US Election Day 2024: Polls Open and Results

Final Prediction: Who Will Win?


  • Total voters
    52
She always comes across as very warm and personable to me, even as someone who isn't particularly impressed by her politics.
Oh I'm sure in quiet company or after dinner speaking she would be a blast but this is a presidential campaign and that doesnt get it done, especially against THAT opposition.

She couldn't answer any questions that went off-piste on policy. If it wasnt a pre-rehearsed answer, she fumbled. She refused interviews with people who would or might give her a hard time. Also popular podcasts with huge audiences. She changed accents depending on who she was speaking to. The repeating of the "unburdened" line and others along with the word salads made her easy fodder for social media memes. That is the sort of, and sometimes only, thing that some voters even see. It's vitally important. Obama used the internet superbly on his first campaign, for example.

The lying about superficial things like working at McDonalds. Trump is full of shit but everyone knows that. Harris though should not be making up things about her history as she's supposed to be the straight (wo)man to the village idiot. Same with the repeated "i'm from a working class background". She was completely unable to read the room. Who is that appealing to? The line had the opposite effect and was unsurprisingly seized upon by right wing commentators to make her a comedy figure.

I don't put all the blame for these shortcomings on Harris. She was a puppet that her handlers were molding and she was clearly given terrible advice by said people. However, likable, as a politician, she was not.
 
Just curious, do you happen to listen to some of these?
Why are you so desperate to try and label me as something? Isn't that precisely what this community is supposed to be NOT about?

Why not just address the points?
 
Why are you so desperate to try and label me as something? Isn't that precisely what this community is supposed to be NOT about?

Why not just address the points?
You're talking out your arse and you've clearly got it from somewhere. The McDonalds thing in particular is such obvious right-wing nonsense, as @Alex has explained, but you've been dropping in Fox News talking points a fair bit in this thread.
 
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1983, pre internet which companies would keep records THAT old on a temp ?!
She made no mention of working at McDonalds in her memoir and no-one who worked with her has come out and verified it. There would be tax records of some kind somewhere as well.

It doesn't particularly bother me but don't say something like that without proof or people will find the receipts or lack thereof and it threatens your credibility.
 
I do think there's value in reflecting on how Harris may have been perceived by the electorate, even if we think those perceptions are unfair or unjustified.

However if you're going to repeat obvious right wing dog whistles it would be helpful to your credibility not to do so uncritically.
 
Why would you have receipts from 1983?

It would arguable be a GDPR violation over here if some feckless employer was still maintaining 40 year old records.
 
right-wing nonsense
For the record, I'm not in the least bit right-wing. I agree with pretty much everything all of you and this forum represents.

But I can fully understand, and do agree with, the notion that Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate and that she's very unlikable. That's all I've tried to say in this thread and only did do because people seemed to be confused why what happened, happened. I wouldnt have bothered had I known it would result in being called everything under the sun just for laying down an alternative view.
 
I struggle to see how what she's done to be considered 'very unlikable', unless you're predisposed to finding her unlikable for whatever reason in the first place.

And that's before you consider what she was being judged against.
 
For the record, I'm not in the least bit right-wing. I agree with pretty much everything all of you and this forum represents.

But I can fully understand, and do agree with, the notion that Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate and that she's very unlikable. That's all I've tried to say in this thread and only did do because people seemed to be confused why what happened, happened. I wouldnt have bothered had I known it would result in being called everything under the sun just for laying down an alternative view.

As I said above, I think there's clearly some validity in the argument that the electorate found her to be unlikable. I mean, she did lose.

But you don't seem to be saying 'The accusation that she lied about working at McDonalds stuck' or 'People found the fact that she appeared to change accents off-putting'. You're just repeating them as if they were self evidently true. I think that's why people are struggling to take your arguments in good faith.

The McDonalds thing probably *did* have some cut through, but it's far more likely that she didn't lie about it than that she did. Maybe ask yourself, or articulate to us, why you're so eager to believe it?

As for the accent thing, that's extremely common and not a sign of anything nefarious or inherently 'fake'. You can think it was off-putting, but again you're going to have to articulate why that is, if you find it to be so. If you're just saying that other people probably found it annoying or fake, then yes I concede you're probably right. But I don't know if that's as much a mark against her as against the kind of people who would let that be their deciding factor in this election over, y'know, all the racism and rape allegations.
 
I acknowledge that Biden is extremely unpopular (though I like him) and that Kamala’s association with him hurt her chances. And that many Americans are racist and sexist. But I don’t think there is anything inherently unlikable about her, and I highly doubt the McDonald’s thing had much impact on the race at all
 
But you don't seem to be saying 'The accusation that she lied about working at McDonalds stuck' or 'People found the fact that she appeared to change accents off-putting'. You're just repeating them as if they were self evidently true. I think that's why people are struggling to take your arguments in good faith.

The McDonalds thing probably *did* have some cut through, but it's far more likely that she didn't lie about it than that she did. Maybe ask yourself, or articulate to us, why you're so eager to believe it?

As for the accent thing, that's extremely common and not a sign of anything nefarious or inherently 'fake'. You can think it was off-putting, but again you're going to have to articulate why that is, if you find it to be so. If you're just saying that other people probably found it annoying or fake, then yes I concede you're probably right. But I don't know if that's as much a mark against her as against the kind of people who would let that be their deciding factor in this election over, y'know, all the racism and rape allegations.
Maybe it was true but prove it. Shut those idiots up. It was a low level equivalent of the Obama birth certificate. Everyone knew that was crap, he shouldn't have had to, but he did produce it. Fire extinguished. The McDonalds thing was given more scrutiny that it maybe deserved because of her famous "middle class background". Was it a ruse to come across as doing the hard yards as a youth like everyone else? In isolation it wasn't a big deal but it was another example of her perceived pandering.

I absolutely found the fake accent off-putting. I was cringing as I heard it. You're right that it's happened before. Hilary famously changed her accent to southern for that interview with Bill but she had lived in Arkansas for 20 years so it had substance. If Harris is going to own her middle classness then don't put on this ridiculous fake southern accent when speaking to black people. It was like a bad SNL sketch. There is no doubt that had a huge effect on the black vote torpedoing and rightly so.

These were strengthening the "Kamala is fake" narrative. For me personally, the word salads were the most aggravating. It's one thing to say nothing, heck politicians are legendary masters of it. But she did so in a drawn out horrible way. Saying nothing and taking a long time to say nothing. Never at any point did she define what she was going to do and how she was going to do it. There was no conviction to anything she said. Her default answer to anything was "Trump did this or said that". Sell YOURSELF for christ sake and stop regurgitating the "he's worse" line. That argument got tired after 5 minutes. People had no idea who or what they were voting for and no-one wins election like that.
 
I absolutely found the fake accent off-putting. I was cringing as I heard it. You're right that it's happened before. Hilary famously changed her accent to southern for that interview with Bill but she had lived in Arkansas for 20 years so it had substance. If Harris is going to own her middle classness then don't put on this ridiculous fake southern accent when speaking to black people. It was like a bad SNL sketch. There is no doubt that had a huge effect on the black vote torpedoing and rightly so.
This is just racism. People code switch all the time, especially minorities. I talk to my fellow gays very differently to how I talk to my work colleagues. It isn't fake at all.
 
Has anyone actually looked at the data? The discussion about "likeability" is mostly irrelevant. It's an arbitrary word that had basically no impact on the final result. Gallup polls from before the election found that Republicans rated Trump's likeability and character lower than Democrats rates for Kamala. On top of that, Republicans were more dissatisfied with Trump than Democrats were with Harris. And yet, he still won. Plenty of interesting data on their site.

The abortion-related "gender gap" turned out to be mostly bullshit. Harris barely got a handful more woman voters than Biden did in 2020. Instead, it was a MARRIAGE GAP. 60% of married women voted for Trump, while 60% of unmarried women voted for Harris. The Brookings Institute explained this quite well:

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"Beginning in 2022, there were state referenda in six states and in every one—even very conservative states like Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana—they passed by comfortable margins."

Harris just misread the room (along with many of us). The issues she was banking on have been shelved behind border security, immigration, and the economy - all issues Trump has more rapport with and is more decisive on.
 
People code switch all the time, especially minorities. I talk to my fellow gays very differently to how I talk to my work colleagues. It isn't fake at all.
What she did wasn't code switching, not in the way you mean. People who have strong regional accents often try to hide it in official jobs, for example, to make them sound more proper or easy to understand. There's nothing wrong with that. Britney Spears for example used to hide her Louisiana accent almost perfectly. When I first heard her in that off the record tape with Kevin, she sounded like Dolly Parton!

What Kamala did wasnt that. She has always had the same accent her entire life. She did exactly what she was criticised for, faking a southern "black" accent to appeal to the black voter. They weren't buying it, were open about saying so and voted as such. If you have a problem with this then you would be best asking the people who felt patronised and alienated by it.
 
Yes but the way you banged on in the Liam Payne thread about Simon Cowell/X Factor and big corporations being perfectly within their rights to take advantage of those in less fortunate positions/more desperate, it seems to fit with this, despite you saying here that you don’t have a problem yourself with Kamala.

It all just seems you respect straight, powerful, rich white men to the level that you don’t care what they do to others. So just come out and say it rather than listing other random reasons to hide it.
 
Yes but the way you banged on in the Liam Payne thread about Simon Cowell/X Factor and big corporations being perfectly within their rights to take advantage of those in less fortunate positions/more desperate, it seems to fit with this, despite you saying here that you don’t have a problem yourself with Kamala.

It all just seems you respect straight, powerful, rich white men to the level that you don’t care what they do to others. So just come out and say it rather than listing other random reasons to hide it.
:disco:
 
She has always had the same accent her entire life.
If you know that Kamala has had the same accent all her life, why didn’t you go on the record to confirm that she used to work at that McDonald’s?
 
Yes but the way you banged on in the Liam Payne thread about Simon Cowell/X Factor and big corporations being perfectly within their rights to take advantage of those in less fortunate positions/more desperate, it seems to fit with this, despite you saying here that you don’t have a problem yourself with Kamala.

It all just seems you respect straight, powerful, rich white men to the level that you don’t care what they do to others. So just come out and say it rather than listing other random reasons to hide it.
I think we've all just been witnesses to MURDER

:disco: :disco:
 
Harris just misread the room (along with many of us). The issues she was banking on have been shelved behind border security, immigration, and the economy - all issues Trump has more rapport with and is more decisive on.
it is looking like this is it. she and the Dems banked completely on "danger to democracy" being voters' #1 concern (not unreasonably seeing as Biden did the same successfully in 2020...), but in the end that resonated a lot less than messaging about the economy and immigration. I guess it's easier to frame people as elites or political players when they prefer to talk about fluffy ideas of democracy that feel too much like politics and not enough like solutions.
 
Yes but the way you banged on in the Liam Payne thread about Simon Cowell/X Factor and big corporations being perfectly within their rights to take advantage of those in less fortunate positions/more desperate
For the record, absolutely nowhere did I say anything like that. Not that anyone will care, they will still believe it.

All I see here is people attacking the poster rather than addressing the issues. Everyone is tolerant and accepting of others, until you say something they don't like it seems.
 
Re-read the thread, you very much did.
I don't need to re-read the thread, I know what I fucking said.

Called sexist, misogynistic, racist and now homophobic, all in a few hours, on THIS forum. I mean I don't even know where to start with that. This is the first time in over 8 years it feels genuinely unsettling to be here.
 
it is looking like this is it. she and the Dems banked completely on "danger to democracy" being voters' #1 concern (not unreasonably seeing as Biden did the same successfully in 2020...), but in the end that resonated a lot less than messaging about the economy and immigration. I guess it's easier to frame people as elites or political players when they prefer to talk about fluffy ideas of democracy that feel too much like politics and not enough like solutions.
No matter which way you slice it, most people tend to vote with their wallets. A working class family who can barely feed the kids and keep the lights on isn't going to care about abstract 'dangers to democracy' - especially when it's the very same democracy they often feel has failed them and disenfranchised from. They're gonna vote for the guy who promises to reduce their grocery bills and protect their jobs.
 
I think Pod Save America were good on their post-election analysis, saying that they need to go beyond defending democracy and make the Democrats the party of fixing democracy.
 
it is looking like this is it. she and the Dems banked completely on "danger to democracy" being voters' #1 concern (not unreasonably seeing as Biden did the same successfully in 2020...), but in the end that resonated a lot less than messaging about the economy and immigration. I guess it's easier to frame people as elites or political players when they prefer to talk about fluffy ideas of democracy that feel too much like politics and not enough like solutions.

And I suspect the threat to democracy angle was going to motivate people more back when Trump was the sitting President.
 
I don't need to re-read the thread, I know what I fucking said.

Called sexist, misogynistic, racist and now homophobic, all in a few hours, on THIS forum. I mean I don't even know where to start with that. This is the first time in over 8 years it feels genuinely unsettling to be here.
I'm sure you can find the door 😇
 
For the record, absolutely nowhere did I say anything like that. Not that anyone will care, they will still believe it.

All I see here is people attacking the poster rather than addressing the issues. Everyone is tolerant and accepting of others, until you say something they don't like it seems.
Why?

Forgive my ignorance, I really know nothing about 1D. Why are people angry with Simon Cowell?

Someone above said that he's the only member of 1D who hasn't had his own thing? Is there a reason why?

Why has he got so much hate over the years? Answers appreciated.
Simon Cowell is a businessman, not a babysitter. And the last sentence is total hogwash.
I don't agree at all with the sentiment of that message by anyone who says it. Everyone knows that X Factor and shows like it are exploitive. It's never disguised as anything else. They do chew people up and spit them out but that info is all on the tin.

That said, Liam Payne was worth 40+ million. He had a better career and made more money than 99.9% of anyone who's ever been in the business. For him, from a purely business perspective, did him incredibly well. Personal issues notwithstanding of course. Some people can deal with the fame, some people can't. But everyone also knows what is coming, or what can come, from success. What has happened here is tragic but I don't like it when people blame the industry. He wanted the dream and lived it.
 
Just to point out that exit polling is showing that Harris was considerably more popular than Trump in terms of personal favorability. He was more disliked.

But Biden's was way down, and Trump scored well on who represented change.

I don't doubt that a lot of people dislike her, but let's stop pretending it was Trump's likability over her that was a deciding factor.
 

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