Analysis spot on. I am glad a brilliant mind like Sam is also still mystified almost a decade on. To this day I cannot understand why such an obvious conman has such widespread appeal. I hope this spell is fading and we will see the end of Trump, although I fear we won’t see the end of ‘Trumpism’ until those on the left recognise their own part of creating the monster though well intentioned but generally unpopular ‘woke’ ideas and identity politics.
I still think we have the capacity to get back to ‘normal’ and I hope for a resounding Harris victory as a signal that we have had enough of the insanity.
They don't know because for years Trump was promoted by the press as one of the biggest real estate developers in the world -- a fantasy that he invented. He developed very little real estate, squandered money that banks gladly gave him (each bank getting a "personal guarantee" until the banks realized they couldn't foreclose on their loans without causing a chain reaction), filed multiple bankruptcies, and paid no taxes. Most Americans have no idea about Trump's business history, and some who do admire him for for gaming the system, ripping off the banks, not paying taxes -- not being a "sucker," in Trump's words.
- a fantasy he invented, and falsely embellished by the creators of The Apprentice who have recently apologised for not stepping up earlier to clear that up. It was a fake all along.
He doesn't game the system. He inherited 1/3 of a billion and promptly stayed losing it all because he's terrible at business. Such people never pay taxes, but it isn't a tax strategy anyone would recommend. He'd be the ultimate sucker if PT Barnum's maxim hadn't allowed him to con his way back to wealth.
I'm adding to this thread, since it's popular. Before everyone jumps on the various theories of what went wrong (trans rights, wokism, racism and sexism on the right, etc.) consider that the Dems lost because none of these things. Appealing to my sense of the simplest explanation likely being the most accurate (Occam's Razor) is the following from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/trump-victory-explanation-scrutiny):
"I propose a different explanation than inflation qua inflation: the Covid welfare state and its collapse. The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history. For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government.
"Despite the trauma and death of Covid and the isolation of lockdowns, from late 2020 to early 2021, Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy. They had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive. They had the labor protections to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had. At the end of Trump’s term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions. This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy.
"It’s important to note that Trump is resolutely not a social democrat, and these policies came into place during an emergency rather than due to ideological conviction. Indeed, he is currently running on the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history and Republicans’ Project 2025 would decimate the social safety net and immiserate millions. Beyond this, Biden wanted to continue many of these policies, but there wasn’t a political pathway. Instead, they quietly expired. To voters, however, the material reality is that when Trump left office, this safety net existed, and by the time of the 2024 election, it had evaporated.
"How could Democrats have countered this? One way was by making it a central issue, fighting publicly and openly to keep these protections and messaging heavily and constantly that Republicans were taking them away while Biden fought for them. An enormous body of research has established that social programs, when implemented, are difficult and highly unpopular to take away. These were universal programs, beneficial at all income levels.
"The political miscalculation the Biden administration made was that, lacking the political ability to implement these policies permanently, it was best to have them expire quietly and avoid the public backlash of gutting welfare programs and the black mark of taking a public political loss. This was a grave miscalculation.
You’d be surprised. I was able to convince an undecided person to vote Harris by sending over The Atlantic article about Trump’s various misgivings related to the military and a few Matthew yglesisas/noah smith posts. Had sam written this last week it would’ve been part of the package.
I wouldn't want to speak for SH, but anyone who's been reading him and listening to his podcasts would ever have had a doubt about who he was going to vote for. I know he has a large audience, but he ain't no Taylor Swift :)
I have no doubt that Sam has carefully considered how his time is best spent doing his part to prevent a second Trump. However, I'm not convinced talking to Nate Silver, debating Ben Shapiro and dropping a last minute podcast with Mark Cuban along with this post was the best use of his time.
I voted against Trump (therefore for Harris). I felt much better about this vote because of Mark Cuban's advocacy during his talk with Sam. I loved the Shapiro debate, it eased my mind to some extent in the case Trump wins. Both great public services.
No not at all - there are tons of undecided morons and lunatics that subscribe. I know some myself. Sam has a broader audience than you think - there are definitely deranged Trump-loving lunatics that subscribe to Sam for other reasons.
Calling people undecided morons and lunatics reminds me of something. Hmmm. (Oh yes, it reminds me how Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" made her toxic to a wide swath of the electorate.) Take a page from Kamala's book: "I would never say that about Americans." Enough of disparaging others, please.
Trumps rhetoric against the left has been far worse. He kicked the door wide open for massive disparagement of anyone he dislikes. I agree it's not useful to speak this way, but don't mistake who's solely responsible for bringing us to this place.
You have very clearly illuminated why the democrats lost. Saying that the majority of Americans (ref: popular vote totals) are racist, fascist, lunatics, nazis is not an effective way to gain their support. Personally, I'd never voted for Trump in the past elections, but I did this time. Yes, he is deranged, but we were faced with a binary choice. This was a very easy decision for me, just as I suspect it was for the millions of others who cast their first vote for Trump. I'll happily take a singular deranged man, surrounded by republicans who value common sense, over a pliable Harris who is surrounded by a vast sea of deranged democrats.
it is not like there is a lot of choice. As Sam said in his post plenty of times: There is a lot to be critical about Kamala Harris, but compared to Trump she comes out as a shining bright star in politics. At least her feet are planted on the ground, and even they are not, at all times she is not high as a kite, like Trump
No, calling someone a deranged lunatic was cruel and uncalled for. Stop it. Rationally explain your difference of view or or refrain from pressing the blue button. I too deeply admire Sam, but he is not beyond critique.
Sorry, but it's true that Sam was overly critical of Harris up until the Mark Cuban interview. I have felt Sam kept asking questions (why didn't she have a Sista Souljah moment or two? Why didn't she admit that her positions changed?) that already had clear political answers he didn't see. (Cuban answered those concerns, but so have others.) I obviously don't speak for Sam, but I have no doubt that he was frustrated and wanted Harris to make her case more directly to his concerns. (And btw, I am to the left of Sam on very FEW issues, if any.)
I felt the same frustrations. Even in this article, he — with an amazing lack of self-awareness — in one breath talks about how “Harris’s every word and glance are weighed with Talmudic severity and found wanting,” and in the next breath, says that she “can seem evasive in interviews.” And is still repeating the same questions about her authenticity that were adequately answered during the Mark Cuban episode. I’m not sure what is going on here. The best thing he can say about Kamala Harris is that she’d be “normal?”
I say this as someone who would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump: if the goal is to defeat this MAGA cancer, then stooping to “both-sides” this election by harping on vague flaws in Harris’s otherwise brilliant campaign is not a winning strategy. As I’ve said here before, we need to put out the fire before we worry about redecorating the house.
I think above giving reasons for voting against Trump, Sam has been in the business of calling out bs as it is from all and every source hence his multitudinous works against religion. By understanding that you can easily see how important it is to call out bs on the left as well the deranged right. To appeal to rationality and evidence based thinking about the world is the real cure we need in our democracy, not just demonizing the other side - however justified - but also looking inward and finding your own misgivings.
How else will you ever bridge the gap between Trumpistan and the more reasonable left?
Agreed. Mr Harris' subscribers are likely in line with his views already. But his argument is so well stated that the impact of each of us sharing it on our social media, or using Sam's incisive arguments in our day to day conversations with friends and colleagues, could have been much more impactful if we shared them earlier. Having said that, I really appreciate his article.
You will not get a single Trumpian follower reading any of these notes. You could spill the beans on the most top secret election strategies right here, and the Republican party would never know.....
Sam Harris has been vocally anti-Trump since the escalator ride. He has piled on mountains of evidence against him more consistently, continuously, and honestly than anyone I can think of.
I simply cannot get past the nature of her candidacy. I feel like I am being taken for a fool. Biden won a primary. The right has been calling him mentally incapable for a year. The left maintained how sharp and capable he was. He came off horrible in the debate. The left still maintained he is our guy. They said this all the way up until 2 days before he quit and Kamala was installed as the candidate.
Kamala Harris was picked as VP in a cynical move to sway people of color and women. She was never popular and had never won a primary in her own candidacy. She was basically picked by decree and then selected as a presidential candidate by decree. It fits every definition of the coup and I am disgusted by it. Had they held another primary, as they should have, I may have even voted for her out of respect for them respecting democracy.
I won't go vote for Trump but I refuse to vote for what the democrats did this time. They look exactly like the deep state the right wing conspirators claim they are.
"The left still maintained he is our guy." This is really a myth. Part of the left said this because they believed there was no other way after the late date of the debate. A larger part of the left, however, worked behind the scenes because they came to see that Biden was unelectable, not because Biden had lost his mind (because he hasn't), but because he could not communicate effectively with the public. You have obviously adopted a far-right view of this. Please come back to the center and realize the practical reasons Kamala was picked: (1) she is VP and political parties do not just cast aside their VPs (even though relatively few have won (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/08/01/most-us-vice-presidents-in-recent-decades-have-sought-the-presidency-but-relatively-few-have-won/), (2) the fundraising that had been done was easily transferred to her as no other candidate, and (3) she already had a national stage and was competent to run against Trump. In fact, well-placed given her history as a prosecutor. No one else had a national stage at that point. Her gender and ethnicity was a way to get her candidacy off the ground, but those aspects eventually subsided.
Your this reply makes me even more annoyed about what they did. I’m a lifelong democratic voter and voted Biden in the primary. I consume a lot of both left and right media. I saw nothing from the left but firm and broad support for Biden all the way up until he was replaced on a Sunday afternoon.
“They came to see that Biden was unelectable” ok that is their problem. He won the primary, he was the candidate. You want a new candidate? Run a new primary.
Your other reasons are infuriating - the fundraising, the “national stage” and could beat Trump. Gross. I don’t and will never do party over country. If the democrats have problems with their candidates they can address them democratically, with a vote.
If they ran another primary and it was like Harris, Pritzker, Newsom… you’re gonna tell me Harris would have won? Doubt.
All of this happened because the left has lost their mind over Trump. They have thrown out all principles. I’m not getting behind it, I’d rather the entire country get thrown into chaos than abandon my principles.
Respectfully, I’m putting my principles over everything. If you think that’s selfish, ok. If the republicans did what the democrats did, I can’t imagine what people would be saying. I’m not sure I believe you would be talking about “practical”. Protests at a minimum.
There was plenty of time to run a primary. It doesn’t take long. And I’m not sure who would have run. What I know is that the main candidate dropped out, and there is no precedent or good reason that his FIAT vp pick just waltzes into the nomination. This was the party deciding for everyone and I’m so against that I’d rather this country fail.
You really haven't stated what principles you are standing for. "Letting this country fail" seems to me to be a radical abandonment of principle, although I can see that you don't mind at all Trump's judicial appointments or what his Supreme Court has wrought. (And btw, Pritzker and Newsom showed no signs of wanting to jump into the race at that point in time - it would have been unprecedented (the very word you used).
I'm mystified why you think that a Democrat would care how a Republican candidate is chosen. This is just not an issue.
You’re “mystified” because for some reason you cant comprehend that I’m not loyal to a political party. I’m a democrat by voting history, not because I identify with some form of group think. I care how republicans do things just like I care about how democrats do them.
When this took place, I thought to myself. What would happen if Vance won primaries and was the nominee. Trump for whatever reason didn’t run. But then Vance picked Trump as VP. Then a few months before the election Vance drops out and the party gives Trump the nomination. I’d call bullshit on that too.
By your thinking the democrats could do this little stunt every single election and it would be fine I guess? We use primaries to get them over with so that the party gets the ultimate decision? I’m not ok with that.
My principles are simple; I voted for Biden in the primary. He dropped out. I want a new candidate to vote for. I didn’t get that and instead had a candidate forced on me. I’m allowed to think that’s total bullshit.
And it really frustrates me how many people bring up “they would have lost all the money”. Good. Maybe if politicians see the consequences of such fucking around we might get better laws around campaign finance.
Joe Biden was fit to serve as president but so unfit to run he has to drop out after a single bad debate showing. He’s still fit to serve right this second mind you, just not another four years. He’s incapable of leading so he can’t run, but he could make a decision right this second about a nuclear attack. Not buying any of this.
I'm mystified because I believe that your view is rigid. Sometimes choices need to be made from those that are presented to us (because we don't have control over everything), and we need to get beyond ourselves to see what is at stake. Your principles are not at stake. Only your expectations of what should be are at stake.
There was no practical way -- time -- to run another primary. You also assume (without evidence) that "Pritzker, Newsom..." were actually interested in running at that late date. If you can't vote for Harris now, then you are putting yourself (your own feelings) over country and party. Pretty selfish, if you ask me. I'm a lifelong Democrat (the first Democrat I worked for was George McGovern) and have an easy time 'pulling the lever' for Harris.
Can we stop the “there should have been a primary” nonsense. When people voted for Biden they were also voting for the right for him to make decisions while in office. One of his decisions was to step down so someone else could run, and he didn’t demand (and didn’t have to demand) a primary to choose a successor. Another one of his decisions was to choose Kamala as his VP. So there’s that, as well.
Biden is the one who decided, and he was the one who won the primary. Besides, the party convention choosing the candidate was commonplace until the 70s so it's not like this is a new derisive thing.
"A larger part of the left, however, worked behind the scenes because they came to see that Biden was unelectable, not because Biden had lost his mind (because he hasn't), but because he could not communicate effectively with the public. You have obviously adopted a far-right view of this."
I get the nature of campaigning threw a light on Biden's aging, and if he's not overworked and not in the spotlight unscripted he probably can perform okay day to day in the office.
But I actually believe it's a core required competency of the position of President of the U.S. to be able to effectively communicate with the public! That's not a 'right wing' view, it's just common sense.
If WWIII breaks out tomorrow, it's not unimportant that we have no leadership in the Whitehouse capable of effectively communicating with the public right now! It makes me very very nervous! As it should all of us!
His inability to communicate w/ the public already posed obstacles to his ability to govern as the President of the U.S. these past years, as there's been a real absence of press conferences, addresses to the Nation, interviews etc. He was hidden a lot! You think that doesn't make an impact? Even his dogged insistence to campaign for a second term speaks to his compromised insight and judgment. Yikes! This is really alarming to a lot of folks including long term Democrats of which I count myself.
I don't know how you misunderstood my comment, which was directed to mksats, not you. mksats adopted the right-wing view that there was a 'coup', etc. You're arguing with the wrong guy! Cheers.
Yes I understood your comment was directed to Mksats, and not me. I felt some similarities with what Mksats was expressing, and so I offered my take on the counterpoint you made to him, which I understood to be that Biden is fine and it's of no importance that he struggles to communicate effectively with the public while continuing to hold office. My apologies for breaking any rules if I was not suppose to join in on the conversation. I was simply sharing that I actually do find it to be of consequence that my President, whom I voted for, can no longer be an effective communicator on the world stage or with the public. It seems weird to me that this concern would be considered a "far right" POV bc to me it seems more like common sense, or at least understandable/normative. But I accept your opinion, and D Cohen's too, that I am adopting a 'far right' point of view for expressing these concerns. Thank you.
I'm convinced that the only reason people think this is anything like a coup is because 1. what happened was atypical and 2. they have no idea how democracy works in other countries.
It was possible for Biden to stay in the race. And he stayed in it for a surprisingly long time after the disastrous debate. His conduct during that time, which was at best irresponsible, provided so much clarity on the nature of his candidacy. The guy really really wanted to be President... for another 4 years, and he was absolutely in denial.
Then he finally did get out, and almost immediately endorsed Harris, his Vice President. From what we know about Biden, he considered this simply an act of loyalty. We know that Biden was frustrated with Barack Obama for refusing to endorse him early in his 2020 candidacy. Obama himself, in his tweets, was talking abstractly about a selection process for the new candidate. Biden himself nipped this process in the bud, and (for all practical purposes) selected his own replacement.
So if you think a coup can be voluntary, and if a coup can have the ousted choose his successor, then I suppose yes, it is a coup.
For everyone else... this is nothing like a coup. Throw in the fact that a candidacy, not an office, was at stake. You seem to have noticed you have an option to choose her opponent, or choose no one at all, and this is another sign this isn't a coup.
Whether or not there should have been an open convention (instead of what happened) is an interesting question. Either way, the selection of the candidate would've been up to party elites. But there is no question that there was no time for a fair and open primary.
If you don't want to vote for Kamala Harris, that's fine. But to not vote for her because you perceive her selection to be "a coup" is silly in the first place. It is doubly silly when you consider the dramatically antidemocratic actions of her opponent in 2020-2021.
No, it is a coup, his candidacy was seized by his party. I’m not sure what else to call it but I’m definitely not going to use “atypical”. I also don’t care about what happens in other countries at all. This is the one I live in and I expect it to work a certain way.
Biden would have stayed in the race had he not been ousted by his own people.
Not my problem if there was “no time” to find a better candidate. Don’t run the guy you’re not sure about then. In any case there’s no way I trust a single one of them anymore.
The entire thing is just so insane and it is bewildering to watch smart people (like yourself) try and justify it. He isn’t fit to run but he’s fit to be president in the mean time. Makes no sense. They make right wing conspiracies look accurate which is depressing.
"No, it is a coup, his candidacy was seized by his party. I’m not sure what else to call it..."
Then I'll help: it's not a coup. Keep looking.
"Biden would have stayed in the race had he not been ousted by his own people."
No, I've presented what happened. Biden *did* stay in the race, for a remarkably long time. But, the decision to not run again was his. He may have done it reluctantly, but it was his. The Democratic Party never would've risked anything like an invocation of the 25th Amendment or a removal through impeachment.
"This is the one I live in and I expect it to work a certain way."
That's understandable. But (and I can't believe I have to say this) when things don't work in that particular way, that doesn't mean a coup is afoot.
"The entire thing is just so insane and it is bewildering to watch smart people (like yourself) try and justify it. He isn’t fit to run but he’s fit to be president in the mean time."
Justify what? You're changing the subject here because your position is indefensible. Of course all of this is insane. I've made no claims that Biden should've remained in office.
We have *actual* threats against democracy in our country today. So, to refer to what happened as a coup is not just illiterate, but evasive and myopic.
Even though I feel very strongly about this I’ll consider what has been said in argument. Whether I use the language of coup or not, nothing will persuade me that the Democratic Party has acted 1) honestly 2) ethically 3) in a way that I can support as a voter.
Additionally, I feel most of the left is totally ok with the whole thing because they REALLY hate Trump. And I get it. It’s a lot of “ok yeah this wasn’t great but all of it is still better than Trump”.
I’m actually ok with that level of honesty. But I’m not getting that, I’m getting people trying to justify this bizarro process in every other way that I should somehow be ok with. Like why do we even run primaries! Apparently it doesn’t matter and it’s all up to party.
And I’m very very annoyed about this idea that Biden can lead us through an existential emergency right this second but is somehow not capable after January. You can either do the job or you can’t. He already said he can’t by dropping out only 90 days before the election.
"nothing will persuade me that the Democratic Party has acted 1) honestly 2) ethically 3) in a way that I can support as a voter."
I have no issue with 1 or 2, and *in principle* I don't have an issue even with 3. There are a few things I'd add:
First, a huge amount of blame lies with Biden himself, and blame radiates outward from there. Vice Presidents are generally not part of a President's inner circle (exceptions have existed, such as Cheney). However Harris deserves more blame than, say, the Democratic rank-and-file in Congress.
Second (and more importantly), we're in a unique situation with Trump on the ballot here. Trump made a repeated (albeit disorganized, and sometimes even improvised) effort to reject the results of the election and remain in office. I don't know what will happen if he is placed in a similar situation again. And we should do everything possible to ensure that the person who enters the Oval Office *will* abide by the results of an election. So while I think it's in principle understandable to reject the Democratic Party for its actions in protecting Joe Biden, the practical situation is such that exacting a toll on the Democratic Party is... at best unwise.
"Additionally, I feel most of the left is totally ok with the whole thing"
Yeah, it seems that way in a lot of cases. I find all of it to be ridiculous. It is a failure of one of our "greatest" political institutions, and I will continue to be angry about it, and I will be suspicious of the party, for a long time. We will need nothing less than the best journalism (journalism that the issue *obviously did not get* before) in the months/years to come to diagnose this problem.
"And I’m very very annoyed about this idea that Biden can lead us through an existential emergency right this second but is somehow not capable after January."
I think the idea is less this, and more "he can do it after January too, but he's simply unelectable." But I won't defend either.
I would encourage you to consider women’s rights to healthcare because the stories of what women are going through in the states that enacted draconian anti abortion laws are beyond horrible. Women who want to have children and when their pregnancies go wrong they are not getting the care they need to save their lives and the lives of the babies. Young victims of rape and invest bring forced to carry pregnancies to term. This is all at stake if trump wins, they will pass an anti abortion federal law. Not to forget that if he wins, Alito and Thomas will retired and be replaced with 40 year old far right judges. This has so many layers of consequences to all of us. I beg of you to reconsider and vote for Kamala Harris.
Thank you for your comment. This has been something I’ve been trying to follow and understand for the past year but I seem to run into nonstop conflicting information.
One thing I know is that Alabama did try and restrict access to IVF but afaict it didn’t go anywhere. I see various news stories about women dying from not getting proper treatment during pregnancy and stories about girls being forced to give birth. All of this gets met with a torrent of anti-stories and debate and missing context. It’s a lot to try and keep up with.
I’m definitely pro choice. This isn’t an issue that’s ever going away. Half the country thinks opposite of me on this.
You are questioning the "nature of her candidacy"??? Are you f****g for real??? You have a 34 felony convicted man running for president against the VP of the US? What is wrong with anyone questioning the nature of Kamala's candidacy against a convicted felon DJ Turmp?
Respectfully, every take like this I see seems to misunderstand or devalue a key detail: the will and power and ego of the president himself. Once a president takes office, the machinery of the party and the government adapts to accommodate them, and there's a huge amount of institutional momentum established. Perhaps there were high level, trusted advisors who could give Biden hard news about opinions on whether he should run again or not (murmurs of the sort which started before he ever took office) without putting their own jobs on the line, but it seems trivial for me to imagine that Biden the person would deflect this feedback. And crucially, his deflection and decisions matters! And the machinery of government and the party must largely grit their teeth and bear his decisions.
So to me it makes sense that it took a massive public spectacle to create the political will (and to just literally convince people that Biden can't win) to pressure Biden successfully. I'm grateful the Democrats took advantage of that moment, and that Biden set pride aside.
Sam, I am a provateur, I think for all the right reasons. As Christopher Hitchens once said to me,
"I much more interested in talking to people I disagree with".
Your critique reminds me of my old professor Acrum Stoll's maxim "Most philosophical mistakes
are made in the first 3 pages."
Lets start with Harris: As you say "The positive case for Harris is simple: She will be a normal president, surrounded by normal experts, seeking normal political ends. The scientists she consults will be real scientists. The doctors, real doctors. Her administration will not be a 4chan thread come to life. Her foreign policy will not be made in consultation with podcasters who hock gold, ivermectin, and MREs"
Normal? Experts? What experts? The same people who continually thwarted the truth about COVID?
A virus with no history and a vaccine straight out of the inncubator is not place to be invoking "the name of science". Everything we believed about the vaccine and the virus of was learned on the battlefield. Yet there was the Biden administration and its lackies shaming, silencing, and censoring anyone who disagreed with their views including distinguished journal after journal.
What's come to pass is the bastardization of the word expert. They've just become partisan bufoons.
Pick an academy, law, medicine, science, they are all run by the left. To leave the
reservation is to commit professional suicide. So much for expert opinion.
As for Harris, she is know-nothing vaccuous politician who couldn't defend a single guiding principle without a telepromter. She is a cog in the leftist machine. Nothing else.
As for Trump he is a savior for the forgotten middle class. Saviors are rarely perfect. But they are needed. Politicians in both parties have spend the last decade taking envelopes and favors from all over the world at the expense of America.
Virtually every policy of Trump's is moderate and aimed the middle class. Reasonable taxation,
senisble border policy, smart foreign policy, confront bad trade partners, supporting the police
and ICE, and defending girls from trans men.
You remind the middle class of what they dislike about the left. You are forever fighting some imaginary war against a right wing Christian country club machine that died decades ago.
America is tired of another empty vessel running for office in the name of "progress". In the end the left doesn't want "progress", they want to deconstruct America into a post Marxist paradise run for a few for the benefit of a few.
"Everything we believed about the vaccine and the virus of was learned on the battlefield."
Manifestly false. The vaccine had multiple stages of human safety trials, just like any other vaccine. I have seen people exclaim that the COVID vaccines were released too quickly, and lament the "good old days" of Jonas Salk and long-term trials, like they did with the polio vaccine. These people are unfamiliar with the truth: that the polio vaccine, like COVID vaccines, was released in about a year... because that's just how long these safety trials take.
"As for Harris, she is know-nothing vaccuous politician"
Vacuous? I've used this word myself to describe her. Know-nothing? No. She strikes me, at least, as a curious person. I can't say the same of Trump: he is a bloviator and a charlatan who pretends to know everything better than everyone else, all the time.
"You are forever fighting some imaginary war against a right wing Christian country club machine that died decades ago."
The one that died decades ago... that just overturned Roe v. Wade 2 years ago? The alliance of the religious right, while somewhat mystifying, is both significant and self-evident.
That would surprise me, because Pfizer conducted Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III studies. I know at least one person who participated in the early phases.
"The POLIO vaccine was NEVER mandated."
Unsure what you mean; most states in the US even today require children to be vaccinated against polio to enroll in schools.
"81% of Americans got the vaccine and 60% of American got COVID."
What are you trying to demonstrate with these statistics?
"Its a joke to call anything proclaims about COVID science."
I know two people who participated in phase I of the Pfizer vaccine. "60% of American got COVID." Assuming your statistics are correct, (1) How many got Covid before they got the vaccine? (2) how many vaccinated people who got Covid got a nonsymptomatic or very light version? (3) how many non-vaccinated people died from Covid vs. vaccinated people? (4) how many people contracted the more serious version of Covid and how many contracted the weaker variant? (5) Did the people who got Covid take one dose? two? three? Your statistics are woefully incomplete, and misleading.
Vacuous? Merriam-Webster defines the term as (1) emptied of or lacking content," and (2) "marked by lack of ideas or intelligence." How is she vacuous and what evidence would convince you that she was not vacuous? Just curious.
Easy. Listen to her speak. Listen to her word salad. She is not intelligent.
She failed the bar the first time. The in demand law student went to work at lucrative law firms. The bottom of the barrel worked at public defenders offices.
I'm referring to the first definition. Kamala Harris strikes me, on average, as a highly risk-averse politician a la Hillary Clinton who lacks substantive convictions of her own, and runs campaigns via focus group. I agree with Sam Harris' take that her politics aren't actually progressive. But I'm not confident that she has strong moderate convictions either.
What evidence would convince me otherwise? Honestly, I'd need to review a lot more of what she has said and done. I'll admit I have hardly done this, because due to the unique dangers posed by Trump, I barely feel like I get to care about policy. So I have given thousands of dollars to Kamala's campaign, and have recommended this to others if they're able.
Please don't contribute to the view that she is 'vacuous' from a lack of investigating who she is and what she stands for. I'm not saying this applies to you, but this is a stereotypical comment leveled against women. For those looking for comparison, Trump is of course ever more vacuous, as everything to him is purely transactional, related solely to his own self-gratification...the essence of vacuousness.
Yeah, you'll find no argument with me on that front. I will say I don't find Harris... *uniquely* vacuous. I think many, if not most, politicians operate in a way that makes actual substantial convictions... inconvenient. What policies/positions/etc. would you offer that you think set her apart? I think the main thrust of her candidacy is quite different from what it was in 2019-2020, which contributes to my perception of her.
Yes, Trump is vacuous as in definition 2. And worse.
I can see that you conflate what happens in universities (the "academies") with the corridors of power. Constitutional law professorships ten to lean left, but not exclusively by any means, and rarely far left in any case. This contrasts with Trump and Vance, who have little respect for the Constitution or the rule of law. But this is what the "burn it all down" ethos gets us: Federal judges like Aileen Cannon, for whom judicial decisions are merely transactional, and far right Supreme Court Justices, who make purely political decisions that masquerade as principled analysis. But you are correct - the right wing Christian country club machine died decades ago. Now we have the far right Christian political machine grabbing power with the help of Trump and his judicial nominations.
He won't commit to a peaceful transfer of power, won't accept clear facts that he doesn't like (losing the 2020 election), and tried to install himself for a second term after he lost. What else even matters? I don't know how we get into run-of-the-mill policy conversations with that on the table.
Trump is vulgar and narcissistic and says a lot of truly idiot things. Fine. No news here.
But over the past decade the Democrat party and the media has behaved in ways so outside the norm, you would not believe it happened in America. It started with the Russia hoax and moved into bogus impeachment hearings, lying intelligence officials, dishonest reporting on what said or may have said, reimagined lawbreaking and courts inventing crimes. Throw in an assassins bullet.
How and why is that forgivable?
Trumps track record is exceptional. Economic growth, no wars, rising incomes, stable border.
A vote for KH furthers this slow march of Marxist ideology, elimination of scientific facts like the sex binary, loss of border integrity, increased totalitarian controls over speech and health care and the economy.
I am tired of “no wars.” Geopolitics does not move quickly. It’s no surprise that after years of Trump undermining NATO and European alliances that Russia felt emboldened to invade Ukraine.
So many of the global issues faced now festered under Trump.
Nice unhinged far-right talking points. Too bad they lack the facts to support them. I also guess you never read Marx, because that is the stupidest idea to come out of the right. But let's put a finer point on that. In apartheid South Africa, the epithet Marxist was used to describe anyone who was against apartheid. Your comment contains more lies than it claims to expose.
"Nor will you find anyone willing to defund the police or to fund gender-reassignment surgeries for undocumented immigrants in detention."
Sam, I am a huge fan. I am not worried about gender-reassignment surgeries for undocumented immigrants in detention.
Still, her prior stance on this and related issues says something about who she is, Sam.
More importantly, the way that talking point gets used as evidence of how this issue is so "remote" as to be not worthy of our attention ignores what is REALLY going on that IS worthy of notice, such as this data set:
Key National Findings (2019 to 2023):
13,994 children received sex change related treatments
5,747 sex change surgeries performed on children
62,682 hormone and puberty blockers prescriptions written for 8,579 pediatric patients.
At least $119,791,202 made from sex change treatments performed on minors
These numbers are just scratching the surface of how widespread these practices truly are.
This is just the data from insurance billing that could be accessed. They did not get data from HMOs like Kaiser, nor do they have any numbers from people who are wealthy enough to pay out of pocket. So, the numbers are skewed on the very conservative side.
Does it bother you Sam that our most prestigious medical institutions are doing horribly invasive surgery & drug therapy on under age kids that will result in life long health issues? Is Kamala Harris and the Democratic party going to do anything about this? Mainstream media? The pharmaceutical industry? The insurance industry? I'm not holding my breath. They are far too busy, often, telling me I'm a bad person to even question this.
Further questions about a Harris administration:
Is Kamala Harris going to put a stop to unbridled illegal immigration?
Is she going to stand up strongly to a Fascist Iranian government and it's proxies and support Israel?
Is Harris going to actively build upon the progress made in the last Trump Admin. with the Abraham Accords, our best chance at creating a lasting peace w/ strong coalitions in the middle east?
Can she project a strong, no-nonsense leadership presence that will be needed to deal with the new alliances building amongst the most powerful dictatorships in the world? Russia, N Korea, China, Iran, India, etc? Her biggest failing is being consistently unsubstantive and being unable or unwilling to comport herself effectively in unscripted settings.
-If abortion is your biggest issue, Roe already got overturned by the Supreme Ct., so how does Harris propose to wave a magic wand and make it a Federally mandated law again and take it out of state control where it now legally resides? By executive order? So, more by-passing of the legislative & judicial branch to place the power solely in the executive branch? In essence, more erosion of the norms of traditional governing, which I'm warned makes Trump dangerous 24/7 on MSM. But when Harris does it we applaud bc she's a dem and many of us want abortion to be Federally mandated? So when it works for us it's democracy & fair game, but when it works for the other half of the country its Fascism & dangerous?
And by the way, who is running the country right now? The guy who is too compromised to run a campaign, whose cognitive gaffs repeatedly damage his own and his VPs efforts? He is overseeing the Federal government and handling the many emerging geopolitical threats popping up like wildfire right now?
Why was I lied to for so long about Biden's compromised state?
Why was I not allowed to pick a candidate via a primary when it was determined the original candidate was too enfeebled to run a campaign?
If all this is 'normal' why should I want more of this?
As for Trump's fake carnival history, ya, not a fan. But Sam, do you really trust the political machine in DC and view its slick corruption as less harmful than the clownish, unfiltered, loathsome Trump carnival? Sam, do you think the top Dem power brokers aren't slimy, corrupt, involved in grift, lacking in self awareness, entitled and insulated? Everything I see happening in this county and in this election tells me they are all that and more, they're just much more polished than Trump ever will be.
Do I want to vote for Trump? No.
And if it were 2016 this would be a no- brainer.
But it's not 2016 anymore and as much as I'd love to vote for the first woman President, as I did for Hillary in 2016 hoping she would be the first female president, I just can't in good conscience support Harris-Walt and the current Democratic party to "run" this country for the next 4-8 years.
I've never found myself in this position before and I'm a 60 year old female. But, here I am.
I don't begrudge another person's choice to vote for Harris.
I have a friend whose child was born with ambiguous genitalia. They had to make their best choice within 7 days, and selected "female" on the birth certificate. After much stress and consultation with the best doctors, they realized that their child was an XX/XY chimera: formed by the merger/fusion of two separate zygotes early after fertilization (that would have otherwise gone on to become fraternal twins). What resulted was a happy, healthy baby, whose various organ systems have completely separate genomes. Turns out the child's gonads are actually closer to testicles than ovaries, just undescended. With the advice of their doctors, they made the decision to make some minimally invasive surgical procedures to best match the internal organs, as a male. They had to go through so much rigmarole to update the birth certificate.
My friend's childs' multiple surgeries are probably included in your stats, as are thousands of other similar intersex cases. There is nothing wrong with these surgeries, and the fact that they are possible and can make this young child have a better life is a wonderful testament to medical science, and has nothing to do with "trans people switching gender"
Hi Will, just a further follow-up on your wondering if the kind of surgery your friends infant had is included in the Do No Harm Stats. I inquired directly with the organization and received the following reply:
Thank you very much for your email regarding the database. Regarding our methodology, we removed any infants born with ambiguous genitalia or anomalies utilizing ICD 10 codes. Our methodology strictly reviewed common "GAC" (gender affirming care, my parenthesis) procedures matched with known gender ICD-10 codes. For clarification, please take a look at our methodology and white paper available on the database. We address your question in more detail in the white paper. Please reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.
So the answer is no, these data sets from Do No Harm do not include the kind of infant surgery your friends' child underwent for ambiguous genitalia.
Hi Will, I'm glad your friend's experienced successful interventions with their infant born w/ ambiguous genitalia. From what I can see, Do No Harm is focused on data re: adolescent affirmative care therapy (talk therapy), leading to medical interventions in youth up to age 17.5.
Do No Harm Medicine quickly became an anti-trans organization from its start in 2022. Their statistics should be open to question. Those provided here are quite clearly devoid of context.
From abcNEWS:
"A study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no usage of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the U.S., instead finding that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of such gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.
In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found -- a majority of which were chest surgeries. Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis."
The study found no gender-affirming surgeries performed on TGD youth ages 12 and younger in 2019. This was expected, the researchers said, as current international guidelines do not suggest any medical or surgical intervention for TGD individuals prior to puberty. For teens ages 15 to 17 and adults ages 18 and older, the rate of undergoing gender-affirming surgery with a TGD-related diagnosis was 2.1 per 100,000 and 5.3 per 100,000, respectively. A majority of these surgeries were chest surgeries. When considering use of gender-affirming breast reductions among cisgender males and TGD people, the study found that cisgender males accounted for the vast majority of breast reductions, with 80% of surgeries among adults performed on cisgender men and 97% of surgeries among minors performed on cisgender male teens.
“We found that gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed for transgender minors, suggesting that U.S. surgeons are appropriately following international guidelines around assessment and care,” said co-author Elizabeth Boskey, instructor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
"Do No Harm Medicine quickly became an anti-trans organization from its start in 2022."
Hi Lawrence,
I no longer engage with or take seriously accusations of a person or organization as being "anti-trans" or "trans-phobic". I know too many LGBTQ+++ people that do not feel represented by the "trans movement" or by people who use these kind of derogatory terms and accusations.
Most people I know, straight or not, understand and share normal range feelings of concern and caution when a new upturn in invasive medical surgery & drug therapy is being touted as the answer to anxious, depressed and/or confused under age kids.
"In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found -- a majority of which were chest surgeries."
"Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis."
Is the above information you provided suppose to be comforting?
Oh, good, they only make medical determinations affecting young kids on an individual basis. As opposed to what? Surgery performed en masse? Do you know what it is to have "chest surgery'? Do you understand how much tissue is removed with chest surgery? Including lymph tissue, which is the main part of the body that helps a person fight infection for the rest of their lives? This is being done on healthy kids under the age of consent...kids who are on record as being the most anxious, mentally unstable, confused, "adulting" challenged cohort we've ever seen? The same kids that can't keep jobs if they get their feelings hurt, wont' drive a car, can't leave home, are no longer having sex or dating and are perpetually worried about the end of the world...but they are perfectly capable and stable enough to decide to have their healthy breasts surgically removed before the age of 18?
Do you know who the biggest sponsors are of abcNews and other fav MSM outlets pushing this narrative? Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer.
I work in Behavioral Science and frankly Behavioral Science has jumped the shark on this one.
A quibble regarding 'there will be no celebration with Rashida Tlaib or the rest of “the Squad.”' AOC, for one, has been working hard on the Harris campaign. She has done some effective Twitch sessions with Walz, talking politics while gaming. She has been particularly prominent in the past week on her Puerto Rican heritage.
I think she will probably thank AOC, who has been campaigning for Harris. (Perhaps AOC can also be said to have center-ward, as she finds common ground across political lines in Congress. Also to her credit, the DSA National Political Committee withdrew its endorsement of her over her changed position on Israel and antisemitism.
Actually, not so well put. Dan has it right. No particular reason, so far as I can, for Brother Sam to take a gratuitous swipe at AOC and the squad, whom I admire and appreciate.
There are so many naïve statements in this article it is hard to know where to begin.
On the border, SH thinks somehow the open borders policy was an aberration and that KH knows its a problem. On gender reassignment, somehow SH thinks KH doesn't believe what she has stated for years or her administration tacitly promoted. Somehow defunding the police did not really happen or a minor error in judgment. SH imagines a Harris presidency full of policy experts...Really? The same group who to this day think masking kids is OK, the lab leak theory is racist, natural immunity is less effective than vaccine immunity, that the vaccines stop COVID in its tracks or that 6 feet of separation was real science. He goes on to imagine that the pro Hamas wing of the D party wont play a role in the Harris WH. All of this is utterly preposterous.
What SH fails to comprehend, is that while he "imagines" all of these policy improvements from the past 4 years, he completely ignores the totalitarian shift of the party. It is not Trump or the Rs who are imposing draconian Covid policies, speech codes, or engaging in modern day Eugenics with confused adolescents. It's not the Rs who have systematically lied to America about the fitness of the chief executive. It is not the Rs who are using prosecutors to jail their enemies or conjure new case law to put the ex president on trial. It's not the Rs who want to eliminate the filibuster to stack the supreme court. All of this is done to save democracy SH believes.
On women's issues, what about the my body my choice mantra? That too went out the window when the fascists from the Biden administration took control of your health decisions during Covid. Boys playing girls sports. You betcha. Boys in girls bathrooms? Why not?
On education, the KH presidency will further teaching kids 2+2=4 is racist and to hate America.
On foreign policy we already know the answer. Appease Iran, weaken Israel. Let Russia continue to cross red lines or permit as Biden said, "squirmishes"
Sorry SH. KH is not normal. Her presidency will not be normal. A continuation of her policies is too high a price to pay.
Your publication is titled "Rational Thinking" and you come out swinging with "fascists from the Biden administration". Speaking of it being hard to know where to begin...
I've shared this video in the chat with someone else (who didn't bother to engage with it in any substantial way). I'll share it with you in the hope that it will tone down the rhetoric a touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvuiwdXiZGU&t=282s
Well at least you have made the right decision. Wish you had written this sooner as well. It's funny, you see MVP Kamala Harris thru some kind of lens that appears to make you miss much nuance. She has never been a "leftist activist" so it is no surprise to those of us familiar with her for years (here in the Bay Area) that she is running a pragmatic, sensible, left of center campaign. She has always been thoughtful, not knee jerk and has had folks from the far left & the far fight attacking her for just that. She is an individual who thinks things through deeply and listens to many people, even those that disagree with her. She is real and real people both evolve and make compromises to make progress. She is one of the very best candidates & human beings we have ever had the opportunity to vote for. I hope you will see that & be willing to admit it when she is President.
“It is amusing in this context, with their powers of discernment so blissfully in eclipse, to watch Republicans find reasons to despise Vice President Harris. Trump escapes their merely mortal judgment like some force of nature, while Harris’s every word and glance are weighed with Talmudic severity and found wanting. If her laugh isn’t perfectly disqualifying, they detect a fatal difference in “authenticity” between the two candidates. I will admit that Harris can seem evasive in interviews, while Trump sometimes appears to be authentically what he is—a terrible human being.”
What irony, Sam, that you cannot see that this has also been YOU for the past few months. Even this last convo with Mark Cuban, you are still using two different standards. I hope this post isn’t too little, too late.
Best sentence in this essay; “Trump wouldn’t hesitate to sell his farts in bottles if he could only find the time—but they would be fake farts and fake bottles.”
I appreciate this analysis, which I find sensible but sadly rarely shared by other public figures or the mass media, neither in the US nor in Europe. Wishing a Harris victory from the other side of the Atlantic; there is a lot more at stake tomorrow than US national affairs.
My American friends. Your country was *already* great. If it continues to be great, it is in spite of Trump, not because of him.
If Trump wins it will be nothing less than a heart-rending event: a cruel mockery of centuries of greatness and one of the extraordinary tragedies of history. Such is the insanity of the modern age, that a fact of such consequence has escaped most of us.
If Kamala wins it will be a moderate, responsible. centrist leadership and the first female president.
Analysis spot on. I am glad a brilliant mind like Sam is also still mystified almost a decade on. To this day I cannot understand why such an obvious conman has such widespread appeal. I hope this spell is fading and we will see the end of Trump, although I fear we won’t see the end of ‘Trumpism’ until those on the left recognise their own part of creating the monster though well intentioned but generally unpopular ‘woke’ ideas and identity politics.
I still think we have the capacity to get back to ‘normal’ and I hope for a resounding Harris victory as a signal that we have had enough of the insanity.
They don't know because for years Trump was promoted by the press as one of the biggest real estate developers in the world -- a fantasy that he invented. He developed very little real estate, squandered money that banks gladly gave him (each bank getting a "personal guarantee" until the banks realized they couldn't foreclose on their loans without causing a chain reaction), filed multiple bankruptcies, and paid no taxes. Most Americans have no idea about Trump's business history, and some who do admire him for for gaming the system, ripping off the banks, not paying taxes -- not being a "sucker," in Trump's words.
- a fantasy he invented, and falsely embellished by the creators of The Apprentice who have recently apologised for not stepping up earlier to clear that up. It was a fake all along.
He doesn't game the system. He inherited 1/3 of a billion and promptly stayed losing it all because he's terrible at business. Such people never pay taxes, but it isn't a tax strategy anyone would recommend. He'd be the ultimate sucker if PT Barnum's maxim hadn't allowed him to con his way back to wealth.
I'm adding to this thread, since it's popular. Before everyone jumps on the various theories of what went wrong (trans rights, wokism, racism and sexism on the right, etc.) consider that the Dems lost because none of these things. Appealing to my sense of the simplest explanation likely being the most accurate (Occam's Razor) is the following from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/trump-victory-explanation-scrutiny):
"I propose a different explanation than inflation qua inflation: the Covid welfare state and its collapse. The massive, almost overnight expansion of the social safety net and its rapid, almost overnight rollback are materially one of the biggest policy changes in American history. For a brief period, and for the first time in history, Americans had a robust safety net: strong protections for workers and tenants, extremely generous unemployment benefits, rent control and direct cash transfers from the American government.
"Despite the trauma and death of Covid and the isolation of lockdowns, from late 2020 to early 2021, Americans briefly experienced the freedom of social democracy. They had enough liquid money to plan long term and make spending decisions for their own pleasure rather than just to survive. They had the labor protections to look for the jobs they wanted rather than feel stuck in the jobs they had. At the end of Trump’s term, the American standard of living and the amount of economic security and freedom Americans had was higher than when it started, and, with the loss of this expanded welfare state, it was worse when Biden left office, despite his real policy wins for workers and unions. This is why voters view Trump as a better shepherd of the economy.
"It’s important to note that Trump is resolutely not a social democrat, and these policies came into place during an emergency rather than due to ideological conviction. Indeed, he is currently running on the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history and Republicans’ Project 2025 would decimate the social safety net and immiserate millions. Beyond this, Biden wanted to continue many of these policies, but there wasn’t a political pathway. Instead, they quietly expired. To voters, however, the material reality is that when Trump left office, this safety net existed, and by the time of the 2024 election, it had evaporated.
"How could Democrats have countered this? One way was by making it a central issue, fighting publicly and openly to keep these protections and messaging heavily and constantly that Republicans were taking them away while Biden fought for them. An enormous body of research has established that social programs, when implemented, are difficult and highly unpopular to take away. These were universal programs, beneficial at all income levels.
"The political miscalculation the Biden administration made was that, lacking the political ability to implement these policies permanently, it was best to have them expire quietly and avoid the public backlash of gutting welfare programs and the black mark of taking a public political loss. This was a grave miscalculation.
The only question I have is why Sam didn't post this a week ago before many people have already voted. I hope it isn't too late.
I think we are preaching to converted.
You’d be surprised. I was able to convince an undecided person to vote Harris by sending over The Atlantic article about Trump’s various misgivings related to the military and a few Matthew yglesisas/noah smith posts. Had sam written this last week it would’ve been part of the package.
I wouldn't want to speak for SH, but anyone who's been reading him and listening to his podcasts would ever have had a doubt about who he was going to vote for. I know he has a large audience, but he ain't no Taylor Swift :)
I have been asking myself this question for a long time. He’s been purely critical of Harris basically up until this post.
I have no doubt that Sam has carefully considered how his time is best spent doing his part to prevent a second Trump. However, I'm not convinced talking to Nate Silver, debating Ben Shapiro and dropping a last minute podcast with Mark Cuban along with this post was the best use of his time.
We'll find out soon enough.
I voted against Trump (therefore for Harris). I felt much better about this vote because of Mark Cuban's advocacy during his talk with Sam. I loved the Shapiro debate, it eased my mind to some extent in the case Trump wins. Both great public services.
No not at all - there are tons of undecided morons and lunatics that subscribe. I know some myself. Sam has a broader audience than you think - there are definitely deranged Trump-loving lunatics that subscribe to Sam for other reasons.
Calling people undecided morons and lunatics reminds me of something. Hmmm. (Oh yes, it reminds me how Hillary Clinton's "deplorables" made her toxic to a wide swath of the electorate.) Take a page from Kamala's book: "I would never say that about Americans." Enough of disparaging others, please.
I know Trump voters who subscribe, including to Waking Up and Making Sense. How a Trump lunatic can be meditating is beyond me.
Trumps rhetoric against the left has been far worse. He kicked the door wide open for massive disparagement of anyone he dislikes. I agree it's not useful to speak this way, but don't mistake who's solely responsible for bringing us to this place.
Why is everyone here a Trump lover? WTF is happening to my mind omg.
You have very clearly illuminated why the democrats lost. Saying that the majority of Americans (ref: popular vote totals) are racist, fascist, lunatics, nazis is not an effective way to gain their support. Personally, I'd never voted for Trump in the past elections, but I did this time. Yes, he is deranged, but we were faced with a binary choice. This was a very easy decision for me, just as I suspect it was for the millions of others who cast their first vote for Trump. I'll happily take a singular deranged man, surrounded by republicans who value common sense, over a pliable Harris who is surrounded by a vast sea of deranged democrats.
it is not like there is a lot of choice. As Sam said in his post plenty of times: There is a lot to be critical about Kamala Harris, but compared to Trump she comes out as a shining bright star in politics. At least her feet are planted on the ground, and even they are not, at all times she is not high as a kite, like Trump
Stop bashing Sam you deranged lunatic who doesn’t understand what’s at stake in this election
It’s a sign of the times that there’s a troll even in this comment section.
Wow. That’s cruel and uncalled for.
No, calling someone a deranged lunatic was cruel and uncalled for. Stop it. Rationally explain your difference of view or or refrain from pressing the blue button. I too deeply admire Sam, but he is not beyond critique.
Ok sorry
Sorry, but it's true that Sam was overly critical of Harris up until the Mark Cuban interview. I have felt Sam kept asking questions (why didn't she have a Sista Souljah moment or two? Why didn't she admit that her positions changed?) that already had clear political answers he didn't see. (Cuban answered those concerns, but so have others.) I obviously don't speak for Sam, but I have no doubt that he was frustrated and wanted Harris to make her case more directly to his concerns. (And btw, I am to the left of Sam on very FEW issues, if any.)
I felt the same frustrations. Even in this article, he — with an amazing lack of self-awareness — in one breath talks about how “Harris’s every word and glance are weighed with Talmudic severity and found wanting,” and in the next breath, says that she “can seem evasive in interviews.” And is still repeating the same questions about her authenticity that were adequately answered during the Mark Cuban episode. I’m not sure what is going on here. The best thing he can say about Kamala Harris is that she’d be “normal?”
I say this as someone who would vote for a ham sandwich over Trump: if the goal is to defeat this MAGA cancer, then stooping to “both-sides” this election by harping on vague flaws in Harris’s otherwise brilliant campaign is not a winning strategy. As I’ve said here before, we need to put out the fire before we worry about redecorating the house.
I think above giving reasons for voting against Trump, Sam has been in the business of calling out bs as it is from all and every source hence his multitudinous works against religion. By understanding that you can easily see how important it is to call out bs on the left as well the deranged right. To appeal to rationality and evidence based thinking about the world is the real cure we need in our democracy, not just demonizing the other side - however justified - but also looking inward and finding your own misgivings.
How else will you ever bridge the gap between Trumpistan and the more reasonable left?
Be better
Agreed. Mr Harris' subscribers are likely in line with his views already. But his argument is so well stated that the impact of each of us sharing it on our social media, or using Sam's incisive arguments in our day to day conversations with friends and colleagues, could have been much more impactful if we shared them earlier. Having said that, I really appreciate his article.
Sadly, it’s difficult to believe anyone voting for him today would be influenced by Sam’s wisdom. So nervous and I’m not even American.
You will not get a single Trumpian follower reading any of these notes. You could spill the beans on the most top secret election strategies right here, and the Republican party would never know.....
Sam Harris has been vocally anti-Trump since the escalator ride. He has piled on mountains of evidence against him more consistently, continuously, and honestly than anyone I can think of.
He’s been hammering these points almost ad nauseam for years.
Because Sam is a decent moral person wtf?!
I simply cannot get past the nature of her candidacy. I feel like I am being taken for a fool. Biden won a primary. The right has been calling him mentally incapable for a year. The left maintained how sharp and capable he was. He came off horrible in the debate. The left still maintained he is our guy. They said this all the way up until 2 days before he quit and Kamala was installed as the candidate.
Kamala Harris was picked as VP in a cynical move to sway people of color and women. She was never popular and had never won a primary in her own candidacy. She was basically picked by decree and then selected as a presidential candidate by decree. It fits every definition of the coup and I am disgusted by it. Had they held another primary, as they should have, I may have even voted for her out of respect for them respecting democracy.
I won't go vote for Trump but I refuse to vote for what the democrats did this time. They look exactly like the deep state the right wing conspirators claim they are.
"The left still maintained he is our guy." This is really a myth. Part of the left said this because they believed there was no other way after the late date of the debate. A larger part of the left, however, worked behind the scenes because they came to see that Biden was unelectable, not because Biden had lost his mind (because he hasn't), but because he could not communicate effectively with the public. You have obviously adopted a far-right view of this. Please come back to the center and realize the practical reasons Kamala was picked: (1) she is VP and political parties do not just cast aside their VPs (even though relatively few have won (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/08/01/most-us-vice-presidents-in-recent-decades-have-sought-the-presidency-but-relatively-few-have-won/), (2) the fundraising that had been done was easily transferred to her as no other candidate, and (3) she already had a national stage and was competent to run against Trump. In fact, well-placed given her history as a prosecutor. No one else had a national stage at that point. Her gender and ethnicity was a way to get her candidacy off the ground, but those aspects eventually subsided.
Your this reply makes me even more annoyed about what they did. I’m a lifelong democratic voter and voted Biden in the primary. I consume a lot of both left and right media. I saw nothing from the left but firm and broad support for Biden all the way up until he was replaced on a Sunday afternoon.
“They came to see that Biden was unelectable” ok that is their problem. He won the primary, he was the candidate. You want a new candidate? Run a new primary.
Your other reasons are infuriating - the fundraising, the “national stage” and could beat Trump. Gross. I don’t and will never do party over country. If the democrats have problems with their candidates they can address them democratically, with a vote.
If they ran another primary and it was like Harris, Pritzker, Newsom… you’re gonna tell me Harris would have won? Doubt.
All of this happened because the left has lost their mind over Trump. They have thrown out all principles. I’m not getting behind it, I’d rather the entire country get thrown into chaos than abandon my principles.
Respectfully, I’m putting my principles over everything. If you think that’s selfish, ok. If the republicans did what the democrats did, I can’t imagine what people would be saying. I’m not sure I believe you would be talking about “practical”. Protests at a minimum.
There was plenty of time to run a primary. It doesn’t take long. And I’m not sure who would have run. What I know is that the main candidate dropped out, and there is no precedent or good reason that his FIAT vp pick just waltzes into the nomination. This was the party deciding for everyone and I’m so against that I’d rather this country fail.
You really haven't stated what principles you are standing for. "Letting this country fail" seems to me to be a radical abandonment of principle, although I can see that you don't mind at all Trump's judicial appointments or what his Supreme Court has wrought. (And btw, Pritzker and Newsom showed no signs of wanting to jump into the race at that point in time - it would have been unprecedented (the very word you used).
I'm mystified why you think that a Democrat would care how a Republican candidate is chosen. This is just not an issue.
You’re “mystified” because for some reason you cant comprehend that I’m not loyal to a political party. I’m a democrat by voting history, not because I identify with some form of group think. I care how republicans do things just like I care about how democrats do them.
When this took place, I thought to myself. What would happen if Vance won primaries and was the nominee. Trump for whatever reason didn’t run. But then Vance picked Trump as VP. Then a few months before the election Vance drops out and the party gives Trump the nomination. I’d call bullshit on that too.
By your thinking the democrats could do this little stunt every single election and it would be fine I guess? We use primaries to get them over with so that the party gets the ultimate decision? I’m not ok with that.
My principles are simple; I voted for Biden in the primary. He dropped out. I want a new candidate to vote for. I didn’t get that and instead had a candidate forced on me. I’m allowed to think that’s total bullshit.
And it really frustrates me how many people bring up “they would have lost all the money”. Good. Maybe if politicians see the consequences of such fucking around we might get better laws around campaign finance.
Joe Biden was fit to serve as president but so unfit to run he has to drop out after a single bad debate showing. He’s still fit to serve right this second mind you, just not another four years. He’s incapable of leading so he can’t run, but he could make a decision right this second about a nuclear attack. Not buying any of this.
I'm mystified because I believe that your view is rigid. Sometimes choices need to be made from those that are presented to us (because we don't have control over everything), and we need to get beyond ourselves to see what is at stake. Your principles are not at stake. Only your expectations of what should be are at stake.
Psst. You voted for Biden-Harris in the primary. Biden dropped out -- you got Harris. She was his running mate, she was on the ticket you voted for.
we can dispense with this message from mksats: get real. there was no time for primary.
n/a: so, if you don't like Kamala, just go ahead and proudly, and with your principles, vote for the sadistic fascist.
Lol
There was no practical way -- time -- to run another primary. You also assume (without evidence) that "Pritzker, Newsom..." were actually interested in running at that late date. If you can't vote for Harris now, then you are putting yourself (your own feelings) over country and party. Pretty selfish, if you ask me. I'm a lifelong Democrat (the first Democrat I worked for was George McGovern) and have an easy time 'pulling the lever' for Harris.
Can we stop the “there should have been a primary” nonsense. When people voted for Biden they were also voting for the right for him to make decisions while in office. One of his decisions was to step down so someone else could run, and he didn’t demand (and didn’t have to demand) a primary to choose a successor. Another one of his decisions was to choose Kamala as his VP. So there’s that, as well.
Biden is the one who decided, and he was the one who won the primary. Besides, the party convention choosing the candidate was commonplace until the 70s so it's not like this is a new derisive thing.
"A larger part of the left, however, worked behind the scenes because they came to see that Biden was unelectable, not because Biden had lost his mind (because he hasn't), but because he could not communicate effectively with the public. You have obviously adopted a far-right view of this."
I get the nature of campaigning threw a light on Biden's aging, and if he's not overworked and not in the spotlight unscripted he probably can perform okay day to day in the office.
But I actually believe it's a core required competency of the position of President of the U.S. to be able to effectively communicate with the public! That's not a 'right wing' view, it's just common sense.
If WWIII breaks out tomorrow, it's not unimportant that we have no leadership in the Whitehouse capable of effectively communicating with the public right now! It makes me very very nervous! As it should all of us!
His inability to communicate w/ the public already posed obstacles to his ability to govern as the President of the U.S. these past years, as there's been a real absence of press conferences, addresses to the Nation, interviews etc. He was hidden a lot! You think that doesn't make an impact? Even his dogged insistence to campaign for a second term speaks to his compromised insight and judgment. Yikes! This is really alarming to a lot of folks including long term Democrats of which I count myself.
I don't know how you misunderstood my comment, which was directed to mksats, not you. mksats adopted the right-wing view that there was a 'coup', etc. You're arguing with the wrong guy! Cheers.
Yes I understood your comment was directed to Mksats, and not me. I felt some similarities with what Mksats was expressing, and so I offered my take on the counterpoint you made to him, which I understood to be that Biden is fine and it's of no importance that he struggles to communicate effectively with the public while continuing to hold office. My apologies for breaking any rules if I was not suppose to join in on the conversation. I was simply sharing that I actually do find it to be of consequence that my President, whom I voted for, can no longer be an effective communicator on the world stage or with the public. It seems weird to me that this concern would be considered a "far right" POV bc to me it seems more like common sense, or at least understandable/normative. But I accept your opinion, and D Cohen's too, that I am adopting a 'far right' point of view for expressing these concerns. Thank you.
re You have obviously adopted a far-right view of this: I agree with this perspective of your position.
"It fits every definition of the coup"?
I'm convinced that the only reason people think this is anything like a coup is because 1. what happened was atypical and 2. they have no idea how democracy works in other countries.
It was possible for Biden to stay in the race. And he stayed in it for a surprisingly long time after the disastrous debate. His conduct during that time, which was at best irresponsible, provided so much clarity on the nature of his candidacy. The guy really really wanted to be President... for another 4 years, and he was absolutely in denial.
Then he finally did get out, and almost immediately endorsed Harris, his Vice President. From what we know about Biden, he considered this simply an act of loyalty. We know that Biden was frustrated with Barack Obama for refusing to endorse him early in his 2020 candidacy. Obama himself, in his tweets, was talking abstractly about a selection process for the new candidate. Biden himself nipped this process in the bud, and (for all practical purposes) selected his own replacement.
So if you think a coup can be voluntary, and if a coup can have the ousted choose his successor, then I suppose yes, it is a coup.
For everyone else... this is nothing like a coup. Throw in the fact that a candidacy, not an office, was at stake. You seem to have noticed you have an option to choose her opponent, or choose no one at all, and this is another sign this isn't a coup.
Whether or not there should have been an open convention (instead of what happened) is an interesting question. Either way, the selection of the candidate would've been up to party elites. But there is no question that there was no time for a fair and open primary.
If you don't want to vote for Kamala Harris, that's fine. But to not vote for her because you perceive her selection to be "a coup" is silly in the first place. It is doubly silly when you consider the dramatically antidemocratic actions of her opponent in 2020-2021.
No, it is a coup, his candidacy was seized by his party. I’m not sure what else to call it but I’m definitely not going to use “atypical”. I also don’t care about what happens in other countries at all. This is the one I live in and I expect it to work a certain way.
Biden would have stayed in the race had he not been ousted by his own people.
Not my problem if there was “no time” to find a better candidate. Don’t run the guy you’re not sure about then. In any case there’s no way I trust a single one of them anymore.
The entire thing is just so insane and it is bewildering to watch smart people (like yourself) try and justify it. He isn’t fit to run but he’s fit to be president in the mean time. Makes no sense. They make right wing conspiracies look accurate which is depressing.
"No, it is a coup, his candidacy was seized by his party. I’m not sure what else to call it..."
Then I'll help: it's not a coup. Keep looking.
"Biden would have stayed in the race had he not been ousted by his own people."
No, I've presented what happened. Biden *did* stay in the race, for a remarkably long time. But, the decision to not run again was his. He may have done it reluctantly, but it was his. The Democratic Party never would've risked anything like an invocation of the 25th Amendment or a removal through impeachment.
"This is the one I live in and I expect it to work a certain way."
That's understandable. But (and I can't believe I have to say this) when things don't work in that particular way, that doesn't mean a coup is afoot.
"The entire thing is just so insane and it is bewildering to watch smart people (like yourself) try and justify it. He isn’t fit to run but he’s fit to be president in the mean time."
Justify what? You're changing the subject here because your position is indefensible. Of course all of this is insane. I've made no claims that Biden should've remained in office.
We have *actual* threats against democracy in our country today. So, to refer to what happened as a coup is not just illiterate, but evasive and myopic.
Even though I feel very strongly about this I’ll consider what has been said in argument. Whether I use the language of coup or not, nothing will persuade me that the Democratic Party has acted 1) honestly 2) ethically 3) in a way that I can support as a voter.
Additionally, I feel most of the left is totally ok with the whole thing because they REALLY hate Trump. And I get it. It’s a lot of “ok yeah this wasn’t great but all of it is still better than Trump”.
I’m actually ok with that level of honesty. But I’m not getting that, I’m getting people trying to justify this bizarro process in every other way that I should somehow be ok with. Like why do we even run primaries! Apparently it doesn’t matter and it’s all up to party.
And I’m very very annoyed about this idea that Biden can lead us through an existential emergency right this second but is somehow not capable after January. You can either do the job or you can’t. He already said he can’t by dropping out only 90 days before the election.
"nothing will persuade me that the Democratic Party has acted 1) honestly 2) ethically 3) in a way that I can support as a voter."
I have no issue with 1 or 2, and *in principle* I don't have an issue even with 3. There are a few things I'd add:
First, a huge amount of blame lies with Biden himself, and blame radiates outward from there. Vice Presidents are generally not part of a President's inner circle (exceptions have existed, such as Cheney). However Harris deserves more blame than, say, the Democratic rank-and-file in Congress.
Second (and more importantly), we're in a unique situation with Trump on the ballot here. Trump made a repeated (albeit disorganized, and sometimes even improvised) effort to reject the results of the election and remain in office. I don't know what will happen if he is placed in a similar situation again. And we should do everything possible to ensure that the person who enters the Oval Office *will* abide by the results of an election. So while I think it's in principle understandable to reject the Democratic Party for its actions in protecting Joe Biden, the practical situation is such that exacting a toll on the Democratic Party is... at best unwise.
"Additionally, I feel most of the left is totally ok with the whole thing"
Yeah, it seems that way in a lot of cases. I find all of it to be ridiculous. It is a failure of one of our "greatest" political institutions, and I will continue to be angry about it, and I will be suspicious of the party, for a long time. We will need nothing less than the best journalism (journalism that the issue *obviously did not get* before) in the months/years to come to diagnose this problem.
"And I’m very very annoyed about this idea that Biden can lead us through an existential emergency right this second but is somehow not capable after January."
I think the idea is less this, and more "he can do it after January too, but he's simply unelectable." But I won't defend either.
mksats is BEWILDERED!
poor n/a. He's bewildered.
I would encourage you to consider women’s rights to healthcare because the stories of what women are going through in the states that enacted draconian anti abortion laws are beyond horrible. Women who want to have children and when their pregnancies go wrong they are not getting the care they need to save their lives and the lives of the babies. Young victims of rape and invest bring forced to carry pregnancies to term. This is all at stake if trump wins, they will pass an anti abortion federal law. Not to forget that if he wins, Alito and Thomas will retired and be replaced with 40 year old far right judges. This has so many layers of consequences to all of us. I beg of you to reconsider and vote for Kamala Harris.
Thank you for your comment. This has been something I’ve been trying to follow and understand for the past year but I seem to run into nonstop conflicting information.
One thing I know is that Alabama did try and restrict access to IVF but afaict it didn’t go anywhere. I see various news stories about women dying from not getting proper treatment during pregnancy and stories about girls being forced to give birth. All of this gets met with a torrent of anti-stories and debate and missing context. It’s a lot to try and keep up with.
I’m definitely pro choice. This isn’t an issue that’s ever going away. Half the country thinks opposite of me on this.
Correction: more than half the country believes in the right to an abortion. You don't need to keep up with far right media.
That is so false!
You are questioning the "nature of her candidacy"??? Are you f****g for real??? You have a 34 felony convicted man running for president against the VP of the US? What is wrong with anyone questioning the nature of Kamala's candidacy against a convicted felon DJ Turmp?
How low have we sunk?
Respectfully, every take like this I see seems to misunderstand or devalue a key detail: the will and power and ego of the president himself. Once a president takes office, the machinery of the party and the government adapts to accommodate them, and there's a huge amount of institutional momentum established. Perhaps there were high level, trusted advisors who could give Biden hard news about opinions on whether he should run again or not (murmurs of the sort which started before he ever took office) without putting their own jobs on the line, but it seems trivial for me to imagine that Biden the person would deflect this feedback. And crucially, his deflection and decisions matters! And the machinery of government and the party must largely grit their teeth and bear his decisions.
So to me it makes sense that it took a massive public spectacle to create the political will (and to just literally convince people that Biden can't win) to pressure Biden successfully. I'm grateful the Democrats took advantage of that moment, and that Biden set pride aside.
Flavio is exactly right, on all points. Who is "n/a" anyway?
And the "Kamala Harris was picked as VP in a cynical move to sway people of color and women" is BS and would embarrass most people.
Sam, I am a provateur, I think for all the right reasons. As Christopher Hitchens once said to me,
"I much more interested in talking to people I disagree with".
Your critique reminds me of my old professor Acrum Stoll's maxim "Most philosophical mistakes
are made in the first 3 pages."
Lets start with Harris: As you say "The positive case for Harris is simple: She will be a normal president, surrounded by normal experts, seeking normal political ends. The scientists she consults will be real scientists. The doctors, real doctors. Her administration will not be a 4chan thread come to life. Her foreign policy will not be made in consultation with podcasters who hock gold, ivermectin, and MREs"
Normal? Experts? What experts? The same people who continually thwarted the truth about COVID?
A virus with no history and a vaccine straight out of the inncubator is not place to be invoking "the name of science". Everything we believed about the vaccine and the virus of was learned on the battlefield. Yet there was the Biden administration and its lackies shaming, silencing, and censoring anyone who disagreed with their views including distinguished journal after journal.
What's come to pass is the bastardization of the word expert. They've just become partisan bufoons.
Pick an academy, law, medicine, science, they are all run by the left. To leave the
reservation is to commit professional suicide. So much for expert opinion.
As for Harris, she is know-nothing vaccuous politician who couldn't defend a single guiding principle without a telepromter. She is a cog in the leftist machine. Nothing else.
As for Trump he is a savior for the forgotten middle class. Saviors are rarely perfect. But they are needed. Politicians in both parties have spend the last decade taking envelopes and favors from all over the world at the expense of America.
Virtually every policy of Trump's is moderate and aimed the middle class. Reasonable taxation,
senisble border policy, smart foreign policy, confront bad trade partners, supporting the police
and ICE, and defending girls from trans men.
You remind the middle class of what they dislike about the left. You are forever fighting some imaginary war against a right wing Christian country club machine that died decades ago.
America is tired of another empty vessel running for office in the name of "progress". In the end the left doesn't want "progress", they want to deconstruct America into a post Marxist paradise run for a few for the benefit of a few.
"Everything we believed about the vaccine and the virus of was learned on the battlefield."
Manifestly false. The vaccine had multiple stages of human safety trials, just like any other vaccine. I have seen people exclaim that the COVID vaccines were released too quickly, and lament the "good old days" of Jonas Salk and long-term trials, like they did with the polio vaccine. These people are unfamiliar with the truth: that the polio vaccine, like COVID vaccines, was released in about a year... because that's just how long these safety trials take.
Yes, there are real experts, yes some of them (and some of them in key positions of power) made mistakes during the pandemic. This does not mean that an administration including said experts is remotely as incompetent as one *that might include a vaccine conspiracy theorist who thinks we should undo water fluoridation*: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/04/nx-s1-5178706/fluoride-drinking-water-rfk-jr-trump-conspiracy
"As for Harris, she is know-nothing vaccuous politician"
Vacuous? I've used this word myself to describe her. Know-nothing? No. She strikes me, at least, as a curious person. I can't say the same of Trump: he is a bloviator and a charlatan who pretends to know everything better than everyone else, all the time.
"You are forever fighting some imaginary war against a right wing Christian country club machine that died decades ago."
The one that died decades ago... that just overturned Roe v. Wade 2 years ago? The alliance of the religious right, while somewhat mystifying, is both significant and self-evident.
Pfizer admitted it NEVER tested the vaccine. The POLIO vaccine was NEVER mandated.
Yet the Biden administration and CDC kept telling one lie after another. Proof?
81% of Americans got the vaccine and 60% of American got COVID.
Its a joke to call anything proclaims about COVID science.
"Pfizer admitted it NEVER tested the vaccine."
That would surprise me, because Pfizer conducted Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III studies. I know at least one person who participated in the early phases.
"The POLIO vaccine was NEVER mandated."
Unsure what you mean; most states in the US even today require children to be vaccinated against polio to enroll in schools.
"81% of Americans got the vaccine and 60% of American got COVID."
What are you trying to demonstrate with these statistics?
"Its a joke to call anything proclaims about COVID science."
Unlettered.
I know two people who participated in phase I of the Pfizer vaccine. "60% of American got COVID." Assuming your statistics are correct, (1) How many got Covid before they got the vaccine? (2) how many vaccinated people who got Covid got a nonsymptomatic or very light version? (3) how many non-vaccinated people died from Covid vs. vaccinated people? (4) how many people contracted the more serious version of Covid and how many contracted the weaker variant? (5) Did the people who got Covid take one dose? two? three? Your statistics are woefully incomplete, and misleading.
Vacuous? Merriam-Webster defines the term as (1) emptied of or lacking content," and (2) "marked by lack of ideas or intelligence." How is she vacuous and what evidence would convince you that she was not vacuous? Just curious.
Easy. Listen to her speak. Listen to her word salad. She is not intelligent.
She failed the bar the first time. The in demand law student went to work at lucrative law firms. The bottom of the barrel worked at public defenders offices.
In 1989, the California bar passage rate was 59.5%. https://abovethelaw.com/2016/11/californias-bar-exam-passage-rate-reaches-32-year-low/ It is one of the most difficult bar exams in the country. . https://www.juriseducation.com/blog/which-states-have-the-hardest-bar-exams. It is untrue that the bottom of the barrel worked as public defenders. You're assumptions about the profession are off the wall.
I'm referring to the first definition. Kamala Harris strikes me, on average, as a highly risk-averse politician a la Hillary Clinton who lacks substantive convictions of her own, and runs campaigns via focus group. I agree with Sam Harris' take that her politics aren't actually progressive. But I'm not confident that she has strong moderate convictions either.
What evidence would convince me otherwise? Honestly, I'd need to review a lot more of what she has said and done. I'll admit I have hardly done this, because due to the unique dangers posed by Trump, I barely feel like I get to care about policy. So I have given thousands of dollars to Kamala's campaign, and have recommended this to others if they're able.
Please don't contribute to the view that she is 'vacuous' from a lack of investigating who she is and what she stands for. I'm not saying this applies to you, but this is a stereotypical comment leveled against women. For those looking for comparison, Trump is of course ever more vacuous, as everything to him is purely transactional, related solely to his own self-gratification...the essence of vacuousness.
No she is vaccuous. 100%.
What are her guiding principles? There aren't any. There are just talking points to repeats over and over.
Yeah, you'll find no argument with me on that front. I will say I don't find Harris... *uniquely* vacuous. I think many, if not most, politicians operate in a way that makes actual substantial convictions... inconvenient. What policies/positions/etc. would you offer that you think set her apart? I think the main thrust of her candidacy is quite different from what it was in 2019-2020, which contributes to my perception of her.
Yes, Trump is vacuous as in definition 2. And worse.
I can see that you conflate what happens in universities (the "academies") with the corridors of power. Constitutional law professorships ten to lean left, but not exclusively by any means, and rarely far left in any case. This contrasts with Trump and Vance, who have little respect for the Constitution or the rule of law. But this is what the "burn it all down" ethos gets us: Federal judges like Aileen Cannon, for whom judicial decisions are merely transactional, and far right Supreme Court Justices, who make purely political decisions that masquerade as principled analysis. But you are correct - the right wing Christian country club machine died decades ago. Now we have the far right Christian political machine grabbing power with the help of Trump and his judicial nominations.
He won't commit to a peaceful transfer of power, won't accept clear facts that he doesn't like (losing the 2020 election), and tried to install himself for a second term after he lost. What else even matters? I don't know how we get into run-of-the-mill policy conversations with that on the table.
Here’s the thing.
Trump is vulgar and narcissistic and says a lot of truly idiot things. Fine. No news here.
But over the past decade the Democrat party and the media has behaved in ways so outside the norm, you would not believe it happened in America. It started with the Russia hoax and moved into bogus impeachment hearings, lying intelligence officials, dishonest reporting on what said or may have said, reimagined lawbreaking and courts inventing crimes. Throw in an assassins bullet.
How and why is that forgivable?
Trumps track record is exceptional. Economic growth, no wars, rising incomes, stable border.
A vote for KH furthers this slow march of Marxist ideology, elimination of scientific facts like the sex binary, loss of border integrity, increased totalitarian controls over speech and health care and the economy.
At the end of the day he will fight for America.
Not so for KH.
I am tired of “no wars.” Geopolitics does not move quickly. It’s no surprise that after years of Trump undermining NATO and European alliances that Russia felt emboldened to invade Ukraine.
So many of the global issues faced now festered under Trump.
Have you forgotten January 6th? Constitution and election be damned…. I WANT it!
“The Democrats tried to take out Trump.” Please touch grass.
Nice unhinged far-right talking points. Too bad they lack the facts to support them. I also guess you never read Marx, because that is the stupidest idea to come out of the right. But let's put a finer point on that. In apartheid South Africa, the epithet Marxist was used to describe anyone who was against apartheid. Your comment contains more lies than it claims to expose.
"Nor will you find anyone willing to defund the police or to fund gender-reassignment surgeries for undocumented immigrants in detention."
Sam, I am a huge fan. I am not worried about gender-reassignment surgeries for undocumented immigrants in detention.
Still, her prior stance on this and related issues says something about who she is, Sam.
More importantly, the way that talking point gets used as evidence of how this issue is so "remote" as to be not worthy of our attention ignores what is REALLY going on that IS worthy of notice, such as this data set:
Key National Findings (2019 to 2023):
13,994 children received sex change related treatments
5,747 sex change surgeries performed on children
62,682 hormone and puberty blockers prescriptions written for 8,579 pediatric patients.
At least $119,791,202 made from sex change treatments performed on minors
These numbers are just scratching the surface of how widespread these practices truly are.
https://donoharmmedicine.org/2024/10/08/stop-the-harm-national-database-child-trans-industry/
This is just the data from insurance billing that could be accessed. They did not get data from HMOs like Kaiser, nor do they have any numbers from people who are wealthy enough to pay out of pocket. So, the numbers are skewed on the very conservative side.
Does it bother you Sam that our most prestigious medical institutions are doing horribly invasive surgery & drug therapy on under age kids that will result in life long health issues? Is Kamala Harris and the Democratic party going to do anything about this? Mainstream media? The pharmaceutical industry? The insurance industry? I'm not holding my breath. They are far too busy, often, telling me I'm a bad person to even question this.
Further questions about a Harris administration:
Is Kamala Harris going to put a stop to unbridled illegal immigration?
Is she going to stand up strongly to a Fascist Iranian government and it's proxies and support Israel?
Is Harris going to actively build upon the progress made in the last Trump Admin. with the Abraham Accords, our best chance at creating a lasting peace w/ strong coalitions in the middle east?
Can she project a strong, no-nonsense leadership presence that will be needed to deal with the new alliances building amongst the most powerful dictatorships in the world? Russia, N Korea, China, Iran, India, etc? Her biggest failing is being consistently unsubstantive and being unable or unwilling to comport herself effectively in unscripted settings.
-If abortion is your biggest issue, Roe already got overturned by the Supreme Ct., so how does Harris propose to wave a magic wand and make it a Federally mandated law again and take it out of state control where it now legally resides? By executive order? So, more by-passing of the legislative & judicial branch to place the power solely in the executive branch? In essence, more erosion of the norms of traditional governing, which I'm warned makes Trump dangerous 24/7 on MSM. But when Harris does it we applaud bc she's a dem and many of us want abortion to be Federally mandated? So when it works for us it's democracy & fair game, but when it works for the other half of the country its Fascism & dangerous?
And by the way, who is running the country right now? The guy who is too compromised to run a campaign, whose cognitive gaffs repeatedly damage his own and his VPs efforts? He is overseeing the Federal government and handling the many emerging geopolitical threats popping up like wildfire right now?
Why was I lied to for so long about Biden's compromised state?
Why was I not allowed to pick a candidate via a primary when it was determined the original candidate was too enfeebled to run a campaign?
If all this is 'normal' why should I want more of this?
As for Trump's fake carnival history, ya, not a fan. But Sam, do you really trust the political machine in DC and view its slick corruption as less harmful than the clownish, unfiltered, loathsome Trump carnival? Sam, do you think the top Dem power brokers aren't slimy, corrupt, involved in grift, lacking in self awareness, entitled and insulated? Everything I see happening in this county and in this election tells me they are all that and more, they're just much more polished than Trump ever will be.
Do I want to vote for Trump? No.
And if it were 2016 this would be a no- brainer.
But it's not 2016 anymore and as much as I'd love to vote for the first woman President, as I did for Hillary in 2016 hoping she would be the first female president, I just can't in good conscience support Harris-Walt and the current Democratic party to "run" this country for the next 4-8 years.
I've never found myself in this position before and I'm a 60 year old female. But, here I am.
I don't begrudge another person's choice to vote for Harris.
I just personally can't.
Responding only about the sex-change surgeries.
I have a friend whose child was born with ambiguous genitalia. They had to make their best choice within 7 days, and selected "female" on the birth certificate. After much stress and consultation with the best doctors, they realized that their child was an XX/XY chimera: formed by the merger/fusion of two separate zygotes early after fertilization (that would have otherwise gone on to become fraternal twins). What resulted was a happy, healthy baby, whose various organ systems have completely separate genomes. Turns out the child's gonads are actually closer to testicles than ovaries, just undescended. With the advice of their doctors, they made the decision to make some minimally invasive surgical procedures to best match the internal organs, as a male. They had to go through so much rigmarole to update the birth certificate.
My friend's childs' multiple surgeries are probably included in your stats, as are thousands of other similar intersex cases. There is nothing wrong with these surgeries, and the fact that they are possible and can make this young child have a better life is a wonderful testament to medical science, and has nothing to do with "trans people switching gender"
Hi Will, just a further follow-up on your wondering if the kind of surgery your friends infant had is included in the Do No Harm Stats. I inquired directly with the organization and received the following reply:
Thank you very much for your email regarding the database. Regarding our methodology, we removed any infants born with ambiguous genitalia or anomalies utilizing ICD 10 codes. Our methodology strictly reviewed common "GAC" (gender affirming care, my parenthesis) procedures matched with known gender ICD-10 codes. For clarification, please take a look at our methodology and white paper available on the database. We address your question in more detail in the white paper. Please reach out if you have any further questions or concerns.
So the answer is no, these data sets from Do No Harm do not include the kind of infant surgery your friends' child underwent for ambiguous genitalia.
Wow Thanks for following up! I appreciate the thorough response.
Hi Will, I'm glad your friend's experienced successful interventions with their infant born w/ ambiguous genitalia. From what I can see, Do No Harm is focused on data re: adolescent affirmative care therapy (talk therapy), leading to medical interventions in youth up to age 17.5.
Do No Harm Medicine quickly became an anti-trans organization from its start in 2022. Their statistics should be open to question. Those provided here are quite clearly devoid of context.
From abcNEWS:
"A study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found little to no usage of gender-affirming surgeries by transgender and gender-diverse minors in the U.S., instead finding that cisgender minors and adults had substantially higher utilization of such gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.
In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found -- a majority of which were chest surgeries. Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis."
And the Harvard report from July 8, 2024: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/gender-affirming-surgeries-rarely-performed-on-transgender-youth/
The study found no gender-affirming surgeries performed on TGD youth ages 12 and younger in 2019. This was expected, the researchers said, as current international guidelines do not suggest any medical or surgical intervention for TGD individuals prior to puberty. For teens ages 15 to 17 and adults ages 18 and older, the rate of undergoing gender-affirming surgery with a TGD-related diagnosis was 2.1 per 100,000 and 5.3 per 100,000, respectively. A majority of these surgeries were chest surgeries. When considering use of gender-affirming breast reductions among cisgender males and TGD people, the study found that cisgender males accounted for the vast majority of breast reductions, with 80% of surgeries among adults performed on cisgender men and 97% of surgeries among minors performed on cisgender male teens.
“We found that gender-affirming surgeries are rarely performed for transgender minors, suggesting that U.S. surgeons are appropriately following international guidelines around assessment and care,” said co-author Elizabeth Boskey, instructor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.
"Do No Harm Medicine quickly became an anti-trans organization from its start in 2022."
Hi Lawrence,
I no longer engage with or take seriously accusations of a person or organization as being "anti-trans" or "trans-phobic". I know too many LGBTQ+++ people that do not feel represented by the "trans movement" or by people who use these kind of derogatory terms and accusations.
Most people I know, straight or not, understand and share normal range feelings of concern and caution when a new upturn in invasive medical surgery & drug therapy is being touted as the answer to anxious, depressed and/or confused under age kids.
"In trans teens ages 15 to 17, the rate of gender-affirming surgery was 2.1 per 100,000, the study found -- a majority of which were chest surgeries."
"Physicians and researchers have told ABC News that surgeries on people under 18 happen rarely and are considered only on an individual basis."
Is the above information you provided suppose to be comforting?
Oh, good, they only make medical determinations affecting young kids on an individual basis. As opposed to what? Surgery performed en masse? Do you know what it is to have "chest surgery'? Do you understand how much tissue is removed with chest surgery? Including lymph tissue, which is the main part of the body that helps a person fight infection for the rest of their lives? This is being done on healthy kids under the age of consent...kids who are on record as being the most anxious, mentally unstable, confused, "adulting" challenged cohort we've ever seen? The same kids that can't keep jobs if they get their feelings hurt, wont' drive a car, can't leave home, are no longer having sex or dating and are perpetually worried about the end of the world...but they are perfectly capable and stable enough to decide to have their healthy breasts surgically removed before the age of 18?
Do you know who the biggest sponsors are of abcNews and other fav MSM outlets pushing this narrative? Pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer.
I work in Behavioral Science and frankly Behavioral Science has jumped the shark on this one.
Ya, medicine & science suffers when it becomes about money and politics. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/science/puberty-blockers-olson-kennedy.html
To quote Jack Nicholson, "Sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up here."
The spell cast in 2019 by blue-haired lunatics who identify as blue-haired lunatics has finally broken - and Sam knows this how?
He literally explains why he believes it has broken in the preceding paragraph…
I have not seen any evidence of what he talks about in the preceding paragraph
Well then you should have said that and provided your counter to his points. I suspect Sam is a clearer thinker, definitely a clearer writer.
Well put, Sam.
A quibble regarding 'there will be no celebration with Rashida Tlaib or the rest of “the Squad.”' AOC, for one, has been working hard on the Harris campaign. She has done some effective Twitch sessions with Walz, talking politics while gaming. She has been particularly prominent in the past week on her Puerto Rican heritage.
I think she will probably thank AOC, who has been campaigning for Harris. (Perhaps AOC can also be said to have center-ward, as she finds common ground across political lines in Congress. Also to her credit, the DSA National Political Committee withdrew its endorsement of her over her changed position on Israel and antisemitism.
Stop quibbling please - if you quibble you’re a Trump fanatic in my book
Actually, not so well put. Dan has it right. No particular reason, so far as I can, for Brother Sam to take a gratuitous swipe at AOC and the squad, whom I admire and appreciate.
There are so many naïve statements in this article it is hard to know where to begin.
On the border, SH thinks somehow the open borders policy was an aberration and that KH knows its a problem. On gender reassignment, somehow SH thinks KH doesn't believe what she has stated for years or her administration tacitly promoted. Somehow defunding the police did not really happen or a minor error in judgment. SH imagines a Harris presidency full of policy experts...Really? The same group who to this day think masking kids is OK, the lab leak theory is racist, natural immunity is less effective than vaccine immunity, that the vaccines stop COVID in its tracks or that 6 feet of separation was real science. He goes on to imagine that the pro Hamas wing of the D party wont play a role in the Harris WH. All of this is utterly preposterous.
What SH fails to comprehend, is that while he "imagines" all of these policy improvements from the past 4 years, he completely ignores the totalitarian shift of the party. It is not Trump or the Rs who are imposing draconian Covid policies, speech codes, or engaging in modern day Eugenics with confused adolescents. It's not the Rs who have systematically lied to America about the fitness of the chief executive. It is not the Rs who are using prosecutors to jail their enemies or conjure new case law to put the ex president on trial. It's not the Rs who want to eliminate the filibuster to stack the supreme court. All of this is done to save democracy SH believes.
On women's issues, what about the my body my choice mantra? That too went out the window when the fascists from the Biden administration took control of your health decisions during Covid. Boys playing girls sports. You betcha. Boys in girls bathrooms? Why not?
On education, the KH presidency will further teaching kids 2+2=4 is racist and to hate America.
On foreign policy we already know the answer. Appease Iran, weaken Israel. Let Russia continue to cross red lines or permit as Biden said, "squirmishes"
Sorry SH. KH is not normal. Her presidency will not be normal. A continuation of her policies is too high a price to pay.
Your publication is titled "Rational Thinking" and you come out swinging with "fascists from the Biden administration". Speaking of it being hard to know where to begin...
I've shared this video in the chat with someone else (who didn't bother to engage with it in any substantial way). I'll share it with you in the hope that it will tone down the rhetoric a touch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvuiwdXiZGU&t=282s
It’s arguably the best political opinion I’ve ever read. What a great writer.
Well at least you have made the right decision. Wish you had written this sooner as well. It's funny, you see MVP Kamala Harris thru some kind of lens that appears to make you miss much nuance. She has never been a "leftist activist" so it is no surprise to those of us familiar with her for years (here in the Bay Area) that she is running a pragmatic, sensible, left of center campaign. She has always been thoughtful, not knee jerk and has had folks from the far left & the far fight attacking her for just that. She is an individual who thinks things through deeply and listens to many people, even those that disagree with her. She is real and real people both evolve and make compromises to make progress. She is one of the very best candidates & human beings we have ever had the opportunity to vote for. I hope you will see that & be willing to admit it when she is President.
“It is amusing in this context, with their powers of discernment so blissfully in eclipse, to watch Republicans find reasons to despise Vice President Harris. Trump escapes their merely mortal judgment like some force of nature, while Harris’s every word and glance are weighed with Talmudic severity and found wanting. If her laugh isn’t perfectly disqualifying, they detect a fatal difference in “authenticity” between the two candidates. I will admit that Harris can seem evasive in interviews, while Trump sometimes appears to be authentically what he is—a terrible human being.”
What irony, Sam, that you cannot see that this has also been YOU for the past few months. Even this last convo with Mark Cuban, you are still using two different standards. I hope this post isn’t too little, too late.
Best sentence in this essay; “Trump wouldn’t hesitate to sell his farts in bottles if he could only find the time—but they would be fake farts and fake bottles.”
I appreciate this analysis, which I find sensible but sadly rarely shared by other public figures or the mass media, neither in the US nor in Europe. Wishing a Harris victory from the other side of the Atlantic; there is a lot more at stake tomorrow than US national affairs.
Beautifully written, Sam.
My American friends. Your country was *already* great. If it continues to be great, it is in spite of Trump, not because of him.
If Trump wins it will be nothing less than a heart-rending event: a cruel mockery of centuries of greatness and one of the extraordinary tragedies of history. Such is the insanity of the modern age, that a fact of such consequence has escaped most of us.
If Kamala wins it will be a moderate, responsible. centrist leadership and the first female president.
Sam, you hit the many nails squarely on their heads. I don’t think anyone else could have done it better.