Tim Walz says ‘we wouldn’t be in this mess’ if it wasn’t for him and Harris
Tim Walz says ‘we wouldn’t be in this mess’ if it wasn’t for him and Harris
The former vice presidential nominee offered a blunt mea culpa on MSNBC.
Summary
Former vice presidential nominee Tim Walz criticized Trump for economic chaos while taking personal responsibility for the situation during an MSNBC interview.
"We wouldn't be in this mess if we'd have won the election — and we didn't," Walz told Chris Hayes. He called Trump the "worst possible business executive" and praised the Wall Street Journal's editorial criticizing Trump's tariff war.
Walz emphasized Democrats must offer something better, not just criticize Trump. Recently, he acknowledged a leadership void in the Democratic Party and admitted spending too much time combatting Trump's false claims about immigrants.
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Nope. This is on Biden. It's his fault Harris/Walz were put into an impossible situation.
That senile old fuck was supposed to be a one-term president. If they'd spent 4 years planning for 2024 instead of sitting around with their thumbs up their asses maybe they could have run a winning campaign.
But no, Joe was too proud or stupid or both to stick to that plan. This election was lost the instant he doddered his way on to the debate stage on 6/27/24.
Lots and lots of balls were dropped. Garland didn't get Trump in jail when he could have. Biden didn't stick to only one term. A democratic candidate wasn't really elected when Biden stepped down (for the record, I think that Harris was more than qualified, but a lot of people were upset that she was just "chosen"). Harris didn't try to stand out and be her own candidate - she mostly just stuck with the status quo and never disagreed with Biden. Etc etc etc.
Garland never had any intention to prosecute trump
Warning bells started going off in my head the moment that the Democrats announced that Harris was going to be the candidate after Biden dropped out, not because I thought she was an unqualified candidate but because there was no time taken to search for other candidates. Maybe it was too close to the election to take the time to go through the rigamarole of all that but I think even a cursory effort to do so would have gone a long way towards making it feel like people's opinions actually mattered. Biden dropping out was huge (at least to me) because it felt like an acknowledgement of the voters who had consistently felt like they were held hostage for their votes because the alternative was a fascist.
It doesn't help either that they went on to repeatedly shoot themselves in the feet while chasing moderate Republican votes, getting other prominent Democrats to chastise certain classes of voters and breeding the same voter apathy that hurt them in 2016, and their refusal to acknowledge that what's happening in Gaza is a genocide that we shouldn't help Israel perpetrate.
It's also the campaign money, only goes to Harris, and not anyone else. They are legally required to return all that fundraising to the donors if they use a different candidate
Yeah, the moment I knew we were in trouble was when they publicized that video of Obama lecturing down to some black men about not supporting Harris enough. Whoever thought staging that was a good idea needs to retire from politics forever and go find a field to stand in.
that video was so based lmao. Not every day that you get to see obama yelling at people.
Idk about based. Imo, it was hella staged, and I found it real cringe.
On your last point, I don't think Dems could've done anything different. They're clearly in Israel pockets and they can't disobey their corporate overlords and run on a more progressive agenda. Only other option was to try hard to get the "centrists". Incredibly disappointing as they would rather lose and go hard fascist rather than let their donors lose any money (how's that stock market looking?).
Maybe it was too close to the election to take the time to go through the rigamarole of all that but I think even a cursory effort to do so would have gone a long way towards making it feel like people’s opinions actually mattered.
it was way too close for that, by the time you had found one, you would be weeks, if not one or two months prior to the election, with no VP, and only a candidate, you would've had to have started the primary at the time it normally does to pull that off, they took a gamble, and that gamble was that biden would ride it out, and im not really sure why they took that gamble, but they did, and they lost.
Putting trump in jail would've made America look bad. Oh, the irony.
It's on Biden and Garland for not throwing Trump in prison the second his term ended.
Exactly, and it's the third time we've been betrayed like this.
Not going after the Bush administration.
Not going after the subprime mortgage architects.
Not going after Trump.
Three times, they've had the easiest of layups for public approval of all time and they've consistently fucked it up.
I'd like to add:
Not going after the Confederate states
to this list
Wouldn't that have been the Republicans at the time?
It's not really a fuck up when they did it deliberately. Their priorities are in the wrong place because it's an oligarchy.
Seeing liberal's repeatedly stumble in stopping anyone to the right, but having the fangs come out the moment they need to protect themselves from the left really shows that it's not failure, it's refusal.
I see the same from the left though. Great criticism... of other leftists. Then defending authoritarian shitholes with dictators, like Russia. Makes no sense to me, it's just tribalism.
That's a false dichotomy. There are more political ideologies left of center than status quo liberalism and tankism. Most leftists are very much critical of Russia, because it's an imperialist capitalist dictatorship.
I hope so! I mean the left should be united against Russia but that's not what I'm seeing, sadly.
Are you comparing the political actions of the only ostensibly anti-fascist party in the US to the leftist infighting of posters online? Try organizing with leftists outside and you might be able to see the difference.
It's kinda difficult to criticise those in power from the left when there aren't any. Is there even 1 communist politician in th UK or america?
People, including us now, talk online and share their views. I'm sure the same would play out in person as it does online. Maybe luckily, some political ideologies seem to ban any criticism by banning anyone from their spaces who aren't on board with their agenda. So that at least saves on talking to people who aren't interested in talking to others, only pushing their propaganda.
Amen. 4 years to build a case? January 6th, spend 6-12 months and file charges. What the fuck were they doing for 4 years?
Running out the clock.
To hell with his January 6th temper tantrum, he should be in the fucking Hague for his handling of Covid.
The Oligarchy will never convict one of their own. For four years, I said it was the dog and pony show. And in the end, nothing will happen to Trump. Here we are.
Or at least the second the supreme court said whatever the president does is legal as long as it's an "official act".
A cascade of failures. Beyond Joe not man enough GTFO, the DNC once again anointed a letter instead of letting the public decide. yes, Joe should never have run for a second term. Given that he did, he should have dropped out sooner. Given that he didn't, the DNC should have had an open convention rather than putting their thumbs on the scale in back room deals.
Tim is 100% right that we would not be in this mess if they had won, but when is the DNC going to stop trying to manipulate everything and lie to us about it? They are to blame as much as Repugnacans.
Because they and R are same team. I bet it's like lawyers who viciously go after each other in court, them have golf and martinis on weekends.
Harris made choices. She could have chosen not to adopt every single one of Bidens policies. What was biden going to do, fire her? If you look back at her presidential run she really struggled to articulate any policies back then too.
What was biden going to do, fire her
If the reports are true, yes that seems to be the case. I'm not really sure what would have happened, but she was absolutely threatened into defending Biden's legacy.
The president cannot fire the vice president.
The best a president can do is lock the VP out of meetings. Bidens approval ratings were so low, being locked out of meetings would have cost her nothing. So exactly what reports are you quoting here, lets see them. I think you made that up.Bidens approval ratings were so low, being locked out of meetings would have cost her nothing.
Hell, if that happened and we assumed that anti-establishment sentiment is what got trump elected, maybe she could've capitalized on that to win the election as a "new" type of politician, one willing to go against the Democrat establishment whom literally everybody hates and dig up the potential dem voters who haven't had hope for change since Obama. Of course, this is Kamala Harris we're talking about, probably one of the last politicians that I'd expect to pull a move like that.
Biden made an appropriate decision to back out. He should have done it much sooner. But I'm not sure I would characterize the failings of Harris/Walz as Biden's fault. I don't really feel that's fair.
Harris' main draw was that she didn't want to do anything, which pissed off progressives. She was pro-establishment and pro-status quo. She didn't need Biden's help to not get votes... I have no love for Biden, but the truth is the truth.
But I’m not sure I would characterize the failings of Harris/Walz as Biden’s fault.
Inasmuch as they ran as a continuation of his policy, I'd say there's some blame to be had.
This is on anyone who was within arms reach of Trump in the last decade and didn't take matters into their own hands.
Yeah a bunch of people want to make excuses for 90 million people who just... Didn't think it was important who won.
Campaign was flawed but if people showed up to vote against fascism we wouldn't be here. And there's zero excuse for all 90 million of them to not show up.
Edit- well, Im reading your post in a different light but, yes that too.
If you didn't notice, Democrats were aligning with fascism.
Walz emphasized Democrats must offer something better, not just criticize Trump.
Biden shares a lot of the responsibility, but Harris and Walz were running on fundamentally faulty assumptions.
They probably realised Harris wasn't going to win due to the amount of prejudice and thought Biden had a better chance against trump (who they'd have guessed would have been axed after his loss and criminality, but it was a cult), but then they let Biden to abdicate because there was truth in the criticism of him and the media ran with it..
At that point who else could they run? It was bad planning, not accounting for Biden's age/health and the cult of trump.
Also they should have given Bernie his shot. They didn't want real change and it's been forced on them anyway, but now to the detriment of all.