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Anthony LaMesa's avatar

Excellent piece. I feel like people dismiss you as BSing when you say "Kamala Harris needs to do interviews, because democracy" -- as if it's impossible that a regular American could actually care about democratic norms and traditions. But some of us do care!

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Jen Koenig's avatar

"America’s news media is not simply a giant Democratic Super PAC. " See this is where you're wrong. They absolutely are.

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Evans W's avatar

Outstanding.

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Howie's avatar

I love the Lina khan question, she’s sort of a hero

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Lillia Gajewski's avatar

Nicely done. It is all really about winning, so your argument will fall on deaf ears, but it's worth pointing out anyway.

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{˳✦*𝓳𝓸𝔂//𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘*✧˳¹⁷⁹¹}'s avatar

Yeah, the ends should never justify the means. If saving democracy warrants crossing the Rubicon, then all is already lost.

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David A. Westbrook's avatar

Very well done, Zaid. I reposted what for me was the key quote. I'm sort of speedwriting a book of essays struggling with what the meaning of all this is, and "democracy as pageantry" is a part of the issue.

Wait, you're from Atlanta? I grew up there. Druid Hills, undergraduate at Emory. Anyway . . . Keep up the great work.

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Petty Rage Machine's avatar

She is not equipped to answer any of those questions because she has spent 3.5 years hiding in a shadow prison.

I find it extremely concerning that there is an entire population of Americans who are behind Kamala because the media has so thoroughly brainwashed them into voting on “vibes,” identity and party line.

Legally purchase firearms and ammo while you still can. Learn how to use and maintain them with competence. Make peace with your maker.

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Matt L.'s avatar

Kamala, like Joe, are just figure heads (bobble heads) to the puppeteering of others. And those ‘others’ dont want you to know the coming agenda, so no LIVE interviews. The system is broken that Kamala can be the D nominee without winning any primary delegates by actual vote. The legacy media is in the tank for all of this.

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Laurent Brondel's avatar

All excellent points and questions. The Prez does not have the power to abolish the electoral college, and Pakistan is probably a marginal issue with voters, so those are moot. I would ask her about Biden’s deterioration the last few years, and who is in charge at the head of the executive branch today, or who has been. There is no good answer to that question…

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Penny Adrian's avatar

You wrote that you would ask VP Harris: "If the war between Israel and Gaza isn’t concluded before you become president, would you be willing to leverage arms transfers in order to bring about an enduring ceasefire?"

The fact that there is any chance at all she would answer "yes" to this question is the reason I am voting for Trump in November.

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Fran Bennatti's avatar

I read the headline and said "duh". But the part about the Lester Holt interview and her staying out of sight afterward seems very significant. The Biden administration seems to think (or know) that it won't be noticed, like Buttigieg, or Lloyd Austin or Biden's brain.

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Dierk Groeneman's avatar

Those are excellent questions just begging for answers. .

If we lived in a real democracy, we might have had the chance to watch Harris respond to tough questions from the press. We might even have gotten a mini primary where voters could see other candidates besides her.

I'm forced to conclude the tight inner circle that anointed her has no real confidence in her or in democracy itself.

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{˳✦*𝓳𝓸𝔂//𝒔𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒘*✧˳¹⁷⁹¹}'s avatar

I think it's also that there are still a few members of the DNC who haven't been hit with the neuralyzer and actually remember the trainwreck that her 2020 campaign was. That a statesman is regarded at being their best when seldom speak is a worrying thought.

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Seva's avatar

Here’s an excellent assessment of the DNC on RCP from the New York Post. Kamala is constantly criticized for refusing to talk about what her administration would do if she is president but in fact they laid it all out at their DNC. Their top priority will be to further weaponize all federal agencies against Trump/MAGA which they see as the world’s greatest threat to democracy in America. This how they see the world. This is their obsession. They are fanatics. They will not change. I recommend sharing this with others and saving it for future reference as a reminder of who these people are and how they see us.

“All icing and no cake.”

That’s the only way to describe the Democratic National Convention that mercifully ended Thursday night with Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech as the party’s improbable nominee.  

The icing, of course, was all the joy shoved down America’s collective throats from Chicago, a city where more than two dozen have been shot since the convention began, all without a care in the world about the state of the country.

On Night Three alone, the word “joy” was said 30 times by various speakers. 

But that wasn’t close to the word uttered most from podium.

Instead, the gold medal goes to a name: Trump.

“Why Democrats convention set them up to lose in November.”

Real Clear Politics. New York Post by Joe Concha. Aug 27, 2024

https://nypost.com/2024/08/23/opinion/why-democrats-convention-set-them-up-to-lose-in-november/

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Pablo Singh's avatar

If you believe the current polls that have Harris winning, I have a bridge to sell you.

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