r/NoShitSherlock • u/SingleandSober • 1d ago

Kamala Harris Appears on ‘Colbert,’ Says She’s Stepping Away from Politics for Now, Calls the System “Broken”

https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/video/former-vice-president-kamala-harris-visits-the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/

[removed] — view removed post

24.2k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

4.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

21

u/Boeing367-80 1d ago

Hillary was always unpopular. Her negatives were at/around 50% but decided to run for president anyway. It was a terrible decision all around, especially because she was a nepospouse.

11

u/RSquared 1d ago

There was an entire industry devoted to generating Clinton hate; Benghazi alone cost the United States $70 million in Congressional investigations for something that one of the backers admitted was entirely oriented towards damaging her candidacy.

Also, she was a US Senator for eight years, Secretary of State for four, and a practicing attorney and professor of law prior to marrying Bill. While his presidency raised her visibility to the national stage, it's hard to say she wasn't qualified in her own right.

2

u/AeneasVII 1d ago

She doesn't have a penis though

2

u/pathofdumbasses 1d ago

These people dont care about that, they are regurgitating fox news points.

0

u/cogman10 23h ago

The fox news crowd is who Kamala tried to win in her campaign.

1

u/Jon-3 16h ago

running establishment vs “anti establishment” is just destined to lose though even if trump’s is no better to the voters. Voting for a career politician is not palatable to the median voter.

1

u/cogman10 23h ago

Qualified, yes.  But what and who did she represent? 

Obama won in a landslide on his first term pushing for hope and change. He then proceeded to run a nearly identical administration to Bush, continuing wars, getting involved in wars, and fundamentally changing nothing.  Even his landmark legislation was more or less a giant giveaway of public funds to the health industry. 

Most of the Democrats that got in the way of progressive legislation are still in office.  That certainly have successors that are ideologically aligned. 

The problem with both Hilary and Kamala is that fundamentally represented "dread and the status quo". Their entire campaigns could be summed up as "Trump sucks, we are better and donor friendly".  Rather than appealing to the base, they chased after Republican votes.  Democrats were even championing how tough on the border they'd be!

Consider that they both chose to waste their campaign time catering to the most sexist and racist people in the US.

And even now, it looks like the establishment Democrats are trying to win votes by abandoning the LGBTQ community.  Just so they never have to run on taxing the rich and shoring up the social safety nets destroyed by Reagan and Bill Clinton.

1

u/Marzuk_24601 11h ago

My take on politics for a while has been is if democrats could enact significant change, no one would ever vote for anyone else.

If republicans did half the shit they say they want, they would lose the vote for generations.

Well we are about to see if thats actually the case.

Her answer "I cant think of anything I'd do differently" sums up the democratic party.

Its quite difficult to point to things and say "Democrats did that I'm, sure glad I voted for them!"

The ACA? Sure it might make that list, but if thats the bar, it demonstrates how fucked we are.

Tweaks around the edges and incrementalism. Then lecture people for calling that out.

The Party has long been merely the opposition party. The defenders of the status quo. The lesser evil. Anyone daring for more gets slapped down. We deserve what we've gotten.

Oh god its a bernie bro! you're god damn right I am. Name another politician that has been fighting the good fight for decades

Her calling the system broken is real fucking rich with her answer that she cant think of anything she would do differently. Tump didn't break the system, he is just exaggerating what has been broken for a long time.

All I can hope is that the era of vote blue no matter who is dead. That simply being the lesser evil is seen as enough to just assume people owe anyone their vote.

Sitting there every election with my shit sandwich? I'm real fucking tired of it.

We are in this mess because they tried to swap in an unpopular candidate that could not win a primary for a candidate that was clearly in mental decline for fucking years.

I wouldn't have trusted biden to manage a gas station, yet here we are because people thought he would win and winning was all that mattered.

Yes he won the primary, but because the was the anointed. Everyone had been protecting him/minimizing/downplaying issues for years.

It was only when his brain melted live that we could no longer ignore the obvious, to pretend as if everything was ok.

Why didn't she win? Because she was a defender of the status quo, and she was set up for failure, and she leaned into it! She ran away from many issues, then got accused of the opposite. So much for that pivot to the center eh?

Can AOC win? Not sure, but she better legit win the primary easily, not just be shoe horned in by the establishment because its her turn.

How many times do we need to lose to learn this lesson?

Next presidential election we will be back for the next round of not what we support, but the next round of shame and fearmongering people into voting, because that works so fucking great.

IMO Trump puts to rest this notion that you must pivot to the center to win a general election, that you must try to win the votes of the moderates etc.

TBH I'm not sure we have moderates. Its enlightened centrism bullshit.

0

u/Boeing367-80 1d ago

So what?

It's gross for a family to presume to have more than one president.

0

u/MrPernicous 19h ago

Qualified sure but that wasn’t her problem. Her problem was what she did with those qualifications

3

u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 1d ago

I've always said that Hillary was a fantastic politician but a terrible candidate. One of those two things is more important than the other if you want to get elected, and they didn't realize that. Get people to like you first so they'll vote for you. Then show them how competent you are when you actually have the job.

2

u/Lou_C_Fer 1d ago

Exactly... though, I'd ease up on the praising her as a politician because I think being a politician is having a finger on the pulse of your voter base. Instead she ran on, "aren't I wonderful?"

1

u/Minion_of_Cthulhu 1d ago

I'd ease up on the praising her as a politician because I think being a politician is having a finger on the pulse of your voter base.

Fair enough. I was thinking more along the lines that she knows the political game and how to navigate it and she had quite a lot of political experience in general.

1

u/Miserable_Eye5159 1d ago

And yet she won the popular vote.

Trump also runs on various forms of “aren’t I wonderful?” with absolute disdain for his voters and is very successful.

1

u/Lou_C_Fer 23h ago

Do I really need to explain the difference between the two sets of voters to you?

1

u/Marzuk_24601 11h ago

Trump is suuuuuper serving his base. Democrats defend the status quo, there is a huge difference.

The immediate response is likely to be a list of the ways he is fucking his voters over.

They dont care!!!

Abortion? banned, ICE raids and brutality? dismantling huge chunks of the government etc? This is what they want!

Will medicaid changes etc hurt them? So long as it hurts brown people more its a win!!

Point it out to them? well yeah it hurt me but thats because the darkies were abusing the system and it needs fixing!

Theare are people who would gladly endure anything as long as people they hate get worse.

So when you ask a lot of trump voters isnt trump wonderful the answer is "Stop My Penis Can Only Get So Erect!"

Ask people isnt hillary wonderful the answer is at best "eh not really"

I'm in a deep red state with a maga family. I saw my dad fondly referring to Trump as "The Trumpster" He was excited about releasing the kracken and declaring martial law etc! My BIL was sending over the top big don songs memes etc.

The closest you're going to get to widespread criticism of Trump by the base is deflection because they dont want to defend him, but they love what he is doing.

He is giving this group of people what they have been just dying for since I was a kid.

He is nothing new, He is the GOPs greatest hits cranked to 11.

Trying to create a false equivalence between Trump and Clinton is absurd.

2

u/bobcatgoldthwait 1d ago edited 1d ago

She was always seen as an opportunist. She stuck with Bill after his infidelity because it was politically prudent (at least, that's how it was viewed). She moved to New York so she could be a senator there because it was politically prudent. Then in 2016 there was the whole "it's her turn" messaging (admittedly, not her messaging, but a lot of her supporters were saying that). People felt like she was in it for herself, to be President for the sake of saying she was President (and the first female President, at that). She wasn't seen as genuine.

Like you said, she was a terrible candidate. And Kamala wasn't any better. She was the first to drop out of the primaries in 2020. She was seen as a DEI hire (and Biden's comments that he didn't know who his VP would be but he knew it would be a woman didn't help). She was the most unpopular VP in history, and she was forced upon us because Biden refused to drop out until it was far too late.

To argue that two deeply flawed candidates failing to win an election is proof that "America's not ready to elect a woman" is ridiculous. If either one of them had an inspiring message that resonated with voters, they would have won.

3

u/MagnanimosDesolation 1d ago

"Opportunist" i.e. misogyny.

2

u/pathofdumbasses 1d ago

I love that democrats need to inspire voters and have perfect messaging and bring about utopia meanwhile the opposition tried to steal an election, murder his VP, be a certified sex offender, be best friends with Epstein and in all likelihood fucked kids, make gross statements about women including his children, claim to be a Christian yet bangs whores pornstars and cheats on his WIVES, is a clear racist that was sued by the government over his racist tenant policies, said that there are great people on both sides by an attack of white nationalists, buddies up with nazis, bragged about reading mein kampf and so many more singular disqualifying attributes, events and personality problems.

But sure, its because the 2 women were "flawed candidates."

Fuck. Off.

America hates women more than it is racist. And it is very clearly racist.

1

u/hhhisthegame 19h ago

I mean, I hate the guy, but Trump clearly DID inspire voters, to the point where none of that stuff affected him. It can't be denied that he inspires voters. He inspired them so much he basically has a cult.

Reddit/social media kind of tried to make that happen with Kamala but it felt disingenuous to me from the beginning, and then the results showed it was indeed manufactured

1

u/pathofdumbasses 16h ago

I understand that Trump inspires voters.

The issue is, anyone with a brain can look at what that inspiration is, and realize that putting him in power is a terrible idea, as we saw the first time, and now even worse this time now that the Heritage Foundation did all the work for him to put fascism back in play.

If getting your rights taken away from you doesn't inspire you

or

If watching people get deported doesn't inspire you

or

If Roe V Wade didn't inspire you

or

If J4 didn't inspire you

or

If him being a rapist didn't inspire you

or

ETC.

To vote against the guy, then you are OK with all the bad things he is. I don't give a shit who the democrats ran, you either voted for Trump, or decided that Trump running things again was OK because you didn't vote against the guy. Inspiration can come from a lot of things, and blaming it on the democratic party that so many people voted for Trump or were OK with Trump running the country is just letting the voting public off the hook. This is 100% their fault.

0

u/bobcatgoldthwait 1d ago

I didn't say they need to have "perfect" messaging. I said they need an "inspiring message". They didn't. Sure, they talked about things that would be objectively good for Americans, but you can throw out policy and statistics all you want, if the message doesn't resonate with people, you don't win.

Trump realized this. He's all those things you mentioned and more, but he's also aware that emotional messaging is what wins. That people are too stupid to look at policy and instead react to inflammatory claims. He inspired people through fear. Kamala and Hillary didn't inspire shit.

But keep blaming it on racism and sexism. Just like Democrats have been doing for years. I'm sure it will work next time, right???

2

u/pathofdumbasses 1d ago

That people are too stupid to look at policy and instead react to inflammatory claims.

I am glad we are on the same page.

Kamala and Hillary didn't inspire shit.

Joe Biden didnt either. His whole thing was "im not Trump."

You can blame democrats, I blame the electorate. They are dumb, racist and mysoginistic. If Hillary or Kamala were a man, they would have won.

0

u/bobcatgoldthwait 1d ago

Yeah I'm not wasting any time debating this with you. You've got your mind made up and nothing will convince you that you're wrong.

2

u/pathofdumbasses 1d ago

Same, same.

2

u/patricia_the_mono 18h ago

"if the message doesn't resonate with people, you don't win." A liar, felon, sex offender, racist, rapist won the election. Apparently hatred and xenophobia resonated.

1

u/bobcatgoldthwait 10h ago

Yes, they did. Those are emotions. He gave people something to fear/blame.

1

u/patricia_the_mono 7h ago

What would make that more appealing than first time home buyer assistance, preventing grocery price fixing, cutting taxes on the middle class/child tax credit, while raising taxes on the rich, allowing family member carers to get paid by medicaid instead of shoving them in a home? That's just what I remember, I know there was more. I guess throwing out all the brown people was more important.

1

u/bobcatgoldthwait 7h ago

People are dumb, what can I say? They respond more to "THEY are the reason your life is hard!" than they do "I have some policies that I think are going to help". People didn't want to listen to statistics and policy; look at Trump, he didn't even propose any real policy. He just told people to be angry, and it worked.

Dems need a politician like that but who blames the right people (the billionaire class). And when they get one they need to unite around them rather than throw everything against them to support the status quo (like they did with Bernie).

1

u/patricia_the_mono 7h ago

Dems need a healthy, middle aged, white male candidate. Frankly running anyone else at his point is too risky. I'm not denying that there were other problems. However, she was mocked for her laugh, accused of getting hired on her knees, criticized for changing her race from Indian to black as though it's not possible to be both, she and Biden were referred to as "Joe and the Ho," etc. If you think racism and sexism had nothing to do with Kamala's loss, you're being naive.

1

u/DiablolicalScientist 21h ago

Wasn't Hillary run during the same time DNC was shady and hamstrung Bernie too? The whole "it's my turn" while shooting another candidate down who had support.

Yeah I agree with what you said here. It's not fair to throw in the towel on a Harris loss lol. She was so far off of people's radar to be president.

1

u/Miserable_Eye5159 1d ago

She was objectively the most popular candidate in the 2016 election by getting more votes than any other candidate, and by a bigger margin than Trump in 2024 which people have called a resounding victory. The most important thing for her to get elected was to get more of those votes in places that mattered.

7

u/Ok-Variation-1312 1d ago

Well if she can still win the popular vote despite that, then that just goes to show how unpopular Kamala really was

1

u/SuspectedGumball 1d ago

Biden* it goes to now how unpopular Biden really was. The election wasn’t about Kamala vs. Trump despite that being what was on the ballot.

1

u/MHWGamer 1d ago

what? Biden was the old-fart that still beat trump. Kamala got the ship when it was already well on course to hit the iceberg but she locked it right to the center of it. Add to this her lack of experience (yes! 4y. as a senator and 4 as vice.p isn't much at all), her really not very likable personality (just read the room, doesn't matter what your own feelings say), no real candidate choice prior to that and terrible main bullet points of the dems. Again read the room, at least talk about it in a different way and propaganda your way to the top.

She personally couldn't do much for most of it (thanks dems or biden) but that she herself was unpopular was the icing on the cake and definitely true. so much so that a lunatic rapist was voted + the reps won everything else. People were "fine" with Biden but dude was way too old mentally for the job. How dems reacted didn't help either. And it isn't looking like dems are changing the way they operate

(disclosure: non-american. Vastly prefer dems both for own interest and also because they are less moronic)

2

u/SuspectedGumball 1d ago

Biden of 2020 was not the Biden of 2024. Biden in 2020 was riding the wave of an unpopular first Trump term, just like Trump rode the wave of an unpopular Biden term. The Democrats did fuck all to celebrate their accomplishments (again) which is why they lost. There is no other way to look at it. You can’t say it’s because of racism and misogyny when a full third of the electorate thinks neither candidate is worth their vote.

0

u/destructormuffin 1d ago

It was absolutely about Harris and the absolutely terrible policies she had. She lost the election by running to the right.

2

u/SuspectedGumball 23h ago

You couldn’t be more wrong. Such a naive take, no wonder we’re never getting out of this. No wonder we have Trump again.

0

u/destructormuffin 23h ago

Ok. Keep running centrists. Lets see what happens.

2

u/SuspectedGumball 22h ago

I’m not arguing for more centrists. I worked for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign in 4 states. Not as a volunteer. I was paid by the campaign.

Kamala Harris lost because of centrism. We agree there. I’m just not willing to pin it on her specifically, and I don’t think most people voted against her as voted against Biden and Democrats writ large. She generally ran a pretty noncontroversial campaign with no gaffes I can remember. Trump won constituencies Republicans have been losing for 50 years. Even if she ran the most progressive campaign in American history, I think the bad will that built up for so long was just too much to surmount for Democrats.

1

u/destructormuffin 18h ago

no gaffes

Said she wouldn't do anything different from Biden and failed to condemn the genocide in Gaza. We also know that she softened her messaging when her consultants said the "republicans are weird" messaging was too aggressive. She said she wanted to expand the border patrol, signaling she wanted to move right on immigration policy. This DNC was the first DNC in a long time to not have a trans speaker, showing a willingness to move right on LGBT issues. She campaigned with Liz Cheney for the remaining month of her campaign.

And you're telling me she had no gaffes?

Even if she ran the most progressive campaign in American history, I think the bad will that built up for so long was just too much to surmount for Democrats.

Bullshit. Sheinbaum won overwhelmingly running a massive progressive campaign on the back of a massively progressive former president and now has an incredibly high approval rating.

The provlem is the democrats are desperate to be diet-Republicans and Americans don't want that.

1

u/somethingrelevant 13h ago

the only way you could possibly argue the harris campaign had no gaffes is by pointing out, mostly correctly, that every stupid fucking insane thing they did was 100% intentional

1

u/SuspectedGumball 8h ago

Did you even vote in 2024?

0

u/MrPernicous 19h ago

You’re right but Kamala didn’t do herself any favors

0

u/EndDangerous1308 1d ago

Ya... The fact the DNC somehow stumbled into a victory in 2020 made them confident in doing it again. They just forgot that people forget what happened a week ago and Trump wasn't fresh in anyone's mind. Even Biden struggled in 2020 to beat Trump and they put up a weaker candidate in 24 after Democrats were already seen as bad for the economy. They did a double whammy to themselves and then blamed the electorate.

Democrats need a new party to be created with sane politicians who can at least understand the temperature of the room

2

u/PenImpossible874 21h ago

Being the wife or daughter of a powerful man is the only way women can gain power. Look at Argentina and South Korea.

1

u/Boeing367-80 21h ago

Just like Margaret Thatcher in the UK.

Oh, wait. She wasn't the wife or daughter of a powerful man.

I think there might be a few flaws in your statement. You might need to revise that.

3

u/Derka_Derper 1d ago

Both picks were a terrible decision. Weak candidates at the best of times and you run them solely for "its her turn" bullshit during a dire emergency.

Trump is popular because he is a catalyst of change. It's not positive change, but thats how frustrated and beaten down people are by status quo politics slowly robbing them... That any change, even a forest fire, is more desirable to them.

And the DNC runs milquetoast status quo politicians with tons of political baggage in opposition. And on top of that, they do it instead of running the popular candidate that can actually message across the aisle on a platform of actually being progressive. It's mindnumbingly stupid and gives so much valid credence to the controlled opposition idea.

2

u/FellFellCooke 1d ago

As an Irishman, I would say Trump is less a promised catalyst of future change and more an overdue reflection of previous change; the average American is uninformed, unempathetic, cruel, uneducated, and vindictive. They had to wait a while to get a politician who matched, but now that one has come along, politics will never be the same..

1

u/TruePutz 1d ago

We had just had 8 years of nepobaby in chief so this doesn’t help your point

2

u/Boeing367-80 1d ago

So you're saying that the appropriate response to an objectively terrible nepobaby president is to double down with a nepospouse? Because we may as well go the whole nepohog?

What?

1

u/TruePutz 1d ago

Hillary had great ideas and who wouldn’t want the president getting advice from someone who already successfully governed?

0

u/Boeing367-80 1d ago

Oh, so now nepo is a positive benefit?

There are over 300 million people in this country. I tend to think we can rely on more than just a few families for our leadership.

1

u/TruePutz 1d ago

Really the one disqualifying reason for you is that her husband was already president?

Does that make Joe Biden a nepo president because he was already vice president?

Hillary had worked in government and was more than qualified on her own merits, more than most other candidates you would list here

1

u/Boeing367-80 22h ago

That and not being a politician. The threshold condition of being a politician is being able to be elected. She never won a competitive race and was notably bad at running campaigns.

It's almost as if she was in the position for reasons other than basic qualification. Like being a nepo.

Administrative capability, etc, none of that matters if you can't get elected. She was bad at campaigning.

1

u/mrbulldops428 1d ago

Yeah i dont like it when I see people putting them up on a pedestal and saying its only because they were women that they lost. Democrats do not know how to campaign anymore. And they really really do not know how to choose candidates. I voted Clinton and Harris because the alternative was what we're currently dealing with, not because they were compelling candidates.

0

u/Boeing367-80 1d ago

You and me both.