Summary
Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign failed to connect with low-income workers due to a perceived lack of listening, according to AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US.
While union members largely supported Harris, many low-income voters backed Trump, swayed by his messaging on economic insecurity.
Despite Biden’s pro-labor policies, including infrastructure investments, the AFL-CIO now faces challenges under a likely Trump presidency.
AFL-CIO emphasized labor unions’ resilience and commitment to fighting rollbacks while advancing organizing efforts.
With public approval for unions at a near 60-year high, the labor movement plans both defensive and offensive strategies to protect workers.
“we have a concrete plan for helping you” - crickets
“my plans will hurt you but I’m pretending otherwise” - “what a brilliant businessman!”
her plan involved helping people get a home loan with no plans to raise the minimum wage
what did Harris say she was going to bring to table that would attract any voters other than high middle and above class?
That home loan was fucking worthless to boot. You know what would save Americans money? Directly building homes and selling them at cost.
Building new homes was part of the campaign plan right?
Can you link me that part of the plan, where the US government actually builds homes that private industry won’t?
I can see why you could be concerned about the details of her home building plan (I am too). But let’s face it, this election was not lost because Kamala did not provide policy details. I would love for campaigns to revolve around these, but they don’t.
She backed a plan to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/kamala-harris-says-us-must-raise-federal-minimum-wage-2024-10-21/
The much bigger issue I see is that policy choices are simply not communicated by the media. Half of this discussion complains about Kamala not adopting policies that were in fact in her platform. Only stories about the horse race and Trump outrage make the news (even in this community which is supposed to focus on policies). How can you get your message across in such a media environment?
Support for unions, getting inflation down, etc
Did she, though? All I remember is something about a “new small business” subsidy fund, which is… good, I suppose, but didn’t address any of the probkems the average American is facing.
Okay, there was also the suggestion of Medicare for all, which would put a dent in things, but I only heard it casually mentioned once and it sounded like something she was “open to discussing,” not a core part of her platform.
Aside from that, there was nothing directly addressing the core daily problems the majority of people are experiencing, like overpriced living expenses and underpaid wages.
I hate to say it, but you have a point. While Kamala had lofty plans to do right by a lot of special interests, she ignored several important ones. What really killed her chances was that, for all of her promises, she had no plan to execute them with what would turn out to be a very hostile Congress.
That, mixed with the delayed effects of both Trump’s and Biden’s influence, the dogshit-brained blamed Biden for Trump’s bullshit while crediting Trump with Obama’s achievements after Bush. And it’s gonna happen again when all of Biden’s work to improve the economy takes affect during the second of Trump term and everything Trump does wreck the economy so the next president after him will take the blame for it.
Because most voters in this country, don’t understand that economic policy rarely takes affect in fewer than 2 to 4 years, but the dog shit inside their skull makes them blame whomever is president at the moment, regardless of their actual capability.
Because the media they consume have told them it’s the fault of the current president, and they’re too simple to do any thinking for themselves.
some of us know that the Democrats and Republicans are at fault because it is us that are directly dealing with fallout from both parties
just wait until the shit that hit the fan finally makes it onto you sitting further out
and no not all of us had the option to get a backrow seat further away from the fan
I don’t understand. There is no strategy to pass legislation with a hostile (read GOP) congress. Should she only have campaigned on plans that the GOP agrees on?
The small business loan was a joke if you look at the details. First off most people dont want to start a business its a lot of hard fucking work with a lot of risk. It also had a bunch of means tests involved. Which would make it a disaster to implement and a disaster to get.
Exactly. That’s the “not addressing the actual problems” part. It’s a sounds-good, feels-good, low impact, high visibility token effort. Throw out a little morsel for the general public that doesn’t really help, but critically, doesn’t impact profits for the wealthy class.
“We have a concrete plan to help you! For example, higher federal minimum wage!”
"Okay, take my vote!
Four years later
“You’ve been in office for four years. Where is the minimum wage hike?”
“Turns out we can’t actually do it unless we have a supermajority of government. And then it’s still questionable if we will. Vote for us some more in your state and presidency. Hope that others in other states do too. Also stop bitching, we are moral and the other people are fascists, do not fail us, you must defend women and minorities by keeping us in power etc etc.”
“I had more money under Trump, fuck off.”
Tldr choosing to believe Republicans when they cause problems and blame them on others
Oh yeah, definitely, it’s all just Republican propaganda that both of the two parties in a two party system are co-responsible for national and international policy disasters. For sure. Biden definitely wasn’t a lame duck president who decided not even to fight for major proposals he promised and instead squandered political capital to defend Bibi and kill babies. Yup.
Have you not looked at what Biden accomplished even without a majority?
You wouldn’t know it looking at his approval rating…
The IRA was a bipartisan effort
Had Trump been president a similar bill would have been pushed through due to a post-COVID consensus and a concern over falling behind China. Everything else were accomolishments around the margins outweighed by serious damage to public trust, international stability and affordability.
Biden’s abysmal approval ratings are not a failing of Americans to give him proper credit. That’s the same argument Reoublicans made during the boom economy of 2017-2019.
So you haven’t actually looked at the policies he pushed through?
It’s a little telling that you have yet to refer to a specific one that you find to be earthshatteringly awesome.
That’s not the message working people heard. They heard, “we are the establishment whose theories have been fucking you over for fifty years, but in our infinite wisdom and benevolence we have decided to make some changes that WE have determined will make your lives better, and so you must vote for us. After all, we are your intellectual superiors.”
Yes. Incredibly theoretical, difficult to understand, highly abstract plans like “raising the national minimum wage”.
Wrong plans, they’re referring to the joke ‘50k small business loan with a bajillion strings attached’, ‘a maybe tax hike for the wealthy, but no transfer to middle/lower income’, ‘here are two tax credits half of which only impact parents and together dont break even on inflation’, ‘absolute refusal to commit to keeping khan’, in short dems to working Americans: fuck you, and here’s some genocide on top. Vote for us because we think we’re the only option.
The theories I’m talking about are neoliberal theories, they are the theories that essentially all economic policies have been based on for the majority of time most of us have been alive. Even if the establishment has recently decided to embrace some changes, you can’t expect people to just forget the last fifty years or so.
Yes. Incredibly theoretical, difficult to understand, highly abstract plans like “raising the national minimum wage”.
Gee. Can’t imagine why they didn’t have any fucking credibility on that one.
Thumbs down, curtsy
Because they heard that from Republicans who lied to them
They need to find a way to silence the Republicans, then. They need to ensure that people are only getting the right message.
This is why Republicans are attacking education, pressuring news companies into only presenting them positively and attacking their opposition (“here’s why Biden’s successes are bad for Biden”), attacking tech companies to pressure them into allowing their disinformation to spread, etc. They’re “playing the refs”.
Lol good luck
Similar thing happened with Hillary and the green energy jobs training.
"I have … no plan… but… uhhh… "
Say no more!
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Supporting unions and a strong FTC and fighting excess prices, versus free-for-all deregulation?
It wasn’t the policies. It was the insufficient outreach. And of course too many people in leadership not willing to push back, but that’s not the root cause
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Trump told people they were struggling and only he could fix it.
Kamala told people the economy was rebounding and they were gonna create more opportunities for the middle class.
People didn’t give a shit about what opportunities they were given. They also didn’t give a shit about a rebounding economy because none of them were feeling things getting better. Media kept saying real wages beat inflation finally. Only after 3 years of insane inflation where wages in no way kept up.
So sure, the economy is better than it was, and better than the rest of the world. But the shock happened and nothing was done to actually help the people that were suffering. Instead they were told by Democrats that ‘it could have been worse! And it will be worse under Trump’ basically admitting they weren’t really interested in helping.
So Trump, despite him not actually caring or really planning to do anything about it, stayed on message with something that resonated to voters. While Kamala assumed people wanted to start businesses? People can’t afford food but sure, let’s talk about how they have some opportunity to open a mom and pop shop across from Walmart.
She literally said, “I will go after price gouging,” which is 100% the reason prices are so high, but instead, the media focused you on starting a business. The whole price gouging thing was absent from every news article. The only time you heard it was when she spoke live. Absolutely wild.
One of the frustrations was that they would be talking about how the economy was doing great… if you were a homeowner. The inflation was also in things like rent which they have no intent on really addressing, but disproportionately gets omitted from broader stats regarding inflation despite people getting $500+ rent increases shortly after the end of the COVID eviction protections.
Can you give an example of Kamala saying that? I know Biden did, but I am pretty sure the campaign attempted to avoid this messaging.
I don’t have a citation for you of Kamala saying exactly that- but yeah that was more a Biden line.
This message fell flat. She’s the vice president, the message should have been I’m working with the AG now to investigate price to gouging, and will continue that when elected. Also the end result is just the government getting a small settlement check, that means fuck all to people.
Do… You know what the Vice President does? And she should have done all of this while she was campaigning?
If the vice president can’t be the figurehead of a taskforce in a friendly administration for an important campaign issue, they aren’t qualified to be president.
Watch this and you’ll understand.
The message was weak though. The policy was fairly limited-- like limits on gouging in emergencies-- and not expressed in terms of a tangible achievable metric. And it’s not like we have direct economic control that would allow for specific deliverables-- how exactly are you goung to get Kroger to bend the knee? A fine that’s 12 seconds of their turnover?
‘I’ll get the 99-cent Taco Supreme back’ (or the $2 gallon of milk/dozen eggs) would have helped-- a graspable specific rallying cry. “We’ll tax gougers back into the stone age” maybe too. ISTR there’s some rightwing scumball in Canada who achieved most of his political rise by literally campaigning on $1-per-can beer. Again, a tangible goal, and one more achievable because there’s direct state controlled alcohol sales in much of the country…
How the F does Trump get away with “concepts of a plan” while she should have the exact metrics in place for a very complex new policy. Are you seriously claiming that she would have attracted more voters if only she had been more precise about how to solve price gouging?
Not necessarily precise, just a more resonant presentation. She didn’t have a killer sound bite. If details actually mattered, we’d be in the closing months of the second Warren administration after all.
I literally saw scads of signs saying “Trump - Low Prices/Kamala - High Prices” and one that specifically claimed “Want $2.15 gas, vote Trump.” She didn’t counter well at the slogan/vibes level. There was no “Harris/Walz/$2-per-pound ground beef” signage.
It’s also an audience problem. The Democrats, as incumbents, were stuck with higher expectations. They couldn’t pad their numbers with low-hanging “I just want different” and “let’s burn it all down” crowds, so they have to chase voters who are harder to activate.
She literally said, “I will go after price gouging,” which is 100% the reason prices are so high
Right. She also said she wouldn’t do anything different from Biden. Whose public-facing opposition to price gouging consisted of “knock it off, guys”
