'No daylight’: Biden refused to let Harris break with him on policy issues during campaign, new book alleges

Let's blame Joe so Kamala can run again.

Not fooling me, DNC. I smell what you're cooking.

I want to tell myself that there's no way in hell they would let this happen, let alone make it happen.

Then I remember it's the DNC.
- It’s not like they colluded to kneecap Bernie’s campaign. Wait…
- Kamala or Buttigeig, you can bet on it.
  
  Seriously, go to Vegas. At least you'll make money on the end of the world.
Same reaction here, and the DNC is just dumb enough to do it.
- Well, there probably won't be any more elections, so there's that.
She's free to run again, but this time she has to win the primary. And that's unlikely. It's rare in modern times for someone to lose a Presidential election and get another shot at it, Nixon and Trump are the only two in over a hundred years.
- You seem to forget what they did to sanders. If they want a specific candidate they will make sure they win.
- Also Adlai Stevenson in the 50s although he lost both times.

To be honest, this is just a signal that she probably wouldn't have been a good leader. Better than Trump, sure, but that bar is so low it's a tripping hazard.

She should have told Biden to pound sand after locking up the nomination.

But we should verify the claim before passing judgement.

Honestly, her campaign already signaled that. This, if true, just reinforces it. It also reinforces that Biden was a bad leader, which he was.

Obligatory: I voted for Harris and Biden and dems down ticket every election since I've been old enough to vote.
- Blaming Biden makes sense. Blame the problems on the actual person in charge. Harris wasn’t in charge, she should’ve let Biden take all of the failures of the term, regardless of her position at the time
As far as I'm aware, Biden controlled most of the campaign money at least initially. either way it's still a pretty weak excuse for Harris.

Biden really fucked us in so many ways though, I'm happy to blame him for losing the election as well. I mean he was the one who thought gaslighting us about the economy was a winning move, he put Harris in a terrible position to begin with. Not to mention deciding to run again in the first place, appointing a Trump collaborator as AF, refusing to exercise his power, etc etc
If I was kamala I would have slammed joe. For the good of the country, of course l.

I can believe this. She seemed frustrated when she spoke about the Palestine situation, and I picked up a strong subject that she wanted to say more about her objections over Israel's actions than she did.

Yeah, but that didnt bode well for her as a president...

She was the candidate, crowned with zero primary weeks before the election, with zero threat of being replaced.

But she stuck line by line to what Bidens team said

Buden's team that was Hillary's team, and before that Bill's team.

Kamala would have been an empty suit for the same neoliberal machine and she would have appointed the DNC chair back to that faction so they could influence the primary in four years.

If Kamala literally had to say exactly what her advisors said when she was literally irreplaceable, she would have been a president in name only.

Don't get me wrong, I held my nose and voted D like always, but I knew she was fucking it up, and long term that might have been for the best.
- Tim Walz came out swinging, and they instantly sidelined him.
  
  That alone was enough to say that the campaign was fucked.
- “She was the candidate, crowned with zero primary weeks before the election, with zero threat of being replaced.”
  
  No primary? There was a primary. Biden/Harris won that primary election as Phillips dropped out fairly early. What do you mean by “no primary”
  
  Had Biden died on the campaign trail Harris would have been instantly the candidate. The situation with him stepping aside isn’t really any different. There was a primary and Biden/Harris won that primary.
Kamala was somewhat of a Zionist, but not enough to justify Israel's bombings. Because she wants a two-state solution, and if she had been president, she would probably criticize Netanyahu for his actions damaging Israel.

A strategy to avoid AIPAC considering you a threat.
I don't know if I can buy that when the DNC refused to let anyone with even a hint of background from the middle east get a platform, and when a protest at a speech happened, she said "I am speaking." Not listening, speaking.

The way democrats talk: "We're turning the page and letting the daylight in!"

The way democrats act with a majority: "We couldn't get any daylight this time, but we did pass these bipartisan flashlights which are known to explode occasionally due to republicans demanding amendments be added to the batteries."

"We've also means tested the flashlights, so those who recall the time before the great darkness get less of the flashlights, and anyone who has flashlights that explode will be required to have a daily check of their pupils to ensure they've been good at not looking at the daylight."

“Didn’t allow her” what does that even mean, in the context of the campaign? What the actual fuck was she doing listening to ANYTHING from Biden at that point? He was a clear looser. He stepped back from the campaign (after he was forced to, but he did nonetheless). That was an incredibly obvious opportunity for Harris to openly and cleanly split from policies she thought were wrongheaded - but nope, can’t have that. Jesus tapdancing christ.

Biden’s hubris put us here, I guess. What an unmitigated fucking tool. He sold us down the river and expects to be remembered fondly by history? Fuck that. The title of his subsection in history books will be “The President who Couldn’t Keep the Republic” (a pointed reference to Ben Franklin’s quip at the original constitutional convention).

The pressure the DNC seems to exert over it's canidates is insane. There was probably a lot of pressure on her to toe the line. I heard they reigned in Walz quite a bit too.

Maybe one day the DNC will learn
- I don’t expect the DNC to learn, because I don’t expect the DNC to exist when the next presidential election comes around.
The last time that happened was 2000 with Bush v Gore. The longstanding notion was that the VP of the current administration should not really "break ranks" with the current administration. It was seen as undermining their boss essentially.

This was in less fucked up times, mind you. But that at one time was how it was "supposed" to work. Personally I'm a firm believer that "that's how it's always been done" is fucking stupid.
- It's good to understand why things have been done that way. Sometimes there's wisdom in the way things have been done, and lessons learned by people who paid real costs to learn them. Sometimes the reasoning is so bad that doing things differently for its own sake is a reasonable decision. You don't know unless you dig deeper, and not digging deeper on things that matter seems pretty dumb

It's ridiculous to think that Harris couldn't have done what she wanted. Once you're named the nominee, that's it. They're not going to back out.

If she was unwilling to break from him because of his wishes, even if she was theoretically able, that speaks volumes about her as a leader.
The problem was her campaign was largely run by Biden's people. He clearly was interfering with her campaign and she kept trying to make the most of it.
I mean, that was the line from centrists anytime someone wanted any hope from harris that she might be less of a lapdog for netanyahu than biden was.

Honestly, I kinda don't buy the idea Biden controlled Harris. Biden could have in 2008, but not in 2024. We all saw his term. He could be great, but when he slowed and floundered, it hampered his goals.

I'm torn between:

"I don't think an adult woman would instantly bind herself to an old man, she can have bad ideas on her own."

"I don't think she had everything planned out, she took advice from those around her, and the advice was shit but it's hard to get anything from outside this POV without getting even worse feedback."

But either way, I'm kind of glad that parts of the DNC is admitting fault after royally fucking up a second time and giving us Trump again. But I was also told they learned mistakes from 2016, and clearly they didn't, and must have fired everyone who did.

I wish Harris won merely as a stop-gap who is younger and more coherent, maybe could have gotten someone better next primary. Would have been messy and I would prefer anyone else, but not as bad. But it wouldn't have stopped the fascist uprising we're having, just keeping the cyst growing until it popped. If Biden didn't get Trump arrested, I doubt Harris would have, despite her history.

I wish she had won too. Didn't really like her but she was miles ahead of trump. I don't think you should be torn between the two, I think it was both. She listened to some very bad advice and believed the information she had at hand.

Suddenly her campaign choices make a lot more sense...

This is hilarious, because of Biden's "I'd have won if I was the candidate" bullshit. More like "Harris might have won if I wasn't hamstringing her", but okay, sure, Joe. Let's get you to bed, now.

Just another example of how the Democratic party is only slightly less fucked than the Republicans.

I'm calling bullshit on this.

There's no possible way that Biden or any of his people could let or not let Harris do anything. They had no actual control over her campaign.

The only outsiders who had any control over her campaign were the DNC and the party establishment - the same pieces of shit who torpedoed Sanders in 2016 and 2020,.

I'm 100% certain that this narrative is coming from them, trying to dodge the blame they so richly deserve by pinning it on the senile guy.

Bruh ...

You realize at the time the Venn diagram of people you're complaining about was basically a solar eclipse, right?

And that after that we got a new DNC chair which completely changes the organization?

You're literally doing what the neoliberals want and letting them off the hook and blaming our new chair who is more progressive than any other DNC chair in the past 30 years since neoliberalism took over.

Like, the fight over the party is over, we won...

Now we have to back the new progressive version of the party or neoliberals will claw it back when no one's paying attention.

It's like hating the Patriots because Bellicheck was an asshole, you're right, but he's fucking gone and there's a new coach.
- And that after that we got a new DNC chair which completely changes the organization?
  
  I'm calling bullshit on that too.
  
  The time for leadership is right now, when the US is facing the greatest threat in modern history and the Democratic party is at the forefront of organizations that can and should step up.
  
  And they very much have NOT. That, all by itself, amply proves that while the names may have changed, the organization hasn't. Even in this extreme hour of need, they've painfully obviously chosen to do fuck-all.
  
  I'm entirely comfortable presuming that the neoliberals have never let go, and they're already astroturfing their counter to the inevitable criticisms that are going to come when they yet again run on a platform of being not the Republicans, and of being just barely to their left. Just as they've done in the past, they're going to blame their inevitable failure on us. Just as in the past, it's not going to be that they're corrupt sacks of shit wholly owned by moneyed interests and willing to lose an election rather than risk reducing the flow of soft money - it's going to be that we didn't go ahead and support them anyway.
  
  I have zero reason to believe that this whole song and dance about a supposedly new and progressive DNC is anything other than just a new spin on the same old con job.

Sounds like an excuse. She could've had a different stance but didn't. Because she's the same thing. She was asked point blank how she's any different than Biden and she couldn't answer.

A grown woman "unallowed" to do something... Yeah that's who should be president.

Her position regarding Palestine and Israel cost her the election. Many Dems could not vote for her, so they didn't vote.

I'd really love for that to be the case (enough people caring about genocide to decide an election), but it just isn't. The data shows that people on the left still came out to vote and she lost a bunch of centrist votes or people who are seen as "low information"/unmotivated voters. Those people don't care about Palestine. They thought she was weird, or a DEI candidate, or just weren't inspired to get up and vote for her. I'm not saying she needs to go more centrist, but people like populism and she just didn't do it.
- I can't remember the source, but the number 1 issue in every swing state other than Michigan (which had Palestine as its #1) among democrat nonvoters and centrists who voted republican was grocery prices. Most of those states had inflation as their number 2 issue and Palestine as the third. Palestine alone wouldn't have been enough to swing any state other than Michigan.
  
  I think its pretty clear that the primary reason Kamala lost because she didn't present a vision for the economy. She literally just said that the economy is fine. Inflation and grocery prices? Ignore those!
  
  Inflation maybe shouldn't have been as big of an issue since it was below 3% and on its way down but it was still a concern for a large number of voters.
They voted to deport themselves...

Harris was the candidate, not Biden. Being his VP should have been a boon to her, but instead she turned it into her own biggest obstacle. It was ultimately her decision to follow Biden’s directions on this.

It’s not like the sitting president can order a party’s candidate to take certain policy positions, even if that candidate is the sitting VP. Biden deserves a ton of the blame for our current situation, but Harris was the candidate and she decided to follow Biden’s terrible advice. He’s just the stubborn geriatric who cared more about his legacy than the peoples’ future.

horseshit

she had multiple chances like at the DNC convention

"they puppeted me poorly"

The woman who refused to against what a Man said would have made a STRONG Leader!

As usual the democratic party fails because it's trying to be both progressive AND cater to wealthy donors. Those two things just don't go together. Either abandon the upper class, or resign yourself to diametrically opposed rhetoric that will NEVER win an election for the Dems.

It's not remotely trying to be progressive. It's cosplaying as caring while raking in them donor dollars.

Could’ve, should’ve, would’ve

So if Biden had allowed Kamala Harris to have her own narrative, would she have won the presidency?

Smells like bullshit to me

I don’t buy that. Harris has made her choice.

Huh? He couldn't have stopped her. This is nonsense.

When do I get to collect my payment for being right the entire time?

The day they admit they've been wrong the entire time. I hope you get interest on that bet because it'll be a while.

I doubt this. Harris had some controversial policy issues such as taxing uncapitalized gains which were breaks with the Biden administration.

His legacy is in the toilet so congratulations advisors.

Yikes! This is a shit argument IMO. Biden wouldn't have broken from her if she stood strong on her own stances. This is a terrible look for her. More feckless establishment Dems acting like the controlled opposition they are.

I won't be voting for people like this in the future. I know many others that think like me too. That's going to be a huge problem for the Dem establishment. They're pushing progressive folks out and replacing them with no one.

WDYM "let"? What was he gonna do? Sniff her?

A vice president isn't going to publicly break with the sitting president

Been saying this before the election. These comments are wild.

Why not?

I mean, I know she wouldn't. But seriously, think about it, why not? People wanted her to, so why not? People don't want milquetoast policy changes that improve such and such by 2%, they want a hero, so why not? People don't want palestinians to die, so why not?

She was either: an awful candidate because she wouldn't promise anything, or, an awful candidate because she couldn't promise anything.

And yeah, I wanted her to win, but the problems that fucked the last election up still plague the party. If they don't learn, we're all going straight to Trump's gulag.
Joe Biden publicly broke with Obama when Obama drew a line in the sand on Israel using American weapons in a genocide

Biden publicly and repeatedly told anyone who would listen that Obama was wrong and the only way to work with Israel is giving them everything they ask for...

Are you saying that hurt his chances later when he was handed the presidential nomination after a literal 40 years of losing primaries?

It seems like it's not about going against the president, it's about going against neoli eral policy...
It's because of the frustration surrounding the elections, and it will take a while for everything to calm down, although Kamala could run for president again if she doesn't opt for the California governorship.