General Discussion

If you feel it was working out well, do that. There are certainly no shortage of people who think how we manage campaigns is a work of art that should framed in a museum somewhere to be admired for eternity.

You say, "Well, she talked about that." Yeah, to whom? We're political junkies. We see everything. Voters aren't. They get the broad strokes. They saw that she was having a hard time separating from Biden, as if recognizing that people were having a rough go of things since 2020 was somehow an implicit indictment of the administration. There was a problem with incumbency. She wasn't going to come in and trash the administration for its tone deaf approach to the campaign - and it was tone deaf.

When it came to the Latino community, every other message was "immigration immigration immigration". Which has been amply covered at this point in other posts.

I didn't hear a peep about the shitshow our educational system is. Parents resented the fuck out of the school closures. And our attitude has been basically, "Meh, whatever. Water under the bridge." And it did so much damage to students and learning. We just had nothing interesting to say on the matter (when we weren't actively defending the extended closures). Unrelated to 2024, but my favorite thing ever was the San Francisco school board refusing to reopen schools, and then they spent their time renaming those named after "problematic" figures in history. I thought AAPI parents were going to burn the city down. It was hilarious.

When it comes to young men, their behavior is a symptom of failed systems. And it is so hard for us to have the discussion. You see this on DU. Try discussing males and the possibility we're doing something wrong there for ten seconds, and it's like someone flashed the sun at a vampire orgy. The economics aren't working for young men, the educational system isn't working, our political culture does not have nice things to say about them, and it has gotten so bad people want to spend tens of millions of dollars on how to write the correct sentences to reach them (because they speak a foreign language apparently).

That's the thing about blind spots. They're difficult to see. That famous Orwell quote paraphrased. To see what is in front of one's nose requires a constant struggle. And if the response is, "I don't see the problem." Ok then. Keep on driving.