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

It feels like Harris has to run a damn near flawless campaign just to BARELY beat this guy. Yeah you can bring up the current state of the country, but Trump mishandled COVID, there were over 200k deaths, BLM protest and was 2x impeached. And yet, Joe Biden BARELY beat him.

Trump is a convicted felon, liable sexual predator, caused an insurrection on the Capitol Hill, tried to steal the 2020 election (find me 11,000 votes), constantly kisses Russia’s ass, has more pending court cases and gets sentenced next month and overall has been the main driving factor in America’s division.

Yet, this race is STILL either 50/50 or a slight tilt (Harris leads the polling aggregate right now). Harris gets destroyed by the corporate media for almost anything, yet Trump is still lying and saying the most outlandish shit and nobody cares.

Why does it feel standards are much higher for Harris than Trump?

finley ,

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 ,

Just shows you how shitty and stupid his base is.

BadmanDan OP ,

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 ,

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

Euphorazine ,

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 ,

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 ,

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

stinerman ,
@stinerman@midwest.social avatar

Also white supremacy is a hell of a drug.

Don_Dickle ,

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 ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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 ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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 ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

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 ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

Well, yeah, thanks to Fox entertainment.

CCMan1701A ,

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.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Because the kind of people who run CNN and other staples of traditional media are the same people who covered for people like Jimmy Savile.

Mark Thompson is Chairman and CEO of CNN. Here’s some blurbs from his Wikipedia, the Savile one being the most salacious.

In September 2010, Thompson acknowledged some of the BBC’s previous political bias, which he said he had witnessed early in his career. He stated: “In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people’s personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left”. He added: “the organisation did struggle then with impartiality”.

Fucking news to me, mate.

Although Thompson departed the BBC before public exposure of the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and is not noted in the BBC chronology of the unfolding coverage, Thompson faced questions about his role in the events around Savile’s actions and BBC coverage of them. According to a New York Times review, Thompson denied knowing of a BBC Newsnight programme on accusations against Savile before it was dropped soon after Savile’s death in October 2011.

Literally everyone around Savile is fucking trash.

In a 4 February 2024 investigation by The Guardian, some CNN staff blamed their channel’s newly appointed director Mark Thompson for what they described as biased reporting of the Israel–Hamas war. The staff criticized their network’s coverage of the war, charging that it had promoted Israeli propaganda, and gave more attention to Israeli suffering, and the Israeli narrative of the war. One staffer claimed that this bias was systematic and institutionalized, as many journalists’ stories were forced to be cleared by channel’s Jerusalem bureau before publication. Staffers claimed that statements by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were rarely reported on, while Israeli statements were taken at face value. A CNN spokesperson denied the charges of bias.

That’s to say nothing about the pro-Trump head of Discovery (which owns CNN) David Zaslav slobbing this guys knob.

Discovery CEO David Zaslav shared, “I am confident he is exactly the leader we need to take the helm of CNN at this pivotal time.”

Thompson was also formerly at the New York Times, another publication that has been swinging to the right. However, if you check out the Lifestyle section of the NYT, you quickly realize why, because it’s aimed at rich fucks with a second house in the Hamptons.

It’s literally in their short-term-financial-interest to get Trump. They don’t give a damn about long-term-interests at all.

BadmanDan OP ,

Oh yeah I definitely know all about Zaslav’s love for Trump, hopefully the investors give him the boot soon, he’s been awful for WB.

Rolando ,

Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal

Most Americans don’t know about Jimmy Savile btw.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

It’s so huge it has it’s own Wikipedia page:

en.wikipedia.org/…/Jimmy_Savile_sexual_abuse_scan…

UnderpantsWeevil ,
@UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

Thompson was also formerly at the New York Times, another publication that has been swinging to the right.

The NYT has been right wing since it was purchased by the Ochs-Sulzberger family in the 19th century.

The New York Herald Tribune was America’s premier left wing newspaper, but they got bought out by John Hay Whitney, a multimillionaire Wall Street investor, who ran it into the ground less than eight years later.

The NYT only looks liberal by comparison to the surviving media landscape. They have routinely played host to anti-environmentalism, war hawkery, and bigotry of every persuasion, going straight back to the Eisenhower Era.

Unlike the Tribune, the Times has focused first and foremost on cultivating a rich vein of lucrative advertisement. It’s a creature of Madison Avenue and K Street. Always has been.

pseudonym ,

All those things you said against Trump are actually working in his favor. His base sees it as persecution of their chosen one.

BadmanDan OP ,

But he can’t just win off his cult votes. He has to get moderate votes too.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Not if he cheats as hard as they plan to!

Literally, the Supreme Court just made clear they’re helping promote the false narrative of “illegal immigrants voting,” which helps promote the understanding that the plan is to contest the fucking election, no matter the outcome.

That’s why they have those electioneering hooligans in Georgia and why people are fighting it.

They have zero intent to make this a fair fight. That’s why they don’t give a fuck about actual votes.

BadmanDan OP ,

Yeah I read about the 70 electors in swing states that are Trump loyalists and election deniers. How these people are even allowed to certify votes is beyond me.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

I mean, I’m still confused as to why a guy who caused an insurrection in the capital is even allowed to run for President.

Our country is a weak fucking joke.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Yeah, he should have been executed for treason.

silasmariner ,

Bring back political executions! I can see no downsides!

Don_Dickle ,

And its sad because kids are growing up today and have a poor taste for the US. Which is sad in itself.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

Because it system if government was setup with certain assumptions of the time.

Only rich landowning white men would be voting. Those men had the time to stay educated on world events because of either slaves or staff running their day to day business.

Certain customs were socially enforced simply as a matter of course. Scandal often meant resignation or recusal, or you would be ostracized from society entirely. If no one would work with you, your business, and wealth would die.

XeroxCool ,

And the cheating will be tolerated promoted because they seriously beleive the other side is cheating. “Trump got more votes in 2020 than any prior candidate” is proof enough. Certainly can’t be that he’s such a polarizing, vile piece of shit that actually scared more non-voting people to vote tod defeat him, and they certainly can’t beleive Biden actually holds the vote record (note the key use of “prior” in trump’s claim). They really think the orange coastal elite is somehow on the working man’s side. The same cheeto that has declined to pay every contractor on his towers. The same cheese puff that couldn’t sell steaks. The same crayon that couldn’t find profit in a casino.

Buffalox ,

That doesn’t seem realistic. I don’t see how you can vote for Trump 2024, and claim to be a moderate.

Rentlar ,

Ask CNN

KillingTimeItself ,

there is literally no world in which this happens, unless you are either fucking stupid, or so under/mis informed that you shouldnt be allowed to vote.

KillingTimeItself ,

His base sees it as persecution of their chosen one.

yeah, cuz he’s a criminal, who did crimes, that’s normally what happens to criminals that do crimes.

neidu2 ,

Because a cult leader is automatically the purest one can be and needs no scrutiny.

BadmanDan OP ,

I understand the MAGA cult, but do moderates not see this?

neidu2 ,

There the opposite is true. They already know that the other guy is a villain. Their candidate will have to prove themselves not to be.

Addv4 ,

Plus since they are the figurehead of the party, if they are lackluster in their proof it could affect downstream elections.

MataVatnik ,
@MataVatnik@lemmy.world avatar

Because moderates pathological like to bring up “both sides”

grue ,

“Moderates” are a fiction. They’re just an excuse Democrats make for pandering to corporate donors while giving only the barest scraps to their leftist base.

Buffalox , (edited )

That only explains the cultists, and I doubt the entire media industry is in the cult.

pearsaltchocolatebar ,

Trump gets views. That’s why they love him.

Buffalox ,

Yes I agree, but only because they are a capitalists first and a human beings second.
They love him because they are morons, who don’t know they are engaging in self harm.
It’s sad that people of power, like for instance Elon Musk and the people behind Fox are so stupid they can’t see they are digging their own graves.

jordanlund ,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

Over a million deaths from covid…

BadmanDan OP ,

It was over 200k come the 2020 election

Lost_My_Mind ,

Ok…and like 3/4ths of that was under trump. I don’t get what you’re getting at here.

jordanlund ,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

It was way more than 200K.

laverabe ,

I think they were just correcting the number in the post text block that should have read about 1 million dead under COVID during the Trump administration in the US alone, rather than only 200k.

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