- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
The former president and first lady threw their weight behind the presumptive Democratic nominee
Barack and Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination for president, sharing the news in a joint phone call.
A video released by the campaign suggests the former president and first lady called Harris on Thursday while the vice president was in Houston, where she addressed the American Federation of Teachers and received a briefing on recovery efforts following Hurricane Beryl.
“We called to say, Michelle and I couldn’t be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,” Barack Obama is heard telling Harris in a 55-second video of the call.
“This is going to be historic,” Michelle Obama tells Harris.
I thought you were going to say:
“Is that really the best we can hope for? ‘Working on social and political causes to help see people and policies you like make it to the top’?”
And I was like “yeah, it is the best we can hope for”.
That is what I’m asking for. Everyone else seems content with backing a “winner”.
I don’t know if you understand. People are donating and volunteering, for Kamala Harris. You don’t want more participation, You just want people to support your personally chosen candidate (who remains nameless).
I haven’t seen one I like this cycle. Neither major party has nominated one I really liked in 40 years. The Dems came close a couple times.
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This sentiment is really impractical in a functional democracy of over 300 million people, if you can’t find anyone in 20 candidates that have run over the past 40 years from the two major parties you were willing to vote for.
Your perfect candidate that you hold out for isn’t going to be the perfect candidate for a lot of people. Part of the whole give and take is building consensus around most broadly acceptable candidates, rather than just taking your ball and going home when none of the viable candidates perfectly suite you.
Oh I voted in every election since I could. Just never for someone I believed in. It was only ever hope.
No one alive is probably fit to do the job, it’s an impossible task. Those who may come close, would probably never actually want it. And of those who remain who do want it ( which already might make them not worthy for the position) are probably not electable due to the forces of capitalism preventing such a candidate from getting elected.
So what is left is simply a pragmatic choice of the lesser evil. Many people are acutely aware of this and have gotten over it. I suggest until you manage to enact some sort of drastic systemic change you get it over it as well.
I’m working on it.
The drastic systemic change part.
I absolutely agree with your assessment of the problem. I’ve often thought of dividing The Executive Branch into at least two leadership roles. One of foreign responsibility, one of domestic. Though it may make sense to keep the roll as a single office, where teams of self determined size can divide responsibilities however they choose. Then it starts looks something like a parliamentary system. But I imagine the membership would be fixed somehow. I don’t know. Still working on it.
Ah, well that’s reasonable sounding. Perhaps the burden of understanding nuance of candidates is that you’ll always be disappointed when it comes time to reconcile with millions of others.
It really is amazing how poor our choices are. There are many competent humans out there, but it’s not obvious from our options. Seems like a direct result of the 2 party winner-takes-all political system.