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I'm not sure that's a reasonable takeaway from the last two times a woman was a major party nominee.
Hillary Clinton was not especially charismatic, which is arguably what wins general elections in most cases. She was also unpopular with progressive Democrats, and widely seen as having secured the nomination unfairly when Sanders might have been both more popular with the party and a stronger general election candidate.
Kamala Harris was severely handicapped by the combination of being nominated without a primary process, starting her campaign very late, and positioning herself as a continuation of Biden at a time when Biden's popularity was very low.
If AOC were to win the nomination, she would be in a much stronger position for the general election than either Clinton or Harris.
Biden himself ran for president and won on the third shot. But, since two woman ran for president and lost, thats a sign that no woman can get elected.
Its not that women can't win. Its that centrist dems than run on the status quo when the Democratic party is polling abysmally can't win.
Yeah, thank you. The problem with Hillary and Kamala is nobody liked them. Now sure you can argue " maybe people didn't like them because they're women and they have a bias against women". I never heard anybody online saying " wow! I would sure love to have Kamala as president but I just don't think other people will vote for her". I see lots of people saying that about AOC. At some point you have to look around and be like oh wait...lots of people are saying they'd vote for her.
We also have to ask ourselves why no one liked them. Some of it can be attributed to sexism and or racism, yes. But I think we can attribute a lot of the unpopularity of those candidates to their lack of charisma, weak seeming positions and advocacy on progressive points of interest (such as Gaza, the Palestinians, border climate change, etc), and what seemed like stupid meddling and sabotage by the consultant class.
AOC has a message that people want is a key thing. Harris kept it too safe to really sway anyone that wasn’t already sold, unfortunately. That’s not to say Harris didn’t have a published policy list, but it wasn’t what people were seeing or hearing. If Harris came out as a progressive, which I believe she was, then I think she would have swayed middle America.
Honestly, I think unfortunately gender/sex does play a factor, in addition to race. If this administration has taught us anything, is that there is that much hate within our country.
Also think of cultures where historically their culture doesnt value women. Even if there are people who immigrated here, some still may never vote for a woman. Some will decline because they are racist. While we are all Americans, we are deeply deeply divided ATM :(
This is without even factoring the candidates political platform in yet.
I like when people claim racism was a major factor in Harris's loss, given that Obama was elected in 2008 with a larger piece of the popular vote than any President since.
It was one of many factors. Obama winning didn't prove that racism didn't exist. He won despite the racism. Harris had racism, sexism, a lack of a primary process, the lack of experience as an executive, and so on against her.
In a lot of ways, Obama winning kind of broke the country.
He was a Democrat that people genuinely loved because of how charismatic he was (which was REAL nice after Dubyah...). Or, as a certain Former President put it, he was a Clean And Articulate Gentleman.
The problem being, his very existence set off all the chuds. It completely destroyed their minds that a black man could possibly be President. And it is a big chunk of what set for the "never again" mindset we are seeing.
But it did prove that racism does not have enough of an impact to move the needle in any substantial way—it failed so hard to move the needle that, again, literally no candidate since has even matched, let alone topped, his popular vote %.
Are you sure? Maybe Obama would have swept all 50 states if it hadn't been for the racism. Maybe the only reason it was at all close was the racism.
Given the close margins I would say it surely played at least a part for Harris losing. Obama won by large enough margins that even if all the racists stayed home that he still won in a landslide.
If even 2% of the population would never vote for a women or a person of color then it was enough to have mattered when others are sitting home for other reasons. It’s certainly not the main cause of Harris losing as you pointed out, but when the margins were that close every vote did matter.
Given that, while Trump got ~3 million more votes in 2024 vs. 2020, and Harris got nearly 7 million fewer votes in 2024 than Biden did in 2020, and that the US's population increased about 8 million in that span of time, are you suggesting that there's that much misogyny and racism among the Democrats?
The total population is not the total voting population. There was also a pandemic between 2020 and 2024 so I would expect the total amount of eligible voters would be different as a result of the pandemic.
I think that’s an uncharitable takeaway from what I’m talking about to say that the misogyny and racism were the core reasons that Harris got less votes. There were notable other factors that made it a close election, which I mentioned was the case. My point was more that because the margins were that close that those smaller details did matter more.
I suspect the majority of that 2% would also never vote for a Democrat.
I believe that you are mostly correct, although the actual motivations for these folks are complicated. Some may value a few extra bucks in government support, having social security, and having Medicare programs. So there are some economic reasons they may vote for Democrats on occasion, but their bigotry could get in the way of their best interest.
So, some of those people probably just stay home for election night. While a good chunk may be getting convinced to vote for Republicans if they feel their bigotry is being rewarded.
Both Hillary and Kamala were unenthusiastic campaigners, depending on democrats to anoint to victory. AOC isn't very popular outside of the northeast, and she doesn't appear fiery enough to excite those who don't know her.
Still a big risk to take. We need progressives to win at least the next two elections to have any shot at winding back the damage from two Trump administrations and a largely impotent Biden administration.
But I agree that if she wins the primary, that's the part that really matters and what Harris was missing.
Yeah, I think there is a substantial portion of Americans who won't ever vote for a woman, but I think it was still just a small part of the larger issues in both their campaigns
If charisma wins elections how did Trump win?
Edit: forgot that he most likely didn't, at least the second time. Still, how did his potatoe charisma get him the first win?
trump back in 2016 was genuinely charismatic... to his base. He was able to quickly spin nonsense schoolyard bully insults against anyone who went up against him ("Little marco rubio" and so forth). Combine that with Hilary having almost two decades of smear campaign tactics against her at that point and not committing one way or another towards decorum or "you fuckers are weird" and... yeah.
trump in 2024 won because the left blames Biden for the economy and the chuds wanted their hitler back.
That's not charisma.. maybe little kids would find that impressive, although I doubt it.
Have you seen the man work a crowd?
His antics don't work on you, or on me, or likely on most people you or I would be friends with. They clearly work on a huge swath of the population though, or we wouldn't be where we are today.
Work a crowd, as in talking barely comprehensible gibberish and hurling insults at people? So charismatic..
2016 Trump ran on the idea of being the good businessman who was going to clean up the swamp and get this ~~company's~~ country's act together. Just like any other CEO selling to investors. I have friends who, halfway into his campaign, were like, "I kinda like this Trump guy, he tells it like it is," and by the time of the election they had completely 180'd on him because of the details of what he was promising.
One of these friends is super into cults and true crime, and he says that listening to Trump is eerie because he sounds exactly like Jim Jones. Then, and now. Back then he sounded like Jim Jones in his prime (and read Hitler's speeches as bedtime stories according to an ex-wife, which would explain why all his campaign promises match up with Hitler's). Today, he sounds like Jim Jones making his death speeches while you can hear them forcing the cultists to drink the Flavor-Aid and gasping, choking, and dying in the background of the recordings.
The people who liked Trump the first time and didn't change their minds then were never going to change their minds the second time. They've already bought into the cult. And that's what Trump is - a cult leader. He promises them a solution to their misery by giving them an obvious target to take their aggression out on, and people eat it up because they want a simple solution that absolves them of any blame.
Don’t kid yourself. It takes a ton of charisma to lead a cult of personality.