“I’m a gun owner; Tim Walz is a gun owner,” Harris said.

“I did not know that,” Winfrey replied.

“If somebody breaks into my house, they’re getting shot,” Harris added. “Probably should not have said that. But my staff will deal with that later.”

The article has a video clip. I love the bullshit “probably…” It’s a 100% certainty she spoke with her staff and workshopped the phrasing and presentation of gun stuff. Plus I bet she practiced her lines. No American politician is going to wing it when talking about guns.

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    78·
    2 months ago

    r/politics thread

    I assume the redditor who wrote the following is aware of actual leftist gun ownership. But I’m certain the average redditor sees “the other side” only thinks of liberals.

    I think a lot of right wingers would be surprised to find out how many gun owners and enthusiasts there are on the other side.

    -–

    Sorted by controversial - top comment

    The sheer fact that you Americans all talk about having the ability to end someone’s life on a whim like it’s a completely normal and expected ability for someone to have never ceases to blow my fucking mind.

    Such casual discussion of shooting someone isn’t normal anywhere else in the Western world. It’s so normalised in your hyper-violent, paranoid, narcissistic culture that none of you realise that to the outside observer you all sound like psychopaths.

  • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netEnglish
    701·
    2 months ago

    I’m not out of my mind for believing that this would have been unthinkable in the Hillary or even Biden era, right?

    Like this is just blatant blood-guzzling NRA chud pandering that would be completely relegated to Clinton body count and Dark Brandon type shit.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      45·
      2 months ago

      This would have been unthinkable in the Hillary or even Biden era, right?

      I think so too. But Biden’s like ancient history now. Libs must love Kamala’s gun comment and think it’s a “pragmatic” move by her to appeal to republicans and republicans in swing states in particular.

      • Huldra [they/them, it/its]@hexbear.netEnglish
        35·
        2 months ago

        The identity politics angle must also be a part of it, I think.

        Actual segregationist Joe Biden couldn’t really get away with betting on this kind of rhetoric, but Kamala being both non-white and a woman gets into the gray zone where she has plausible deniability of not just directly appealing to the vivid fantasies of legal murder demographic.

        • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          17·
          2 months ago

          Biden couldn’t really get away with betting on this kind of rhetoric… Kamala being both non-white and a woman gets into the gray zone

          -–

          Edit 1

          I agree. But imagine an alternate universe where Biden’s VP was a white guy. After Biden dropped out even that VP could use Death Wish-style messaging and get away with it. The lib Overton window keeps on lurching more and more to the right and the libs are fine with it.

          Edit 2

          My comment turned into total mess so I started all over again.

    • ComradeWizardmon@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      2 months ago

      Unthinkable? I don’t think so.

      I think the main thing that’s becoming obvious in the past 8 years is that the Obama years were an illusion. He was politically progressive, sure, but what he was progressive towards was an increasingly brutal fascist empire, just like every one else.

      People who think the racists left the Democratic party with Reagan have been demonstrably proven wrong over, and over, and over since Clinton, they just never quite quit telling the lie.

      The presumption the Democrats are even mildly less racist because of their love of meritocracy, solely when rich citizens of the US are concerned, even with all those qualifiers it’s wrong. The Democrats are who they were when I was a kid here in Texoma - the people who wouldn’t vote for a Republican because they’re the party of the rich, the north, and cause of the Civil War (y’all should meet my papa sometime, it’d change how you see this country).

      I don’t really have a coherent way to distill the country as I see it compared to the constant pretense Democrats are different than the republicans in any fashion apart from the exact manner in which they’re vile condescending villains, but the sooner the left stops talking about progressives like that’s something anyone should be, the better. CAuse they sure as hell ain’t what you think they are, I don’t care if they kinda-sorta-maybe-implied they might be okay with an anti-racist policy sometime far in the future. Besides which, Liberals are conservatives now, in the literal sense. They are the reactionary party. Fascism isn’t a reaction to Capital in crisis - it’s a revolutionary expansionist project. What people mean by fascism when they call it reactionary is just when fascism starts killing white people. Fascism is real long, long before then.

      What scares me lately is, since Biden, the Blue MAGA insurgency in the Democrats are going ham as well. I don’t really think America needs a conservative party, but we’re about to have two revolutionary parties, both worse than the present. Hell, maybe we already do and it’s just hard to tell how much it’s changed while the changes are still happening.

      • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        8·
        2 months ago

        You’re absolutely right about the illusion but IMO the Bernie era gave people including many socialists/leftists who considered him as harm reduction a complete illusion of what the underlying political climate was heading towards.

        While Bernie was campaigning on very good vibes and huge crowds asking for healthcare the population was heading increasingly away from the “traditional” both parties values of decades prior.

        Its obvious Trump completely destroyed traditional conservatism but for the Democrats to destroy Bernie they had no alternative but plant the seeds of Blue MAGA.

        Biden only got there because he was the only alternative to defeat Bernie without the Dems jumping off a cliff politically. Then they pulled this Biden coup only because Biden was absurdly unpopular. IMO if they tried the same shit with the Bernie nomination things would have been very interesting back then.

        Dems could have avoided this by just dealing with Bernie as the coward and incoherent fool he is as president, at least they would have had 8 years of probably the most popular president in history.

        Instead the year is 2024 and Blue MAGA is not a parody, its the foundation of the party.

        • ComradeWizardmon@hexbear.netEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          forward: This is jsut a ramble cause we seem to agree or close enough and I took the chance to vent about politics shit stressing me lol

          The Bernie years, for me, were “This guy is just offering New Deal white supremacy again and they still would kill everyone before letting him win”

          I don’t say that to be some ultra “I’m the one true leftist” because I voted for him too, had to write him in for even the primary in 2020 cause Texas but I get having hope cause I did, too, even when it was over. I got on with Bernie people both times he ran because it was hope for something even a tiny bit better. But that’s what he was. That’s why a small segment of the liberal opposition could say with a straight face there were racism and sexism problems in his base. . . because there is in any base which can bring itself to support any American politician. The Warren people were right, too “He’s basically the same so vote for the woman”, he was, he is, they agree on almost everything except Bernie can be really excellent at appealing to people by sounding good in the way we’re more likely to recognize and not think is condescending faff.

          Biden is just . … he’s a stereotype, I mean all successful politicians are archetypal characters more than people, but he’s every segregationist Democrat who loves 50s nostalgia I’ve ever met. He’s a young dad in the 1970s going to a Grease party because that’s how he wants to remember the 50s.

          I dunno if there ever was a world where Bernie could have been FDR 2.0 - he didn’t have the class connections which made FDR possible, but that’s not the path our timeline took, possible or not.

  • milk_thief [it/its]@hexbear.netEnglish
    65·
    2 months ago

    Under the Amerikan Hegemony, prospective Warlords-in-chief bragged about their personal and political ability to brutalize individuals and nations. The imperial citizens, as a rule, would not find anything strange with these boasts. In fact, they would cheer them on.

  • krolden@lemmy.mlEnglish
    58·
    2 months ago

    Still trying to appeal to those mythical undecided republicans for some reason

    • Pentacat [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      28·
      2 months ago

      Democrats—both the politicians and the voters—only dislike Republicans out of jealousy. There’s no difference in values; it’s a difference in presentation. Dems are tired of holding their barbarism in.

      • MayoPete [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        It’s all an empty numbers game, and I guess they figured the 5 chuds who were on the fence is worth losing Moms Demand Action or Sandy Hook Promise or whatever gun control groups were part of the base.

  • Wertheimer [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    48·
    2 months ago

    ‘They’re Getting Shot,’ Kamala Harris Warns Home Intruders, Burglars, Litterbugs, Slow Walkers

    FARMINGTON HILLS, MI—Discussing the Second Amendment with Oprah Winfrey at a Michigan town hall last night, Vice President Kamala Harris admitted she may have gotten too comfortable when she remarked that any home intruders, burglars, litterbugs, or slow walkers near her house could expect to be shot. “If somebody breaks into my house, knocks on my door to sell me something, or leaves their dog’s waste on my lawn, they’re getting shot,” the Democratic presidential nominee said in an attempt to bridge the gap with conservative gun owners in the swing state, drawing applause as she pantomimed looking through a rifle scope at the audience and then mimicked the sound of gunfire. “If you trespass onto my property or take my plate away from the table before I’m finished eating, I’m going to take you out, as is my right as an American citizen. Let this serve as a warning to anyone who steals my mail, runs down the airplane aisle to deboard before it’s their turn, or talks too loudly in a movie theater—these things upset me, and I’m not afraid to defend myself accordingly. Also goes for drivers who don’t signal, heavy mouth-breathers, or if I just don’t like your face. Boom.” Later in the interview, Harris drew a gun from inside her jacket and fired a warning shot into the air after someone in the audience answered a call on speakerphone.

    • WldFyreEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Why would some switches have to be flipped? Everyone acting like this is some kind of gotcha for most people and I have no idea why lol

      Have y’all MET people outside hexbear?

  • Vernon_Tennessee [null/void, he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    411·
    2 months ago

    I love how Harris is starting out with every advantage a candidate could possibly have and systematically blowing it.

    Trump too tbh. This election feels like both candidates are doing their damnedest to throw it for the other one because neither actually wants to be president right now lol.

    • Riffraffintheroom [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      171·
      2 months ago

      Is she? These seem less like flubs than attempts to flank Trump from the right, like with her “I love fracking SOFUCKINGMUCH” but at the debate. Libs are gonna vote for her no matter what and leftists are demographically a non-factor so why wouldn’t she?

      • Justice@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        5·
        2 months ago

        “Leftists” whatever that even means in the US (nothing basically) are a non-entity. However, every single policy that this ambiguous “leftist” would support is insanely popular.

        • Actual anti-imperialist (cloaked in anti-war)

        • Healthcare as a human right (cloaked in healthcare coverage for all- call it anything you like)

        • Pro abortion (cloaked in “pro choice” and “pro women”)

        There’s a bunch more including immigration (or at least pro-immigrant), actually pro-labor, etc.

        All popular stances, all leftwing if properly articulated and executed. They can’t be sold as leftwing because insane Nazi country and all that. But if she ran on them, she’d be winning about ~60-80% of the national vote. Assuming the media was arm twisted into proper coverage.

        Oh, and anti-genocide of course. She could just say Israel is doing genocide and as POTUS she would oversee the systematic dismantling of Israel as a nationstate… and lose like 4 votes. Because all the Nazis are already voting for orange Nazi man. The libs don’t actually care. They care as much as Maddow and Van Jones tell them to care, eg “wow look at these Hamas students!” But they do not actually care about Israel. All it takes is a media narrative shift which the sitting VP/potential future POTUS can absolutely 100% force. Trump does it all the time. They have to cover what she says. She has access to the bully pulpit, although smaller ATM. She chooses right wing though. And it’s actually losing her the election.

        If you assume both candidates wish to win, and you must assume this otherwise the other path is pure conspiracy theory that doesn’t benefit anyone, this is the better analysis. She and the democrats, her advisers specifically, are fucking incompetents. Right wing hacks. Far to the right of the general population. Which, considering America, is almost impressive…

    • anarcho_blinkenist [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      8·
      2 months ago

      In younger days I’ve been that drunk man (well didn’t enter the home but definitely tried loudly to open the door for a minute not realizing the street I was on); Makes me proud to be an American that the current VP and Democrat candidate for the President of the United States of America might have shot me dead that day to raucous applause of Oprah-watchers.