERE THUS: SURVIVAL OR EXTINCTION. If you’re arguing that the Harris campaign insufficiently convinced enough mouth-breathing fucksticks not to vote for extinction, you’re wasting your time.
You non-republiQan fuckers didn’t show up. Plain and simple. So shut the fuck up about it. You suck, we’re all gonna die, the end.
💯
