BLUE DELUSIONS: On the one hand, she came amazingly close!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2024

Still, how did we lose to him? How in the world could Kamala Harris have lost to Donald J. Trump?

It's a perfectly reasonable question. On the one hand, we'd have to say this:

On the one hand, it can seem pretty amazing that she came as close as she did!

She didn't even get into the race until late July of this year. This followed a long, drawn-out, embarrassing meltdown by her party's sitting president—by the unpopular person she served as vice presidential nominee and then as vice president over the prior four year.

Mixed with other global patterns, those circumstances can make it seem pretty amazing that she came as close as she did! On the other hand, we'd also have to say this: 

On the other hand, she lost an election to Donald J. Trump! How in the world did we superior beings in Blue America ever get defeated by him?

How did we ever lose to that guy? For denizens of our own Blue America, it's the most natural question in the world. 

Unfortunately, our vastly self-impressed tribe is routinely gripped with tribal denial and tribal delusions—with a tribal blindness which leaves us offering the sorts of delusional explanations we've cited in recent days. 

Why did Candidate Harris lose to Candidate Trump? Full disclosure follows:

The possible reasons go on and on, and many of the reasons track straight back to Us! Again and again, we Blues have managed to earn our way out—and like tribal groups since the dawn of time, we're often unable to see this.

We lost a lot of time on this alternate Tuesday—much more than we'd expected. We'll return to this exploration tomorrow, and to our basic question: 

In what ways did those of us in Blue America actually earn our way out? It may be too late for it to matter, but we'll start listing answers tomorrow.

Some of the answers date back many years, perhaps to the 1960s.

Some of the answers are quite recent. They feature varieties of self-defeating behavior which continue this very day.

14 comments:

  1. I think it is fully appropriate to speculate about Trump's health, given that he has released no health info (in recognizable form). Somerby himself has wondered whether or not Trump is mentally ill. Drug abuse is one reason why a sane person might appear to be having symptoms. Dean has supplied a series of symptoms besides the sniffling and Trump himself has described his lifestyle. I do not believe anyone attended Studio 54 in its heyday without using something. I am willing to believe he has avoided alcohol because of his brother, but cocaine is something else. I do not believe he has made all drugs off limits (as recovering addicts do) and I have no trouble believing he may be using cocaine (or some similar drug).

    I want to see convincing evidence from a doctor that he is in appropriate health to take on the stressful duties of the presidency.

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    1. Trump is nearing the age where any health problems will become obvious to all. I think that was already true of his campaign rallies, but now he seems to be hiding whatever issues he is having. How long can his partners in crime keep him hidden?

      I wouldn't vote for a candidate who didn't release his records (at his age especially). Somerby has not explained why so many Republicans were willing to do so.

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  2. Biden is getting accolades from historians and presidential scholars for his performance as president. He had no long meltdown. He had a bad debate (so did Obama) and he was pilloried by the press and elbowed out of the nomination by big money donors among Democrats. Nancy Pelosi helped push him out. That doesn't mean he was failing as president, nor does it mean he is failing now, as he tries to protect his accomplishments from an incoming Trump.

    Somerby thought Biden was too old, and he joined the chorus of people trying to push him off the ticket. He was aided by deep fakes supposedly showing Biden looking confused. These were edited video created as propaganda to show Biden doddering, when the original video showed nothing like that. In other words, deception was involved in making Biden seem incompetent, and Somerby bought it hook, line and sinker. He still doesn't seem to realize that he made a mistake.

    Harris's numbers were improving but she couldn't quite make up the deficits of being unknown and being slandered by the Republicans, coupled with inevitable racism and sexism, much like that which pulled Hillary down. Harris lost to Trump because too many men cannot imagine a woman being more competent than the worst criminal reprobate (Trump). Women hoped but didn't expect Harris to win. Men thought sexism was over, racism was over, and thought she had a chance when she clearly had none.

    This is the fault of all of the blue voters who stayed home instead of supporting Harris. That includes Somerby, who could find nothing good to say about her candidacy and now is sliming Biden too. But our party was perhaps lulled into thinking Harris would win without their effort, just as some voters thought in 2016 when it was predicted Hillary would win. A sexist person doesn't want to reveal themselves as bigoted to pollsters, but they won't do the right thing and vote for a woman either, so we get a disconnect between Harris's polling and her results.

    Meanwhile, Somerby has still not listed any of the reasons why Trump won. He has said there are a lot of them, and that they track back to "us" (no, Somerby is not one of us blue voters and tribe members). But that list he keeps promising never materializes. He talks vaguely about "self-defeating behavior." He is the last person on this planet who deserves to lecture any blue tribe member on their behavior, after his own unwillingness to support our party's candidate, or even our current sitting president, who deserves to be treated better than ungrateful slugs like George Clooney did.

    If there were a heaven and a hell, Biden would go to heaven and Trump would go to hell, dragging his crew with him. Imagine the South Park full length feature (with the song Blame Canada) but picture Trump in place of Saddam. Saddam was never as bad as Trump has been already, and will certainly be in office (assuming he doesn't have a heart attack first). In that case, we can only hope that JD Vance might overturn Trump's worst efforts, in order to preserve his own place in history. He at least can perhaps see what is really going on, since he had the smarts to call Trump "America's Hitler" back before he decided to join the dark side.

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    1. You should get a life and stop blaming Somerby.

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    2. I have a life, but that doesn't make Somerby any less blameworthy. Do you seriously believe it doesn't matter what Trump does or how we resist the coming disruption? And it matters what Somerby says, because look how his lack of support for Harris cost us the election! Somerby has a lot to apologize for.

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  3. Perhaps I’m ignorant, sitting on a conservative silo. But it seems to me that the level of media bias was off the chart. Not only did they predominantly report positive stories about Harris and negative ones about Trump, they flat-out lied. They intentionally misinterpreted reasonable comments by Trump to make them sound racist or dangerous.

    I suspect that few if any here will agree with me. I think most liberals take the media bias for granted. But if they ever lose that advantage, they will gobsmacked.

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    1. Agree with you DiC. So many hoaxes, so much hysteria, so much willful skewing. Remember that Biden said he decided to run in 2020 after swallowing the Fine People on Both Sides hoax.

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    2. David, were you absent on the days when I listed the imbalance of stories about Trump compared to those about Harris (far more stories about Trump of all types, positive and negative). It is incorrect that Harris got mostly positive press, when they were the ones pushing the idea that she couldn't do interviews well and wasn't answering questions fully (or specifically) -- Somerby said that too.

      I don't think most liberals take the media for granted, and most of us think the bias is against Harris, not for her.

      Today, the media is busily sane-washing Trump's batshit crazy appointees, trying to make them seem reasonable instead of extreme.

      David, it is hard for you to make Trump seem like a victim now that he has won the election.

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  4. Yesterday, I mentioned that newborns are prescribed 72-doses of vaccines. That was not phrased properly. Sorry. The correct way to say that is: a baby born today, by the time he or she turns 18, may receive up to 72 vaccine shots.

    Here's the list from CDC website:

    Hep B - 3
    Dtap - 5
    Hib - 4
    IPV - 4
    PCV - 4
    Rotavirus - 3
    ChickenPox - 2
    Hep A - 2
    MMR - 2
    HPV - 2
    MenACWY - 2
    Tdap booster - 1
    Men B - 2
    Men ABCWY - 2

    Flu: 18
    Covid - 18

    Yearly Covid booster has been removed recently, so there is progress, I suppose.

    Did you receive this many shots growing up? Is it unreasonable to ask, may be, just may be, this list is over done?

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    1. How many of those serious illnesses can that 18 year old expect to contract?

      I received most of them. I did not receive the Chicken Pox vaccine, so I had to worry about shingles when I hit middle age. Kids who get the vaccine won't have the virus resident in their system to flare up later on. Boosters are not additional vaccines, a repetition that inflates your list. I never missed my flu shot and thus never caught the flu despite 18 years of teaching in the classroom. HPV hadn't been developed back when I had an active sex life, but I wouldn't date without it now. Meningitis is ugly, so I would definitely have gotten that one, had it existed when I was not yet retirement age.

      My late husband got mumps as a child and was unable to have children. Today's young men are spared that source of infertility. My sister and I had measles but were lucky not to develop heart, hearing or vision problems, just some scars.

      I have never had a side effect from a vaccination. I would consider this entire list important given the down side of actually getting these preventable diseases. I have had several tetanus shots and boosters. People die from tetanus.

      You should be looking up the symptoms of these illnesses, both while active and later on (lasting effects of being sick with them). Compare that to the incidence of side effects for the shots and the death rates for children and adults who suffer from these preventable illnesses.

      I notice no one is suggesting we let typhus or tuberculosis or cholera run loose, but why should our kids be subjected to diptheria? It is just as bad. I see the ads for people with hepatitus and am glad I don't have any of the variants (A, B, C) because the treatment regimen looks unpleasant.

      I notice a syphillis test is not on your list. That one should be happening regularly, especially in pregnant women, to prevent an illness that has been making a resurgence, with devastating consequences. Have people become squeamish about STDs and stopped using condoms or getting tested for them? Babies born with them have a hard time.

      Do you also have a list of what foods you don't think people need, based on how necessary you think they are? Do you want to gamble by not eating? Why would anyone risk a child's life and subsequent health by skipping a shot in this day of preventative medicine? That just strikes me as incredibly stupid and unfair to any young children you might make decisiions for.

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    2. Removing a vaccine from a list is not progress because the diseases those vaccines prevent are the focus of concern, not the shots that prevent them. It will be progress when these diseases disappear and are no longer a threat to children and adults. We had measles almost gone but it has reappeared because people stopped vaccinating kids. Smallpox has been eradicated via vaccination.

      Smallpox used to kill people, but if you survived, you were often disfigured for life by facial and body scars. Measles does that too. Not chickenpox unless you scratch the lesions, which itch ferociously. Both smallpox and measles could cause blindness. Smallpox wiped out indigenous populations around the world, as European explorers brought the disease to people with no immunity.

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  5. It seems to be a Somerby delusion that blues have delusions, when we do not.

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  6. "In what ways did those of us in Blue America actually earn our way out?"

    Go fuck yourself with this nonsense.

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    1. What does "earn our way out" even mean?

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