Why is Kamala Harris being held at such a higher standard than Trump this election?

kryptonianCodeMonkey , 8 hours ago (edited 7 hours ago)

Because apparently half of the active voters in this country are either greedy corporate cunts, wealthy sociopaths, MAGA morons, authoritarian Christian ideologue crazies, psuedo-intellectual “centrists”/independents that somehow conflate basic human respect for minorities and outright fascism as “both sides are the same”, or some combination thereof. Those type of people are the type that think the ends always justify the means and that the ends they want is a US that looks like a cross between A Handmaid’s Tale, Atlas Shrugged, and modern day Russia. It is one of the most disheartening realizations of my adult life to learn that so many of my fellow Americans are fucking vile people.

Do keep in mind, that roughly half of voters is not the same as roughly half of Americans. The highest turnout of voting eligible people in the last century was only 66.6% in 2020. Basically every Trump nut votes. It is there entire reason for being these days, to support and vote for Trump. And in 2020, Trump only got 46.9% of the popular vote, i.e. only 33.03% of the US voting eligible actually cast a vote for Trump. The rest of us are either actively trying to stop Trump or are at least not actively supporting him. The absolute BEST thing we can do as a country is to bump those numbers up. There is no excuse for 1 in 3 people to not vote, leaving another 1 in 3 people to have disproportionate power over everyone else’s lives. Complacency and apathy or counting on enough others to do their civic duty so you don’t have to is how Trump wins again. Vote and make every single person you know go vote too. Tell them to register. Tell them to vote early if that is more convenient for them. Whatever. Just go vote.

Update: The second best thing you can do is vote for state and federal epresentatives and leaders that will advocate for election reforms like joining the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) and/or abolishing the electoral college, fighting Gerrymandering, establishing new, more fair and representative voting systems (Ranked Choice, Approval, Proportional, etc.), term limits, etc. The goal is for representative government is to actually represent the popular will of their voters. It absolutely does NOT do that right now. That should be our first and greatest goal for our government.

Feathercrown , 7 hours ago

It is one of the most disheartening realizations of my adult life to learn that so many of my fellow Americans are fucking vile people.

I think this is one of the single most important realizations of my societal awakening as well. I actually think a lot of the cognitive dissonance we see daily is a refusal to accept this premise. People refusing to believe that evil people exist in a real, meaningful capacity HAS to have some effect on the amount of people that deny republican politicians are That Bad and attack the left for truthfully acting like they are.

Rentlar , 6 hours ago

You know what was eye-opening to me? I was once talking to a couple homeless women sitting outside a parish on a cold Canadian winter day, they were saying government needs to restrict access further to free and subsidized programs.

Apparently there were too many undeserving homeless people using the program that can’t take care of a place if it’s free, so according to these poor women, they shouldn’t let people like themselves have a roof over their head unless they can put up a $1-5k deposit for a unit. I wished them a good day, and gave them $10 each and my gloves…

cogman , 8 hours ago

Corporate media likes elections to be close and exciting because that draws ratings. Hence the reason they put on kid gloves for the idiot fascist.

Don_Dickle , 7 hours ago

I know one thing if Trump wins I am going to get really really obliterated drunk and high.

TotalCasual , 3 hours ago

It’s really hard for some people to believe that this would ever be the truth. At the very minimum, this is like 50% of the truth, and the other 50% is worse.

ShinkanTrain , 8 hours ago

I don’t get why my restaurant gets so much scrutiny over a few rat turds in the soup when Gusteau’s has a literal rat village in the kitchen

AmidFuror , 8 hours ago

Meanwhile, you doubtless have a restaurant you can point to which is rat and insect free?

ShinkanTrain , 7 hours ago

Enjoy the rat shit.

gibmiser , 8 hours ago

“See! She’s not perfect, so you cant criticize trump for any of his flaws or you are a hypocrite!”

All politicians are the same! Our quarterback is cooler than your girl! Go Red team!

someguy3 , 8 hours ago

It is the way of Dems vs GOP.

And Fox essentially being a GOP mouthpiece.

Hello_there , 8 hours ago

I don't expect trump to be decent.
I expect the democrat to be.

SpaceNoodle , 8 hours ago

Because not only do women have to work 10x as hard to be seen as being on the same level as men, but she has scruples. Trump doesn’t care about perception.

BigMikeInAustin , 8 hours ago

Because racism and sexism is still very prevalent in the US.

She is a minority. And she is a woman.

The news is a shit hole funded by the ultra wealthy who will benefit from Trump’s tax cuts for the ultra wealthy. Which explains the coverage.

Many voters are still racist and sexist. Which explains the polls.

danc4498 , 8 hours ago

It’s worth noting that Harris is still pretty new when it comes to being the presidential nominee. Nobody even considered it until the Biden debate.

So partly the media is making up time when it comes to analyzing her and asking and expecting answers.

Trump has been running for president since the day he lost, so we all know everything there is to know about him.

DogPeePoo , 8 hours ago

Because the Billionaire owners of the media— FOX NBC ABC CNN are all conservatives who support project 2025.

They are predominantly white and they want their tax cuts while passing the bill to the plebeians.

Buffalox , 8 hours ago (edited 8 hours ago)

USA as a society is mentally ill, where sociopathy is often seen as a virtue. For instance denying poor people health care and food, denying pregnant women with potentially lethal complications the right to abortion. Allowing (white) people to kill (black) people without reason based on stand your ground rules. Refusing stricter gun rules despite countless school shootings. Denying workers a living wage. The list of sociopathy permeating US society goes on and on.

Now I know that despite this, about half the population see the problems. There are also Americans that fight this, and are world class people. But the other half, somehow confuse Trump’s sociopathy with strength, and admire him for it. Yes this is how it is in USA, sociopathy is widely not only accepted but admired, people want Trump to hurt people, the poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. Many Americans want all these people to suffer, for no other reason than their mere existence. Somehow this is OK to even extend to women in general too! As Trump is clearly a major misogynist.

If you are a normal well functioning person, it’s near impossible to grasp that such hate can be this widespread, and Trump is fueling it, and before him Republicans have been fueling it for decades.

This makes all the hateful illegal stuff Trump does nearly irrelevant, people simply don’t care, his followers just want to see the people they hate burn. It’s not that Trump isn’t called out at times, it’s just that it doesn’t really make a difference.

SLVRDRGN , 8 hours ago

people want Trump to hurt people, the poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. Many Americans want all these people to suffer, for no other reason than their mere existence. Somehow this is OK to even extend to women in general too!

I can understand that this might be true of people, but sooo many people in this country are women, poor, emigrants, people of color, LGBT. To have as much support as Trump manages to have, clearly there are people within these groups that target themselves… it makes no sense.

Buffalox , 7 hours ago

Remember in 2016 there were LGBT for Trump?
It was absolutely insane!! No it doesn’t make sense, but there are always a percentage that are delusional, and sometimes they manage to convince others.
Probably there are people who actually believe they don’t deserve equal rights, this can be indoctrinated through religion, and religiousness in USA is VERY high.
There are probably also people who don’t see themselves as part of one of the groups even if they clearly are.
Remember the MAGA woman who was extremely surprised when her husband was expelled because he was an illegal alien? That’s how stupid people can be!
Because it’s “all the others” not “me” they think.

pimeys , 7 hours ago

Upper middle class gays somewhere in Gilbert Arizona who just want to see their retirement savings to go zoink. You have your walled swimming pool and Trader Joe’s nearby.

SnotFlickerman , 7 hours ago

Common things that pop up in regards to Republicans voting against their own interests:

Women with the attitude that “the only moral abortion is my abortion.”

Immigrants who are angry at other immigrants, wanting to close the door behind them. (Just look at Cubans in Florida)

Log Cabin Republicans, LGBT+ members who are somehow shocked when the party turns on them.

What do most of these people have in common? Money.

Trump supporters are more likely to be small business owners. Capitalism doesn’t care about your skin color, your creed, your nationality, your history, it just wants your fucking money.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair was talking about jobs, but this can be extended to… women who financially rely on their husbands becoming more politically aligned with their husbands (especially if they like the lifestyle), immigrants financially relying on the “good people” willing to hire them as an immigrant (stockholm syndrome?), and the number of rich white gay dudes who may as well have been rich white straight dudes at any other point in history is too damn high (they love to hide behind their sexuality when anyone critiques their horrible positions, “You can’t critique Tim Cook for tax dodging at Apple, he just came out, he’s BRAVE!”).

jelloeater85 , 6 hours ago

For what it’s worth, alot of us see the problem and are doing what we can to help. To stick up for queer folks, to not buy products from places like Walmart, and tell everyone we know to vote for people with empathy.

Greed is good, became the norm.

Conservative folks want to conserve what they have, at any cost. Simple as that. Fuck you, I got mine.

KillingTimeItself , 1 hour ago

If you are a normal well functioning person, it’s near impossible to grasp that such hate can be this widespread, and Trump is fueling it, and before him Republicans have been fueling it for decades.

the only reason this shit ever gets this popular is literally because of fascism.

gravitas_deficiency , 8 hours ago

Because the people who own news corps are hella rich, and hella rich people mostly prefer Trump because he’s gonna give them a HUGE tax break again.

SnotFlickerman , 8 hours ago

They either just don’t give a fuck at all about future humans (including their own children) and just want all the profit for themselves now, or they are genuinely stupid and don’t actually understand economic theory at all.

Because long-term Trump’s policies will wreck the country economically.

Either way is a bad look. It reveals them as either outstandingly stupid or outstandingly selfish.

gravitas_deficiency , 5 hours ago

They’re just trying to min/max their personal financial gain:effort ratio.

riskable , 5 hours ago

Rich people believe that no matter how rough the world gets they will be fine as long as they remain rich. History has shown repeatedly that this is a false assumption, demonstrating that the rich in America really are just as dumb as poor conservatives who get suckered into voting against their own interests every election.

Also many of the absurdly wealthy are sociopaths and narcissists (because our economic system allows people like that to succeed by stepping on everyone else). To them, all that matters is how they look among their “in group.” So if they think they’ll look better by being a few billion richer they do whatever it takes to get there… No matter the long term consequences. Either to them or anyone else.

finley , 8 hours ago

because Trump has spent the last 9 years going so low, his cult no longer has standards. anyone would look like a saint compared to him.

Linktank , 8 hours ago

Just shows you how shitty and stupid his base is.

BadmanDan OP , 8 hours ago

But it can’t just be his cult keeping him in this race. How can any moderate or independent support this guy over Harris at this point? Do they not have functioning eyes & ears?

Linktank , 8 hours ago

Those are just embarrassed republicans who are identifying as other parties in the hopes they can get laid.

Euphorazine , 8 hours ago

The fact you even look at politics puts you in like, the top 20% of the US population.

I would wager the majority of people that do vote, just look for an R or D next to a name and check the box for their team and move on.

There were about 160 million people who voted in 2020, an unprecedented amount of engagement from the voting populace, and still not half of Americans voting.

People don’t really care. Do they have a job? Are their basic needs met? If yes, vote incumbent, if no, vote competition. I expect to see tweets in November asking where Biden went and who is Kamala.

dhork , 8 hours ago

Because too many people treat politics like a sporting event. You root for your team no matter what, and against the other team. You have to do it this way, because if the other side wins that means your side loses.

So there are too many people who view Trump as “Their Guy”, and are “rooting” for him. Anything they hear that might portray Trump in a negative light (like a criminal trial, for instance) must be the Other Side trying to cheat to win unfairly.

I remind people that Roger Ailes was Nixon’s media consultant, and the lesson he learned from Watergate was that Nixon could have gotten away with it if the media was more sympathetic. He then went on to be the CEO of Fox News. That’s no accident. There is a direct line from Nixon to Trump, and Roger Ailes drew it.

BadmanDan OP , 8 hours ago

Thanks for that info, I never about the Ailes Nixon-Trump connection. This is so frustrating to see unravel in real time.

stinerman , 8 hours ago

Also white supremacy is a hell of a drug.

Don_Dickle , 7 hours ago

That is why I move to bigger more ethnic cities or countries where I am wanted at and dont have to put up with that shit. Just worked with a nazi/neonazi/skinhead or whatever and I while he would talk to me about his beliefs I woulld always find an excuse to walk away

UnderpantsWeevil , 8 hours ago

the lesson he learned from Watergate was that Nixon could have gotten away with it if the media was more sympathetic.

Then we got Reagan, Bush, and Trump, and he proved it.

halcyoncmdr , 7 hours ago

The media almost singlehandedly bringing Watergate to the average American’s attention was why Murdoch created Fox News. It was created specifically so they could force control of the narrative to their advantage.

And then we allowed every other media corporation to be bought and do the same once they saw it worked so well.

UnderpantsWeevil , 7 hours ago

The media almost singlehandedly bringing Watergate to the average American’s attention

If you really get under the hood of Watergate, it had all the fingerprints of a soft coup. Nixon was a shit and made for an easy fall guy, but also Trumpian in his stubbornness and his refusal to go whole hog on the Cold War. Ford toed the line - installing Bush Sr to clean Kennedy’s liberals out of the CIA, promoting Greenspan and Rumsfield to the Republican inner circle, and tapping the breaks on our openness with China.

There was no real reason to break into the Watergate given that Nixon was beating McGovern in a landslide. But it did a lot of favors for the movement conservatives like Goldwater and Reagan to get Nixon’s ass out on the curb.

The WaPo (a hotbed of spooks even back then) played a big roll in that for a reason. Ffs, Woodward was an agency man going back to his time in Naval Intelligence. He broke Watergate less than a year after joining the paper.

HobbitFoot , 6 hours ago

If you really get under the hood of Watergate, it had all the fingerprints of a soft coup.

Not really. The major issue was that the President got caught and there wasn’t a propaganda network out there to drum up support.

Several Republican senators visited Nixon before he resigned because it was too politically costly for them to not vote for impeachment. In contrast, there weren’t political consequences for voting against Clinton’s and Trump’s impeachments.

UnderpantsWeevil , 6 hours ago

The major issue was that the President got caught

E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy got caught. Hunt was an old school pro and close friends with Allen Dulles. He was also directly employed by future Bush FBI director Robert Muller, before joining Nixon’s team. After committing a string of crimes for Nixon, he served a mere 33 months in a low security federal prison.

Liddy served a slightly longer 55, then got a series of sweetheart media deals from his friends in conservative media. He was the top speaker on the college circuit in 1982, three years after leaving prison.

Several Republican senators visited Nixon before he resigned because it was too politically costly for them to not vote for impeachment.

Lead by Goldwater, a major Nixon rival for leadership in the party. Ford was Goldwater’s pick for the VP slot after Agnew resigned as well.

In contrast, there weren’t political consequences for voting against Clinton’s and Trump’s impeachments.

There was a big reward for Lieberman when he voted for impeachment. Gore put him on the VP ticket.

Meanwhile, a handful of Republicans who voted to impeach Trump - most notably Liz Cheney - got primaried out of office.

TokenBoomer , 6 hours ago

Now this a conspiracy I can get behind. Love it.

SnotFlickerman , 5 hours ago

Woodward going on to not reveal Trump’s admission that Trump knew exactly how dangerous COVID was and was purposefully downplaying it until Woodward published his book on Trump couldn’t be anymore revealing of capitulation to power while claiming to speak truth to power.

UnderpantsWeevil , 4 hours ago

He was celebrated as a whistleblower for releasing it long after the news was worth more than court gossip.

The man is the poster child for why American major news media is absolute dog shit. We see the same pattern with Bush Iraq War fuck ups sat on through to 2005. And all the banking scandals squelched during the thick of the OWS protests. And the Theranos woman misdiagnosing hundreds of patients with her hoax machine while parading around as a business celebrity. And the Bitcoin scams hushed up until the biggest players had exited the market.

Whether it’s Bob Woodward or Micheal Lewis or Judith Miller, there’s a cast of these characters who exist to hoodwink people into thinking they have a free press.

SnotFlickerman , 4 hours ago

And the Theranos woman misdiagnosing hundreds of patients with her hoax machine while parading around as a business celebrity.

Although, to be fair, this story has at least one comical bent. She was obsessed with those fucking dogs that she did absolutely nothing to care for. Combine that with the fact that she didn’t just hoax her patients, she also hoaxed investors. My favorite is knowing at some point she was buttering up Kissinger while those dogs were dropping big steaming piles of shit in the same room. Kissinger nodding along, seriously, while dogshit smell permeates everything.

It’s fucking comical how stupid some of the ostensibly smartest and most important people are.

UnderpantsWeevil , 4 hours ago

Combine that with the fact that she didn’t just hoax her patients, she also hoaxed investors.

That was the comedy angle. The tragedy angle is that the patients never able to sue, because it was impossible for them to determine if they’d been part of the faulty test group.

Investors got their pound of flesh while folks who were actually harmed were left without recourse.

HessiaNerd , 6 hours ago

How Regan didn’t get impeached over Iran Contra is baffling.

UnderpantsWeevil , 6 hours ago

He avoided impeachment the same way Clarence Thomas survived his confirmation hearing.

Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neal decided it wasn’t worth pursuing.

HobbitFoot , 6 hours ago

Nixon’s approval rating before resigning was 24% while Reagan only dropped to 43%.

UnderpantsWeevil , 6 hours ago

Reagan had already lost a big midterm in '86 and should have been easy to impeach by the incoming Dem majority. With 55 seats, they could even talk about conviction.

They choose to roll the dice on electoralism instead, and gave the White House to Reagan’s (heavily complicit) VP.

rayyy , 6 hours ago

Well, yeah, thanks to Fox entertainment.

CCMan1701A , 50 minutes ago

I have heard from friends of mine that like Trump claim that since he’s a business man he is good for running the country. I could’t roll my eyes hard enough after hearing that remark.

I have also found that there is nothing you can say to sway a trump supporter.