[jacquesm]

You dodged the question.

And so you voted for the greedy, utterly corrupt criminal instead. I really wonder how you could come to this utterly bizarre conclusion. Trump isn't an example for anybody, least of all your kids, and god forbid they'd look at a woman that made it to president and think that that might be something to aspire to. Incredible.

[rayiner]

EDIT: I wrote a bunch of stuff, but realized Glenn Loury said it a thousand times better: https://x.com/nashvilletea/status/1961683711511969904?s=46. Watch to the very end: “You will not be equal at the end of that argument, even if you get what you ask for.” I almost felt bad for Harris after the election. It became obvious how few people actually respected her as a leader. They installed her as a generic “woman of color” because it made them feel good and like they were achieving a milestone in the “arc of history.” It’s pitiable, not admirable.

I raise my kids the way my dad raised me—and how white elites raise their own kids, in contrast to how they see brown kids: to always have an internal locus of control, never make excuses, and never demand society’s protection or accommodation.

[jacquesm]

> It became obvious how few people actually respected her as a leader. They installed her as a generic “woman of color” because it made them feel good and like they were achieving a milestone in the “arc of history.”

Yes, obviously she didn't get there because of merit... unbelievable this exchange.

So your main point is that Harris, who was in the spot to become president for all of four years if something happened to Biden, was only there as a generic woman of color? This is in a way a worse insult than if it had been just jealousy. Do you honestly believe that the slob you voted for is there on merit? And never mind his sidekick? Harris has more merit than either of those two grifters combined.

For your sake I hope that one day you're going to snap out of the groove that you are in. But by the looks of it the more likely end game is that you will dig yourself in further and further until there really is no way back.

Just for a 10 minute exercise: imagine you are wrong about all this and that in a decade you look back at the end result. Then realize that there is such a thing as minimization of regret and that this radicalization path that you - as you admitted yourself - are on does not offer any outs other than ever more convoluted rationalizations which your original self from just a few years ago would have been horrified at. The reason I keep talking to you is because I hope that somewhere in there the guy that we knew before he went off into the woods is still there and is still able to use common sense instead of the sense that words on paper matter more than people. Probably I'm the idiot though and I should just give up on you.

[rayiner]

> So your main point is that Harris, who was in the spot to become president for all of four years if something happened to Biden, was only there as a generic woman of color?

Being a "woman of color" was Biden's stated reason for picking Harris. She has no merit as a political leader--someone who is able to inspire people to action. She had to drop out of the race in 2019 being she was polling terribly in her home state: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/03/politics/kamala-harris-califo.... Listen to the post-mortems of 2024 being done by folks Mark Halpern. Biden's own team thought that Harris wasn't ready.

I saw her in person at an Asian American fundraising event in Iowa in 2019. It was just her and Andrew Yang. She gave a canned speech and ran to her tour bus and hid after the event. She was awful. Given Biden's age, the obviously correct play in 2020 was to nominate Elizabeth Warren, who is a gifted populist politician. I saw her in 2019 as well, and people were literally crying when they would meet her to take selfies. Harris, meanwhile, was hiding in her bus, because she's awkward and doesn't actually like crowds.

Everything was out there for anyone whose eyes were open to see. But the party is full of weirdos who are obsessed with skin color--like how you couldn't help but bring slavery and colonialism into this unrelated discussion--and they nominated her because it was part of "the arc of history." It brings me endless joy that this view forced them into a course of action that cost them so dearly, and so quickly.

> Do you honestly believe that the slob you voted for is there on merit?

In a Presidential system, "merit" is being able to win over and lead a coalition of voters. That's what made Bill Clinton and Barack Obama extraordinary politicians. Trump has merit in the same way. Trump took over one of the two major parties, overthrew its establishment, and made it so someone named "Bush" can't even win an election for dog catcher in Texas. Whatever else you think about him, he's an incredibly gifted politician, while Harris is a terrible one.

[jacquesm]

> It brings me endless joy that this view forced them into a course of action that cost them so dearly, and so quickly.

Yes, you fit right in. Think about what you just wrote.

> Whatever else you think about him, he's an incredibly gifted politician, while Harris is a terrible one.

He's a gifted agitator, he's not a gifted politician. A gifted politician knows how to govern, and build consensus, Trump is completely clueless (or hiding it remarkably well). His main shticks are division and destruction, not unification and creation.

So if you are looking to bring about hardship and chaos you did the right thing by voting for him.