The idea is that it gives moderate republicans a path to voting for her.
Without the endorsements, they would feel like they’re betraying their principles and their party to vote D. With them, they can make a choice: Lots of rank and file voters will stick with Trump, but if a few party leaders, recently respected within the party, can vote for Harris, maybe that isn’t such a betrayal after all.
Will it change the vote by 5-10%? Basically zero chance of that. But if it swings a few thousand voters in some strategic areas, it can make a difference. It’s not a strategy aimed at very many people, but those votes on the margins matter.
From a game theory perspective, a trumper discouraged to vote is worth 1 vote, a flipped Republican vote is worth 2 votes.
So the appeal to the right makes sense if it works, because every vote from that camp is also a negative vote from Trump.
But from the other side, an endorsement from Bush and Cheney might flip some Democrats, specifically the Muslims who are already pissed off about the “helping the Gazan Genocide” thing.
Hillary lost my vote by campaigning with Kissinger. If he escaped Hell and went on campaign with Harris I’d abstain again, no question. Maybe just an endorsement could slide but it’d have to be unasked for and she’d need to take a stance on immediate execution of zombies.
Flip to what? There’s no alternative in the US. You voted for Trump because you were pissed at Hillary? That sounds absolutely idiotic.
At this point the dumbest thing we can do is assume someone else isn’t going to do the dumb thing
Its unclear how many “moderate republicans” will vote for her. In large part because it is unclear how many “moderate republicans” there actually are and it is worth remembering that folk like liz cheney and romney largely voted in lockstep with trump and the magats outside of MAYBE one or two issues that personally impact them. And it isn’t like any of the “former Republican leaders” have particularly strong support bases considering they lost to the magats years ago.
The reality is that this is just part of the republican party trying to prepare for a post-trump election. trump supported candidates consistently lost downballot and the primaries for this election were a shitshow. maga/tea party republicans die with trump so they are making sure they can go back to reagan/bush style “We are the party of decorum and church rights. You need to meet us in the middle and let us kill just a few trans folk per day”
The scary part is now they basically can’t ever be trusted with power again. Project 25 is their platform and they’re not going to turn away from it. How can there be any path forward besides not them and how long can that be sustained?
project 2025 likely ends with trump and the magats. Because it is almost entirely based upon the idea of a POTUS who actively has no idea how government works and doesn’t want to do anything other than get headlines.
Because under a romney or a cheney? They don’t need project 2025 because steps will already be taken. Just like they have been since reagan with the bushes gradually eroding away democracy.
And… the reality is that it is inevitable that republicans will gain power again. Because The Left will pretty rapidly be at each other’s throats once trump is gone (just note all the Bernie Or Bust crew who still can’t shut the fuck up about the most important event in the past 8 years…). And people will lose interest in voting because they didn’t get exactly what they want.
The hope is that Kamala actually acts and works to restore those checks and balances so that four years of a republican is four years of a mess for Democrats to clean up and not the first four years of Gilead.
Kamala came in with some lip service to progressives at the beginning and has essentially adopted bidens platform with little in the way of changes. She’s doubled down on fracking, distanced herself from the green new deal, and courted the center right (Democrat or Republican) from the DNC forward. It’s not surprising but it’s disheartening to see so many people get fooled by what has been the typical Democrat playbook since the 90s. Biden was bad optics so they traded him out. Vote for her because she isn’t trump, but don’t pretend that she’ll do anything different than follow the party line like her and everybody before her.
If you want to make some real change go ahead and vote for the Democrat. Then stop paying attention to electoral politics. Organize in your community. Agitate for worker unions in your work places and tenant unions in your neighborhood, start a political theory reading group, organize a food drive, free store, tool library, something. Literally anything other than wasting your precious time and energy on following the clown show in DC. None of them care about you. None of them want to help you. None of them are planning to make your life easier.
Broadly I agree with you and have said more or less the same thing. But there are people who label themselves republican and fall in line somewhere closer to democrat. The two parties aren’t as far apart as we’d all like to think
I think that’s more of a case of mislabelling than of the parties being close together. If 90% of the party disagrees with you, you’re not really representative of the party’s beliefs.
Do you people realize that if you go against fracking you WILL lose Pennsylvania and then the election? There’s a reason for what they’re doing…
You people? Please enlighten me, who am I?
Sorry that I’m maintaining some degree of this esoteric concept known as having principles. If extremely mild criticism is enough to upset you then I’m not really interested in anything you’ve got to say. Take it easy
If those principles help bring about another Trump presidency, then they wouldn’t have done you much good.
Can’t hurt.
However I don’t really care what Republican leaders say at all, hopefully Republican voters do.
