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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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Anybody that feared Biden dropping out needs to re-evaluate the way they look at politics. This has been a long time coming, and has been an inevitability since 2015 when Democrat party leadership decided they could pull a fast one during the primary. Before we even knew Biden would be that incumbent, the shape of this election had already been decided.
Now that Biden has dropped out, the Democrats have a chance. A lot of future history depends on how well Harris can turn the support for "Literally anyone else" to her advantage.
Edit: I seem to be getting a lot of downvotes for my objectively correct assessments of politics. Seems to me like y'all are either mad that I was right, or Republicans who are mad that Biden dropped out.
In what way?
I don’t know. It’s been pretty clear for a while that the traditional Democrat strategy of winning by courting centrists and staying the course has been less and less effective every election. Tapping into enthusiasm for leftist policies and energizing the base to increase turnout has seemed like the better move for a while. That’s what Obama won big on and then completely failed to deliver.
Staying the course with the “nothing will fundamentally change” candidate was always a path to losing, and after his disastrous policy on Gaza we were in a nosedive.
Leftism isn't a real thing. It's just a feeling.
In a political campaign always want to offer an optimistic future. As we've seen with Biden, it doesn't really matter if he makes the most pro-union policies in history, join picket lines, protect social programs, and only fail to increase minimum wage because his party didn't have enough votes. "Leftists" don't care about policies, it's entirely an emotional thing.
It's easy enough to understand. The leftists that voted for Obama became more centrist as they got older. The leftists of today are young people who only know about Obama from wikipedia and what they're told by politcal grifters on youtube and tiktok. Being young they're emotional and low information voters.
Harris offers the same "Hope & Change" feelings that Obama did. Which policies get implemented will be dependent (as always) on which party controls Congress. By the end of her first term hopefully enough of the low information emotional young voters will have more information and be a little more capable of critical thinking to vote for her again.
Also Gaza has nothing to do with leftism, it's actually a war between a democracy (Israel) and a fascist regime (Hamas). It just feels leftist LOL.
Bro, Imma stop you right there. The GOP shut down the government under Obama TWICE for no reason other than being the little shits that they are and don't hide nowadays. So, don't drive this "Obama did nothing" nonsense narrative. Also, ACA. Even the Republicans benefit from it right now.
Now moving on, I still don't see what is there to re-evaluate for the people who feared that Biden dropped out. Hindsight is 20/20, and it's very easy to say "ha, you were wrong!" after the fact.
Obama didn't do nothing, he bombed like 9 countries and bailed out the banks after they halved black wealth.
I can't say whether the ACA was better than nothing because I still can't afford healthcare.
Which state do you live in?
And are you working at the moment?
Currently in SC and between jobs, but before I got laid off, I stopped putting money into the HSA and using any kind of healthcare after I saw how much doctors visits, dental, and routine blood work drained it.
Sorry that happened to you, man. I've been there.
Thanks, I managed to put some money aside so I'm not in immediate financial straits.
I'd been getting shit on for years for trying to tell people Biden would have to drop out to give the Democrats a chance this election. Lo and behold, once he finally does, Democrats are suddenly on track to win.
Everyone who didn't understand that this was going to be the case had their heads buried too deep in the sand to hear any of the legitimate, well intentioned criticism of their preferred candidate or the arguments for why switching would be a good thing. Such folks who accused me of being a Republican or a Russian bot when I was actually right cannot be trusted to perform political analysis.
You still haven't said in what way people who feared Biden dropping out need to re-evaluate the way they look at politics.
They were afraid of a thing that would significantly improve their electoral chances because they were too wrapped up in their support for a presumed nominee to put their biases aside and consider the benefits of switching to another candidate.
Your sentence comes down to: "Their biases made them afraid of considering better options."
Specifically what biases are you talking about?
Anchoring Bias, Salience Bias, Normalcy Bias, Confirmation Bias, Semmelweis Reflex, Egocentric Bias Blind Spot, False Consensus Effect, Illusion of Control, Illusion of Validity, Naive Realism, the Overconfidence Effect, Zero-Risk Bias, Neglect of Probability, Sunk Cost Fallacy, Plan Continuation Bias, Ambiguity Effect, Loss Aversion, Status Quo Bias, System Justification Bias, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect, among others.
Don't be dense. Those are types of biases anyway. Now tell me the biases you're talking about.
I don't know how to be any less ambiguous here... I'm literally, deliberately, and intentionally referring to any and all mental hangups which made people think that sticking with Biden would have been better than switching. That switching improved the Democrats chances should have been extremely obvious even without the benefit of hindsight, and the folks who thought otherwise were wrong and should reckon with this so that they can be less wrong in the future.
What part of this is unclear to you?
This is the part that is confusing:
"Biden supporters had biases that prevented them see the big picture."
Ok, what biases?
"Anchoring bias, blah, blah"
That's like saying "there are many reasons why that engine doesn't fit for that car" and then when someone asks you "what reason?" you reply "a technical reason, a mechanical stress reason, an electrical failure reason," ok, but GIVE ME SOMETHING CONCRETE. Is that red cable sticking out of the engine too thin and it risks catching fire?
Ok, name ONE example bias that you can say it is "anchoring bias" in this case.
That's all I want, man.
"Democrats have a Status Quo bias because they do this and they do that."
I already tried listing all possible biases that might be involved in the misconception and you complained about a lack of specificity.
Oh, I think I understand now. You don't want to think about Biden supporters as a generalized class who might take any number of different routes to reach the same wrong conclusion, you just want me to explain how psychological bias works.
Fine. Anchoring bias occurs when an individuals' judgements or decisions are influenced by a reference point that may be entirely unrelated to the question at hand.
For example, people who took "Biden is the most progressive president ever" as a reference for their judgement that he shouldn't step down from the race. Regardless of the truth-value of the statement, the reference point was entirely immaterial to the actual question, whether or not another candidate would have improved the partys' chances in the election, because it tells us nothing about how Biden compared with his electoral competition.
Thus, persons who relied on this anchor to justify their opposition to Biden dropping out did so for fallacious reasons, and an honest reckoning with this might have led them to an opinion which more accurately reflected reality.
Thanks, man. Yes, I think we were referring to two similar things, but definitely not the same.
When you said biases, you were referring to clinical, psychological ones, just like you said.
When I said biases, I was referring to those based on interests or an individual's experience. For example, a person might say that she has a bias for black kittens when trying to pick up on at the rescue shelter, because she grew up with one (you probably mentioned that kind of bias in the big list you shared - I just don't know how it's called.)
And I agree with you. Some people thought that Biden "is the most progressive president ever," or held other equally fallacious statements.
Particularly, my "bias," if we can call it that way, is that, at least up until the moment Biden bowed down, the Republicans seemed like a very unified party, whereas the Democrats didn't know what to do with themselves, and they didn't seem to be as unified. For example, Hillary Clinton (in sprite of winning the popular vote) didn't win enough votes because some party members protested by not voting. No unity whatsoever. And my bias, or fear, was that if Biden bowed down, the party would be like little ants scattering around - giving Trump the win.
Thankfully that was not the case in the end, and I happily stand corrected.
Anyway. Thanks. Nice discussion.
Indeed, it's always nice when folks stick around long enough to really understand the weirdness that is an ADHD/Autistic person's idea of a realistic perspective on politics.
It doesn't seem to matter how accurate my models are, most folks (regardless of their politics) just want to hear their own opinions reflected back at them. And I get it, it's frustrating when reality contradicts the assumptions one has held as the truth, but I've never been able to understand how folks can get so emotionally invested in an idea of how the world works that they take personal offense to the existence of contradictory evidence. XD
It's really hard to admit when one's world view is not what it seems. I've been there, and at the beginning it was hard to do. But it gets easier with time. Enlightening, even.
I will debate you to death if I am truly convinced that I am right. But if you prove me wrong, for me that's an awesome moment, and I'll feel like I learn something truly new.