It's the limbic system vs the frontal lobe.

The limbic system won.

> You may don't like that this was reality, that your progressive views are more "right" than that, but it is.

This made talking politics with my social circle difficult. Don’t shoot the messenger. This was not the time to run a risky candidate. I actually think Harris ran a decent campaign, much better than I thought she would, but I don’t think she had much of a chance. I remember when Biden dropped out several groups came out saying that if the DNC didn’t give Harris the nomination, that they would consider than to be a betrayal and that they’d lose their support. It was frustrating to see them so focused on what was “right” or “fair” when the stakes were so high.

The crazy thing is that we already went through this in 2016. We had people protest voting against Clinton. It didn’t work. And yet we seem to have been ok letting unyielding idealism sabotage important elections.

That said, I think a huge problem was Biden’s ego and his inability to stick to his campaign promise of being a one-term president. With him dropping with only a few months left, democrats didn’t have many options.

>At every step of the way they very eloquently and academically explained why they have the right solutions

Part of the problem is that they didn't explain anything. Even in friendly interviews, the best kamala can answer when asked for specific is a big word salad that can be summarized as "Trump is evil and a danger to democracy, vote for us". Saying you have a plan and shitting on the other party for not having one is not the same as having a real plan and communicating it properly.

This self-righteous narrative is way off.

The Democrats would rather lose with a neoliberal+unpopular candidate than win with a popular candidate. Because they serve similar corporate interests as the Reps. Only with a completely different Culture War shtick than the Reps.

That you frame this as being “factually, morally, academically” correct is funny—what justice does the Dems fight for? Not Palestinians. Not the average American. Just well-off women (now white or Jamaican) having “their turn” as the commander in chief.

I did think at the time when Biden had to step aside that it was a shame they didn't try to choose the most competent replacement (maybe Shapiro?) rather than just going with Kamala who I think everyone agreed wasn't very good.

> The majority of the country was telling them "We are having change anxiety after Obama

Biden came after Trump.

> All they had to do was bring a calming white man that is not in cognitive decline that would reassure the nation that everything was going to be alright

What motivated people is inflation and border crossings.

But Trump didn’t do any of things you suggested either. In fact he was barely coherent in his ideas most of the time.

Ahhh yes, a calming old white man would've solved everything.

I guess we'll see in the next 4 years.

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> put an uncharismatic non white woman as the candidate

As a "white" man (no more white than native Americans are "red", Chinese are "yellow", or Africans are "black"), I take offence at the suggestion that skin color or gender should be a defining characteristic to determine who should be the US president (or anyone else in power).

Charisma is a different story, but boy, if Trump is the benchmark for what counts as having charisma, we're in even bigger trouble than I thought.

"All they had to do was bring a calming white man that is not in cognitive decline"

They did that with VP Walz, but it did not help. Their policies are the problem.

You imply that Americans are racist. You're making the same sort of mistake that you ascribe to the Democratic Party.