Also I feel the need to say that there are plenty of people who voted for Obama but didn’t vote for Harris (indicating they didn’t vote based on skin color). I know people who voted for Hillary and didn’t vote for Harris. I’ve voted for more women than men for president (I’ve never voted for the winner of any election and most of my general election votes have been third party or write-in) and I didn’t vote for Harris. I doubt sexism or racism really played a major role in Harris’s loss.
The point about a female Republican is a good one. Labor has never had a female leader, but both Theresa May and of course Margaret Thatcher were Tories.
Right--I thought we actually discussed that Obama point (another clarification for a future episode haha). I think it's hard to give fully definitive answers why someone won or lost when we're talking about tens and tens of millions of voters, but I generally agree. There are a whole lot of substantive reasons someone could have chosen not to vote for Harris, and absent really clear evidence, my assumption is going to be those are why she lost, not her race or sex.
“There has to be a better system” than the one that results in the lousy candidates we get.
I think one of the major differences between my worldview and yours is that I don’t know that there is. I don’t know that there isn’t. But just because something is a problem doesn’t mean it has a solution. In the case of the current presidential selection process, there probably is a better system: until 1972, the parties chose candidates in smoke-filled rooms and this resulted in better candidates than the primary system. (The “establishment” picked better candidates than the average voter.)
What I disagree with is not the idea that the presidential selection can be fixed, but that just because a situation bothers us means that there is something we can do to make it better. Sometimes there isn’t.
In the case of the two-party system, that probably is something we have to live with. It’s not the worst thing in the world, and I think blaming the two-party system is largely a red herring. Most people want a multiparty system because the grass is always greener on the other side. But that has its own drawbacks, too. No system is perfect.
I actually agree with you pretty much completely--I don't think every problem has a solution or a path to genuinely greener grass (the devil you know etc. etc.), just that we should remain open to (but always healthily skeptical of) potential fixes. That might be a point we can bring up in a future episode and make more clear--one downside(?) of it being a real-time conversation is that we bounce from idea to idea without really finishing everything or necessarily expressing it how we would if we had the chance to write it out and think about it.
With respect to the smoke-filled room approach, have you always believed that resulted in better candidates? I wouldn't plant my flag for anyone in the last few elections, but certainly lots of people would for Reagan, Clinton, and Obama, all products of the primary system.
Right. Not all of the candidates produced by the smoke-filled rooms were ideal (there was some real corruption in the 1800s) and many of the candidates produced by the primary system have been good. But on average, the primaries have been driving a lot of the dysfunction in our politics. Professor James Ceaser (not Caesar) of UVA (recently retired) wrote a book in the 70s called Presidential Selection in which he predicted the mess we have now. Also you have to consider not just the presidential primaries but also the congressional ones where we get candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Also I feel the need to say that there are plenty of people who voted for Obama but didn’t vote for Harris (indicating they didn’t vote based on skin color). I know people who voted for Hillary and didn’t vote for Harris. I’ve voted for more women than men for president (I’ve never voted for the winner of any election and most of my general election votes have been third party or write-in) and I didn’t vote for Harris. I doubt sexism or racism really played a major role in Harris’s loss.
The point about a female Republican is a good one. Labor has never had a female leader, but both Theresa May and of course Margaret Thatcher were Tories.
Let us not forget the immortal Liz Truss!
Right--I thought we actually discussed that Obama point (another clarification for a future episode haha). I think it's hard to give fully definitive answers why someone won or lost when we're talking about tens and tens of millions of voters, but I generally agree. There are a whole lot of substantive reasons someone could have chosen not to vote for Harris, and absent really clear evidence, my assumption is going to be those are why she lost, not her race or sex.
Truss lasted less than a head of lettuce… which is my excuse for why I temporarily forgot her.
Lol genuinely laughed out loud at that.
Oh you did mention Obama. I just thought it was important to mention a number of Obama voters went for Trump later
“There has to be a better system” than the one that results in the lousy candidates we get.
I think one of the major differences between my worldview and yours is that I don’t know that there is. I don’t know that there isn’t. But just because something is a problem doesn’t mean it has a solution. In the case of the current presidential selection process, there probably is a better system: until 1972, the parties chose candidates in smoke-filled rooms and this resulted in better candidates than the primary system. (The “establishment” picked better candidates than the average voter.)
What I disagree with is not the idea that the presidential selection can be fixed, but that just because a situation bothers us means that there is something we can do to make it better. Sometimes there isn’t.
In the case of the two-party system, that probably is something we have to live with. It’s not the worst thing in the world, and I think blaming the two-party system is largely a red herring. Most people want a multiparty system because the grass is always greener on the other side. But that has its own drawbacks, too. No system is perfect.
I actually agree with you pretty much completely--I don't think every problem has a solution or a path to genuinely greener grass (the devil you know etc. etc.), just that we should remain open to (but always healthily skeptical of) potential fixes. That might be a point we can bring up in a future episode and make more clear--one downside(?) of it being a real-time conversation is that we bounce from idea to idea without really finishing everything or necessarily expressing it how we would if we had the chance to write it out and think about it.
With respect to the smoke-filled room approach, have you always believed that resulted in better candidates? I wouldn't plant my flag for anyone in the last few elections, but certainly lots of people would for Reagan, Clinton, and Obama, all products of the primary system.
Right. Not all of the candidates produced by the smoke-filled rooms were ideal (there was some real corruption in the 1800s) and many of the candidates produced by the primary system have been good. But on average, the primaries have been driving a lot of the dysfunction in our politics. Professor James Ceaser (not Caesar) of UVA (recently retired) wrote a book in the 70s called Presidential Selection in which he predicted the mess we have now. Also you have to consider not just the presidential primaries but also the congressional ones where we get candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Good point. I'll have to think about it some more (actually wrote an article a couple of months ago arguing against partisan primaries).