The president isn’t in charge of COVID. States are in charge of COVID. Pandemics are handled by the states with help from the federal government. BLM protest are once again state issues. I’m not sure why so many Americans don’t understand how the government is run. Presidents are not dictators. They are limited by the constitution and laws.

No why is the split so close? Harris isn’t a good candidate. She’s wildly unpopular and has been for years. He policies are horrible and the average American doesn’t want them. They are the opposite of what Americans want.

Biden has always been fairly unpopular. I’ve always thought the guy was an idiot but he isn’t far left. He fairly moderate to Leaning a little right.

We also have a large red/blue divide in this country and presidents are picked by the EC.

Trump is a horrible candidate but things ran well when he was in office. People will remember that.

The short version is we are running two awful candidates and that’s why the elections are close.

Because the media are largely in the hands of the oligarchy that will stop at nothing to get another tax cut.

I don’t believe it’s possible for anybody to be held to lower standards than Trump.

It’s a good thing she’s held to higher standards. I don’t want anybody held to his standards running anything.

They are trying to break through the misinformation being fed to Republicans. And trying to ensure anyone on the fence otherwise doesn’t have any excuses.

Because Trump

Theres several reasons

Part of it is good old fashioned bigotry

A big part of it is the systemic advantage the Electoral College gives Republicans

And of course there’s the matter that Traitor Trump voters don’t have standards while the rest of us do

The problem isn’t that Harris is being held to a higher standard. The problem is that Americans think of elections the same way they think of a sporting match. It’s “my team is going to win!” not “I’m going to vote for the candidate that is best aligned with my beliefs.” A huge number of the people who are voting Republican are doing so because the Republican party is their “team,” and damn it, their team is going to win even if it kills them.

Many years ago, I was discussing politics with a coworker (always a bad idea, but whatever). It went something like this:

“So, you don’t think the less-fortunate should be able to afford medical care?” “No, of course not, everyone should be able to see a doctor.”

“You don’t think gay people should be allowed to marry?” “I’m not gay, but they can do whatever makes them happy.”

“You support the war in Iraq, then?” “I support our troops, but the war is kind of a waste.”

“We definitely should legalize weed, right?” “Um, I’d smoke it if I didn’t get drug tested.”

“So why are you voting Republican, then?” “My family is Republican; we always do.”

People who would ever consider voting for the Toupee have no standards. No bar, no logic or even thought goes in to who they vote for.

The people who are planning to vote against the Toupee have standards. And the Democratic party has continually failed to meet those standards. And the only time the people have any power to pressure a politician is when they’re running for office. Anyone claiming “just vote in the D, then we can focus on getting progress made” is a centrist who is ok being perpetually part of the oppressed class.

Yes, we need to vote against the Toupee, and the GOP in general. We also need a presidential administration who will get progress done. And since the human species has, at best, 30 years left before the majority of the world is uninhabitable, little baby steps won’t cut it.

So Harris and the Dems have a high bar. Because the alternative is fascism, or death by climate change.

The Republican Party and it’s base are anti-intellectual, why do you think they care about logical consistency in their politicians?

Trump is an outrage machine, and we have a media that deals in an economy of outrage.

Trump gets outrage. Outrage gets clicks. Clicks get money. It’s a pretty simple chain to follow.

We need to wake up and realize that a profit-driven instantaneous news system that leverages strong emotions is not good for anybody. Truth is subjective nowadays, and all that matters is getting information (not necessarily facts) out and people consuming it (and all the ads embedded with it) there, first, and right now.

It is the way of Dems vs GOP.

And Fox essentially being a GOP mouthpiece.

Can you imagine a woman or a black man (let alone a black woman) running for president while being three-times divorced with kids from multiple partners and having cheated multiple times on top of that? Even if they were rich like Trump, it would never fly.

Part of the issue is the push by many left-wing voters to get actually progressive politics on the table after years of alternating between regressives and complacent centrists* that prefer making small concessions to the right over big steps to the left. They don’t want another presidency marked by lukewarm promises kept poorly. They’re tallying up all the ways in which Harris still isn’t as good as she ough to be.

For Trumpers, he is good enough. He is everything they want: A public role model enabling them to be an absolutely shameless asshat.

The complexity arises when people advocate voting for a third party instead. By and large, no third party has the traction to beat the Republicans. You’d need to get the entire Dem voterbase and then some. If that fails, you’ve split the non-Rep voterbase and the enabling asshat gets the plurality. On the other hand, there’s a risk that leaning too far left in the attempt to keep the progressive voters may lose the centrist* voters, which is a gamble whether that will end up a net positive. Harris has a tough job: walking a political tightrope, particularly if it’s consistently being tugged at by people.

And there are good reasons to tug on that rope. You’ll find some in these comments: Settling for “Good enough” doesn’t help getting actual change. For the ultra-rich, on the other hand, progressive policies are a detriment, so they’ll want to tug it the other way. The left doesn’t want to cede ground and keeps pulling. The centrists* that don’t like Trump but also fear dramatic change pull her to the other side again. The “centrists”** pull just to see her fall.

And that’s exciting! That’s an actual conflict of ideologies! That’s her having to work for her voters’ approval! You’ll see the complaints flying left and right, see her try to keep an ever-shifting balance, see drama and tension! People love drama and tension. Corporate media loves drama and tension because it gets attention, clicks, revenue, all that. “Assholes still support Asshole” just isn’t as interesting as “<prominent person> criticises Kamala for <policy>, calls her <incomplete quote>”.

Also, splitting the Dem voterbase serves the corporate executives and shareholders that want the right-wing tax breaks and erosion of worker protections because it makes them even richer. That’s probably not a coincidence.

*Centrist as in “I don’t want things to radically change”, not as in “I think both parties are equally bad, so I’ll sow dissent in the Dem voterbase, pretend that I’m not helping Trump with that and get to feel superior to both”.

** The latter group of the above footnote. It doesn’t really matter whether they’re intentional agents of disunity or idealists that care more about voting with their heart than the actual outcome. The result is the same: At best, they’ve achieved nothing. At worst, they’ve contributed to Trump’s victory.

Because a huge percentages of white guys are huge stupid pieces of shit and there are a lot of us out there.

To give you an example there was a poll in the swing states that showed that guys preferred Trump 56 to 44 and women the reverse. Nationwide in the last go round white men across the entire nation showed near as big a split again 56 44. vs 51 to 47 in Biden’s favor.

It’s about bigotry.

It feels like Harris has to run a damn near flawless campaign

Literally supports Genocide lmfao. Was Adolf Hitler running a flawless campaign too?