David Plouffle, Jen O'Malley Dillon, etc. on Pod Save America

[Chief Justice PiT]

So did Kamala know going in that she was toast?

Hard to see how she would--the race was too close to be certain of the outcome.

They seem to be saying it was no better than a pure tossup throughout. That's not great but it's a reasonable chance, better than other actual winners like Trump 2016.

I can reach way back into the memory banks of July and August and find posters on here starting threads as well as political pundits in a more measured tone saying "this race is over now that Trump is facing Harris, his campaign cannot adjust to not facing Biden". So were all these people dumbasses?

I mean, this is a political message board and we’re all just normies following these races along with the rest of America. And we all sometimes get it wrong. So what?

Where's this f#cking humility in the months leading up to the election? It's one reason I have little respect for a lot of people on this board. They act like 17-year-olds that think politics is a sports contest. Let's go back and read through every single thread started by wbrocks and DonOLDEST Nominee Ever or whatever bullsh*t name that was and see if there's ever a sliver of "I might be wrong...Harris looks bad here...Trump actually made a good speech yesterday." - you know, actually f#cking discuss politics like a sane human being - instead of being a rah-rah cheerleader that had a direct line to messaging encouraged to be shared by the Biden then Harris campaign and just hit copy paste on the most trivial stuff. Why are they acting like MAGA Trumpists, just ones on the other team? Most of it was spamming bullsh*t as much as anything Jaichind does in the International Discussion Forum, yet, nothing.

There's plenty of threads of "how awful social media is and it's not the real world and it's destroying society", yeah, have you seen this board?

     This is IMO the single biggest problem with Atlas. I get campaigns have to put a more positive message out there, but it is not incumbent upon us to uncritically buy the message. People who are actively following politics should be better at discerning the truth behind the messaging, but on here they fall into the deepest rut of groupthink where the only truth is what their favorite candidate tells them it is. S019 was accused of being a fake Democrat because he once commented that Trump had put out a good ad, as if the concept of Trump doing anything right in his campaign was so far outside of the lines that one was allowed to color in that it automatically disqualified him from being a Democrat or supporting Harris.

     I thought Trump was somewhat favored on the eve of the election; the evidence pointed in his direction, though there was much room for error in terms of reading it. A decent number of Atlas posters thought it was all but a done deal for Harris though, which points to either an inability or an unwillingness to actually survey the field and not just reflexively adhere to the most hackish possible reading. I am glad people are taking a step back now, but it doesn't make the case why any of us should value their electoral analysis in the future.

[It's Time.]

Harris didn’t go to the Al Smith dinner, refused to go on Rogan, didn’t want to debate Trump on Fox, barely did any interviews, and didn’t say anything she would do differently than Biden (immigration was right there!)

These people gave us Trump 2.0, they need to never show their faces again.

[RBH]

referring to Rogan as "Reagan" is certainly one way to typo that name

[Comrade Funk]

Harris didn’t go to the Al Smith dinner, refused to go on Reagan, didn’t want to debate Trump on Fox, barely did any interviews, and didn’t say anything she would do differently than Biden (immigration was right there!)

These people gave us Trump 2.0, they need to never show their faces again.

That's never going to happen. These types control the party.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1861447951094026343?s=46

this is the kind of stuff I have a massive issue with. instead of looking at things like these as missed opportunities, they’re whining about double standards on a podcast three weeks post-election. this is unserious.

Imagine thinking that Harris lost because the media was biased against her.

[RBH]

Imagine thinking that Trump and Harris were held to the same standard

[Mr. Smith]

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1861447951094026343?s=46

this is the kind of stuff I have a massive issue with. instead of looking at things like these as missed opportunities, they’re whining about double standards on a podcast three weeks post-election. this is unserious.

Imagine thinking that Harris lost because the media was biased against her.

Wouldn't exactly be wrong. The media is rather conservative.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1861447951094026343?s=46
this is the kind of stuff I have a massive issue with. instead of looking at things like these as missed opportunities, they’re whining about double standards on a podcast three weeks post-election. this is unserious.

Imagine thinking that Harris lost because the media was biased against her.

Wouldn't exactly be wrong. The media is rather conservative.

The real issue is that Trump has many decades of experience in living up to the "no such thing as bad publicity" cliche. He's long had a symbiotic relationship with media and understands its incentives and cycles of attention on a deep level. Turns out that that's been an enormous political asset for him.

[Chief Justice PiT]

https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1861447951094026343?s=46
this is the kind of stuff I have a massive issue with. instead of looking at things like these as missed opportunities, they’re whining about double standards on a podcast three weeks post-election. this is unserious.

Imagine thinking that Harris lost because the media was biased against her.

Wouldn't exactly be wrong. The media is rather conservative.

The real issue is that Trump has many decades of experience in living up to the "no such thing as bad publicity" cliche. He's long had a symbiotic relationship with media and understands its incentives and cycles of attention on a deep level. Turns out that that's been an enormous political asset for him.

     I recently thought of the $2T in free publicity he received during 2016. The bulk of it was negative, but that mattered far less than conventional wisdom dictated it should. Trump's comfortable being a heel, which is a big leg up over your average preening politician whose only concern is improving their poll numbers.

[Agafin]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1861806429977383247

This Pod Save America Interview was such a disaster. The thinking heads of the Harris campaign sound exactly like some of the more hackish posters here. Remember when Trump was mocked for firing the old guard of the RNC and installing "loyalists"? Or outsourcing his ground game to Elon Musk? People like Lara Trump or Susie Wiles ended up being waaaay more competent than whoever the hell was in charge on the other side.

[Mr. Smith]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1861806429977383247

This Pod Save America Interview was such a disaster. The thinking heads of the Harris campaign sound exactly like some of the more hackish posters here. Remember when Trump was mocked for firing the old guard of the RNC and installing "loyalists"? Or outsourcing his ground game to Elon Musk?People like Lara Trump or Susie Wiles ended up being waaaay more competent than whoever the hell was in charge on the other side.

Susie Wiles was the mastermind behind the non-Gillumizing of Florida.

And fwiw, Trump did this a bit in 2016 too. Kellyanne Conway was a Tru force.


Otoh, I kinda see why they feel like NPCs, Harris just wasn't Biden and they themselves didn't get a good feel.

And Harris herself didn't have time to get her own heads involved, which might've been able emphasize more Western roots.

It would go a long way in explaining why the first 50 days seemed very different from the last.