Current Events > Are racism and sexism to blame for Kamala Harris losing the election?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I thought she ran a fantastic campaign in the limited time she was given.

America didn't want her because she's a black and Asian woman? Grocery prices are much higher now than they were under Trump? Or just because nostalgia for the orange man is too strong?

Partially yes.

Partially but not entirely.

Under Trumps 1st presidency we had a temporary social safety net weve never enjoyed due to Covid.

That caused inflation which hit under Biden.

People are dumb and think thats coming back under Trump again.

This is primarily why he won.

To some level I'm sure

There is a significant amount of Red base people that are absolutely misogynistic and racist

which is on brand for that brand

sure but not the main reasons. tt and poll are asking two different things. are they the main reasons to blame? no. but did they partially play a role? yes.

Partially for sure.

She would have lost even if she was a white male if the campaign had been the same. The economy vibes and inflation were the biggest issue (probably nothing any candidate could do about that other than throwing BIden under the bus, which didn't happen). You also had immigration and trans rights which is a rough situation because you have a majority that supports deportations and restricting rights for trans individuals and that's obviously not something you can deal with easily without throwing vulnerable individuals under the bus.

Basically it was a shit election because the electorate is majority shit.

In part, yes.

Absolutely.

Misogynoir is a real thing. Being Black AND a woman? Then people believing she isn't Black.

Too many people lied about who they were truly voting for to avoid looking racist and sexist.

white men were threatened, what else could it be

Ultimately I do think that the economy was the biggest factor. Which is really, REALLY stupid in that virtually everyone with any sort of reputable background agrees that Trump is going to be an economic disaster for almost everyone sans his close friends, but the cost of eggs seems to be the biggest determining factor here.

But racism & sexism absolutely played a role. I've seen way too many examples of people who openly admitted to that being a factor, it definitely played a part.

dotsdfe posted...

Ultimately I do think that the economy was the biggest factor. Which is really, REALLY stupid in that virtually everyone with any sort of reputable background agrees that Trump is going to be an economic disaster for almost everyone sans his close friends, but the cost of eggs seems to be the biggest determining factor here.

But racism & sexism absolutely played a role. I've seen way too many examples of people who openly admitted to that being a factor, it definitely played a part.

The fact Trump said it plainly that he will enact tariffs during his campaign then people googling what tariffs are AFTER voting for him.

Stupidity combined with racism and sexism.

anyone saying no is a dunce. There has always been a portion of America that will not vote for non-white, female.

If it's "at least partially," then yes. I don't hate myself nearly enough to calculate the degree of blame, but it wasn't insignificant. Especially racism, but just because I think that came up more. The sexism is more latent. To put it crudely, the sexism vibes were just really really off in this election cycle. We're about to see a rise is some seriously bad outcomes for women and their access to healthcare over the next few years.

A factor yes. The reason? No. The old white dude in office would have gotten beaten quite handedly too.

Incumbents across the world in a post COVID inflation fueled world have dropped like flies in a manor not seen in over 100 years.

Between this and the massive disinformation campaign Trump/Elon ran she had no real chance regardless of what you think of her campaign (which wasn't great TBH).

Link_of_time posted...

anyone saying no is a dunce. There has always been a portion of America that will not vote for non-white, female.

Wouldnt vote for a white female either

turns out the only people Orange can beat are women

It was a factor. I've had men tell me that they weren't sure about a woman being in charge of things like the military.

Its too bad the US cant be more open to minorities.

Maybe one day they will elect a president who isnt white. It would be nice if in the multiverse at least the US might elect even a black man. Who knows, they could elect him twice. Yeah, maybe one day.

Democrats must be racist and sexist for not voting her the nominee in 2020.

No, but it seems to me like the whole sexism excuse is just a cope for people in denial that Kamala was just a shitty candidate.

That and or theyre just desperate to check off the whole first female in office on their progressive list or something. It really does seem like thats all some people care about.

Yes, but due to the at least partially stipulation. Its impossible to have not played a role to some degree. But overall, I really think she lost because shes connected to Biden, and the average person simply goes in with a mindset of How have the last 4 years been for me?

To say that is to not accept responsibility for things. Things went wrong that had nothing to do with racism or sexism.

For evidence, Hillary won the popular vote in 2016.

I largely blame Biden for this fuck up. If he had stepped down from the race a year ago it is likely we wouldn't be here

I say yes, the day after Trump one idiots at work were chanting USA and hi fiving each other saying they're glad that woman lost and that those people were crazy putting tampons in bathrooms. these were men of various races s, black, white, latino etc. She lost for 5 reasons IMO

Racism and Sexism are still very big in this country

Biden was pretty disliked his whole presidency successes be damned, his handling of Gaza completely screwed his legacy too

Harris only had 3 months of campaign time and Trump wised up not to debate her again, if he had she'd of probably overtaken him.

The economy for the average American is garbage, corporations are robbing us hand over fist and now that Trump's back they're gonna just knife us in the back and take all our shit

Harris's campaign came to a screeching halt when she started listening to Clinton's people and dropped the aggressive words for more soft speech towards republicans, campaigning with the most despised republican family out there, toting out celebrity endorsements and saying stupid shit like wanting to put Republicans in her cabinet and refusing to give a solid answer regarding the israel conflict, I think thanks to those actions people started seeing her as fake and not genuine, Trump is a cartoon character and a fucking moron but people believe that stupidity and willful ignorance because he breaks normal speech patterns, swears like a sailor and has absolutely no self control makes him more "real".

Those are the big things I believe caused her defeat, Democrats just do not have the information giant that Republicans do, all they have is MSNBC and they probably won't have it for long seeing as that walking dip shit Elon Musk is considering buying it or that Trump's crappy administration is going to be threatening their broadcast license unless they become more like CNN or what Trump would really like to see like Fox or Newsmax but being like CNN would probably be satisfactory. Democrats aren't keen on the podcast world or lifting up progressive liberal podcasters either because they will not be friendly to them and ask them questions they'd rather not answer even the bigger ones like Brian Tyler Cohen or David Pakman would grill them over certain policy positions or campaign decisions they've made and they don't like that kind of shit. And people often ask why the left has no real news channels, it's not from lack of trying it's from lack of willing advisers and viewership, the people you need to bankroll your network aren't opening their wallets because because of what you believe in if they screw up or you find out they're doing something awful you're gonna talk about it because that's what you promised your audience and you talking about it could damage their band so no money for you, as for the audience, like it or not, people don't wanna constantly hear about bad things they can do nothing about or about things they love, even popular sorta go after everyone programs like Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show don't get nearly the ratings as a right wing podcaster or any of the shamelessly right leaning corporate media, it's a depressing fact, you could also point to seth meyers, kimmel and colbert but their audiences aren't tuning in for politics they're tuning in for jokes and they only see the bad stuff as a punchline to make them laugh rather than what it is.

Another thing working against the left and the progressive movement is there's no real unity, people agree on something and argue constantly about other things, there's no agree to disagree in the left it's agree with me 100 percent because my morals and values will not let me compromise on this issue, the so called purity tests as Obama once put it, Jon Stewart also went through this and has gone on a few rants about it in the past, there's no getting together, not compromises and definitely not any events like CPAC, Newsnation and other conventions because the left doesn't have billionaires to fund them.

When you look at all of that it's no wonder people hate the Establishment Democrats for bowing to the rich while at the same time they need to because without them they can't ever get elected let alone get their message out, it's fucked it seems like soft fascism is the ideal capitalistic society over democracy

tremain07 posted...

the left doesn't have billionaires to fund them.

When you look at all of that it's no wonder people hate the Establishment Democrats for bowing to the rich while at the same time they need to because without them they can't ever get elected let alone get their message out, it's fucked it seems like soft fascism is the ideal capitalistic society over democracy

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/10/30/kamala-harris-has-
more-billionaires-prominently-backing-her-than-trump-bezos-and-
griffin-weigh-in-updated/

That's not the problem. In fact over $200,000 was her best demographic. She also raised about 3 times as much as Trump and had far more PAC money spent supporting her. It's honestly getting exhausting pretending Trump won because the rich people wanted him to when it was the opposite. His messaging spoke to the working class and that's how he won. Democrats need to do the same (and that likely involves playing dirty and lying to voters and just making shit up, but you need to play to win). Democrats need to embrace a message for the working class and stop whining about the wealthy that already support them. There aren't enough wealthy people to win elections and blaming them doesn't make them or the working class want to vote for you, so it's a pointless strategy.

Partially, sure. But it's deulsional to pretend like just running an old straight white guy would magically give democrats a generation of landslides

Pitbuller_26 posted...

Absolutely.

Misogynoir is a real thing. Being Black AND a woman? Then people believing she isn't Black.

Too many people lied about who they were truly voting for to avoid looking racist and sexist.

This.

It is the MAIN factor. Everything else are convenient covers.

It is the reason so many Trump voters are today asking Trump to not do something he specifically said he was going to do, when Kamala would never do those things. They don't want Trump to be Trump, but they'd rather risk that then put a black woman in power.

America has never elected a black female governor, we've only had 5 black female senators (Kamala being one).

One of the top "criticism" of Kamala during the election was "she didn't say what she would do as President." This is despite countless hours of her giving speeches about just that. There is a thing in people (especially men) when women (especially black women) speak they don't listen. (it's literally a problem in hospitals that lead to black women dying at a higher rate than others with same medical issues).

Black woman are on the lowest rung of the hierarchy in American society, it was beyond naive to think a bunch of low educated beer drinking wanna be alpha males (and some of their wives and daughters) would stand by while a black woman takes control of the US Army.

No.

Anyone saying no has too much faith in humanity lol

America just isn't at that level yet.

This is so dumb the racists and sexist voters were gonna vote for Trump regardless

Hate is one of the default emotions a human being feels so it is a contributing factor.

No for two reason.

I voted no for two reasons.
One is because many (not all) for the people how voted for Trump don't know any better. They are in a cult an I don't say that lightly . If Mods want to at me for that. I can back up my statements 100% .

The Next reason is Harris said this wasn't a racist country. And I am not being cheeky with that. But honestly how weak they were on these issues just let them grow. And some how the leader ship says dems lean it too much. When they almost never touch it. Normalizing Trump shit is what helped him and they are doing all over again.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Post-patriarchal?

Yeah. Trump is the worst candidate to ever run a major party. People only voted for him bc of some deep insecurity that their position in life was in danger bc women and minorities might start her semi-equal treatment

It certainly had a nonzero impact. It seems like the biggest single thing was likely her being unable to distance herself from Biden.

It's one of many reasons but it's definitely not the only reason.

The "at least partially" made me say yes.

But she ended up getting more votes than Trump did in 2020, and Biden was well on his way to losing to Trump had he not dropped out, so I do not think it was a deciding factor.

Are they to blame? No. I think the insistence from the DNC and its supporters that Harris ran a fantastic campaign are representative of a far, far bigger problem that led to Trump winning.

That being said; did they have an influence? Absolutely, youd have to be an idiot to not see that.

Partially yeah. A big part of Trumps cult is ride or die with him because they hated Barack Obama so much, in large part because rhey hated that a black man was a president for 2 terms. And of course people that are racist to that degree are more likely to be sexist too, so Kamala being both black and a woman likely emboldened them even more.

That said, I do think she could have beat him if her messaging was better and if so much of America werent idiots. I believe the biggest factor in her losing was because of said idiots perception of the economy and her not separating herself from Biden, which is something that would have most likely led to even a straight white man losing.

I cannot imagine there was a particularly large percentage of people who would have voted Democrat but decided to vote Trump/abstain because of her sex or race. I'm sure it contributed to some aspect of the loss, but doubtfully enough that anyone should be bringing it up as a reason why she lost.

No. A black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama won in a landslide and came in with a 70% approval rating and was reelected.

In 2016 a woman won the popular vote over a man.

The reality some don't to face is Kamala was a weak candidate who ran a terrible campaign.

Kolibri_X posted...

No. A black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama won in a landslide and came in with a 70% approval rating and was reelected.

In 2016 a woman won the popular vote over a man.

The reality some don't to face is Kamala was a weak candidate who ran a terrible campaign.

The data isn't showing she was the weak candidate that some like to exaggerate her to be. She lost by approx 2.4 million votes to Trump, and got 8.7 million votes more than Hillarys 2016 bid. She currently has more votes than Trumps 2020 bid.

What you are saying isn't reality. Kamala lost because of over several factors.

Kolibri_X posted...

No. A black man with the name Barack Hussein Obama won in a landslide and came in with a 70% approval rating and was reelected.

In 2016 a woman won the popular vote over a man.

The reality some don't to face is Kamala was a weak candidate who ran a terrible campaign.

except for all the memes about her doing sexual favors to get where she was, right? Or all the noise about her previous relationships? Or the I thought she was black but shes actually Indian? LOL WHICH IS IT?

youre beyond ignorant if you dont think it played a part

As much as I love Obama, he is part of the problem in this, not him but him being elected opened the door for a new wave of racism we havent seen in decades, because anytime someone says America is racist the Im not racist but crowd will say how can America be racist if we elected a black man, twice

Well now the counter to that is America is so racist the guy who claimed the first black president wasnt American, that super racist guy was elected President, twice.