The documentarian gained credibility when he predicted early on in 2016, at a time when opinion polls showed Hillary Clinton coasting to victory, that there were serious warning signs that serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) would defeat her unless she changed her strategy towards the rust belt states and campaign more aggressively there. She did not and lost. In 2022, he predicted that the so-called ‘red wave’ that opinion polls were predicting that Republicans sweep the mid-term elections at national, state, and local levels would not happen and that Democrats would do very well. That turned out to be accurate too.
He does not pay much attention to horse-race opinion polls as to who people will vote for but does pay attention to surveys of what people care about. That, and somehow having an ear close to the ground, makes him someone who should be listened to.
He is now saying that Democrats have an opportunity to crush Republicans in the coming elections because the majority of voters agree with them on almost all major issues but that they must not make the mistake of alienating their strongest supporters. He makes four points that Harris and the Democrats must pay attention to to prevent their supporters from staying home.
- For instance, if the candidate, Kamala Harris, suddenly starts taking “centrist” positions in order to not offend anyone — yet in doing so she ends up offending everyone, i.e., the MAJORITY of Americans who are liberal, Left and progressive women, People of Color, young people, and the working class. That is not going to happen.
- Or, if Harris continues Biden’s embrace of Netanyahu and America’s funding of, and the arming of, the slaughter in Gaza, this will hand Michigan over to Trump and put him in the White House. Michigan has 200,000 registered Muslim voters, and 300,000 Michiganders are of Middle Eastern or North African descent.
…There is no place anywhere on the planet outside of the Arab and Muslim world with as many Arab and Muslim souls than in the state of Michigan. That is why I will keep talking about this until I am heard. The Party doesn’t get it. In 2016, Hillary lost Michigan when she didn’t need to. I will not sit by and let the same fate befall Kamala Harris — which perhaps, after she refused to sit on the dais with Netanyahu at his speech to Congress last Wednesday, hopefully this seems unlikely. And, after her one-on-one meeting with him the next day, there was no hug. She walked out and addressed the gaggle of cameras and microphones with this steely direct statement regarding the suffering of the Palestinian people: “I will not be silent.”
- Likewise, if Vice President Harris appoints Josh Shapiro as her Vice Presidential candidate, this too may result in losing Michigan. Shapiro said it’s “antisemitic” for anyone to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel in order to convince them to stop their apartheid behavior. He also cruelly compared peaceful college students to the Ku Klux Klan because they were calling for an end to the slaughter in Gaza. Actions like these will diminish the Arab American vote for Harris and depress a large swath of the youth vote throughout the country. As Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times has said, “Biden is in danger of losing Michigan and, with it, the whole election.”
- Finally, should Harris decide to do the bidding of the wealthy who are lining up with big checks so they can try to control her, this would clearly put her on the side against the workers and consumers. Case in point: This week Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, gave her $7 million. What will he want for his money? He’s already revealed the quid pro quo: He wants the removal of one of Biden’s best appointments, the head of the FTC, Lina Khan. She is on a mission to break up monopolies and to police Corporate America in the hopes of stopping them from doing more harm. Hoffman and other Big Money donors want to stop her. Hoffman has no shame in stating what he expects in return for his $7 million “donation” to the Harris campaign: “I would hope that Vice President Harris would replace her.” Will Harris do what she is told? My hope? Absolutely not.
But as many have said, the Dems are pros at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
So, as I see it, that’s the only way we can lose. If too many people sense it’s the same old political hoo-ha, the Democratic vote will be seriously depressed, millions will stay stuck in their despair, and all of this may lead to a Trump victory.
He says that all the signs are that Harris has the wind at her back and he is hopeful.
Kamala Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, two genius parents, one a Stanford economist, the other a brilliant Berkeley scientist, both active in the 1960s civil rights movement of their beloved adopted country, America, and proud to have their children be among the first to integrate a public school in California — that Kamala Harris was now, in 2024, accepting the all-but-certain nomination to be the Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States.
Yes, that was just one week ago. A euphoric nation exploded in a joyful belief that finally the promise of the American Dream was no longer just a “promise” nor a “dream” but a roaring reality that immediately took off like a rocket.
And each day this week has seen a new record set for a Presidential campaign:
- A Record-Smashing Surge of Volunteers Signing Up Across Key Swing States (a total of 170,000 throughout the nation as of this morning);
- The Biggest One-Day Haul of Campaign Contributions Ever, 60% of them from first-time donors (the total overall take is more than $350 million as of today);
- The Largest Zoom Call Ever for a Campaign Meeting (160,000 participants, with more than double that expected on Monday night’s “Women for Harris” Zoom — feel free to join in, click here);
- The Most People Ever to Register to Vote Over a 48-Hour Period: Almost 40,000 New Voters!
85% of all Convention delegates (3,404 of them) endorsed Harris after she had only been a candidate for three days — and all this 4 weeks before the Convention even starts!Historians and political scientists agree that this level of enthusiasm this quickly is unheard of in modern American politics. Trump is furious. He is planning to sue to “keep Harris off the ballot.”
Good luck with that. It won’t work.
Let’s hope that the Harris team is paying attention to what people like Moore are telling her.
Admittedly there was no “red* wave”, but they lost control of the House. I wouldn’t call that doing very well.
*FFS, WHY have Americans settled on red for the right and blue for the left (well, “left” relatively speaking), when across the entire rest of the world red means the left? Yes, I vaguely know the history of it, stemming from an electoral map put out by some media organisation, but it’s plain perverse. Just another piece of American exceptionalism the rest of us have to accept, I suppose.
Setting my quibbles @1 aside, I absolutely agree with Moore -- and the choice of running mate looks crucial.
WHY do people persist in the myth that Hillary Clinton didn’t visit the rust states?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-hillary-clinton-lost-pennsylvania-the-real-story/
Business Insider writes:
Harris is really in a bad situation with Gaza. Both supporting Israel and not supporting Israel will anger core Democratic groups. She will have to walk a careful line appealing to both sides without committing to the anti-Israel left or the anti-Palestine left. It’s a hard balancing act in general but made all the worse because the people on the ground are not concerned with US politics. Some options that look good from the US, such as long term cease fire, are not workable on the ground because neither side actually in the fight want that to happen.
Lunchtime news: the Golan Heights is heating up again. Land owned by Syria, occupied by Israel with lots and lots of firepower to hold on to land that isn’t theirs. That’s a hallmark of Israel--using other countries’ money and weapons to take what isn’t theirs.
In addition to Jill Stein siphoning off just enough votes to hand the election to the felon, WI was one of the most gerrymandered states in both 2016 and 2020. New districts have finally been established, so that the Dem side doesn’t need to get 67% of the vote to win.
They are an improvement, but the Democrats are still automatically disadvantaged.
That surely makes no direct difference in the presidential election, where (with a couple of exceptions not including Wisconsin) all that matters is the total vote across the state. Presumably it could make an indirect difference because more Republican office-holders will be available to suppress votes, refuse to certify, etc. -- but won’t thos Republicans still be in office for November this year?
Trump tries to use the antisemite card by accusing Kamala Harris (married to a Jewish man) of hating Jews.
Netanyahu has worked very, very hard to equate anyone objecting to his policies as hating all Jews everywhere, and Trump is helping him: https://x.com/jacobkornbluh/status/1818311534482763780
Is the parenthetical aside supposed to rebut the possibility of antisemitism?
@KG
Go back and reread the bit about Jill Stein, then go research the gerrymander of WI that disenfranchised the Democrats by creating the T-Rex district. I live next door in Minnesota, and WI had a recount in 2016 because of Jill fucking Stein and Bernie. Less than 1% was the ‘winning’ margin and turnout was a depressed 67%.
It’s blazing hot here, and I’ve got zero patience with your strange need to contradict me, just like I’m done hearing from the Hillary hater brigade 8 years later.
Actually, the fact that Trump is saying it rebuts the possibility. The Orange Foolius is now claiming Harris hates Catholics. He’s throwing everything against the wall in a desperate attempt that something will stick.
For example, also today, he claims Harris is only suddenly claiming to be black.
@KG progressive and liberals like to imagine they’re free-thinkers who make up their own mind, so it’s hilarious when they bleat out the same old tired misogynistic tropes the right has been programming into them for decades.