I was shocked in the presidential debate that Harris gave staunch support for fracking. I was under the impression that democrats are against fracking, and remember people being critical of Fetterman for supporting it.
I also grew up in an area that was heavily impacted by the pollution from fracking. People who worked in the field were seen as failures of moral character who chose profits over the health of their children. How is it that both major parties are now in support of it? I feel like I must be missing a piece of the puzzle.
The Democrats won’t win an election while opposing fracking. O&G is far FAR too powerful to let that happen. If Harris stood firmly against fracking, then the opponent would win - be he (and it will be a he) Trump, Musk, or David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz.
No, I’m not exaggerating.
When they needed PA to win the election.
Many don’t. I don’t. I’m not gonna vote trump over it though.
Are you gonna vote for the lying cop or the lying criminal?
Probably the lying cop since a criminal is proven guilty?
What is even the difference beyond rhetoric between these two candidates? They both hate immigrants and Palestinians, love Israel and fossil fuels, and neither have a tenable plan to improve the economy for the working class. Don’t let anyone give you a hard time about not voting for either.
One is a Russian asset intent on destroying America from within; the other is Kamala Harris. Your eyes must be getting real bad to not see that.
It’s crazy how liberals are still doing russophobia.
Not really, since it’s now public knowledge that the entirety of Trump-positive media is bankrolled by the Kremlin.
The entirety? Regardless, what difference does it make if both candidates are arguing that they will carry out the same policies more effectively than the other? It’s plain russophobia if you oppose a candidate for no discernable reason than alleged support of their campaign by Russia.
Same policies, my ass. Harris supports abortion rights, LGBT rights, more progressive tax policies, and has a stronger foreign policy strategy with respect to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among many other policy positions that are superior to Trump’s. On the other hand, Trump supports the far-right vision of Project 2025 and wants to impose ridiculously high tariffs on imported goods to sharply increase the cost of living for most Americans. Most Lemmy readers see right through your bothsidesism.
We criticize Russia-backed propaganda campaigns such as Tenet Media because they disinform voters to promote Trump, who is content with Ukraine being annexed by Russia. Crying Russophobia doesn’t excuse the fact that Russia sees Trump as a tool to further Russian imperialism.
No she doesn’t. The only issues to which she’s explicitly committed is support for Israel and fracking.
You’re lying, because Harris covered all of the policies I mentioned in her platform:
Restore and Protect Reproductive Freedoms
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz trust women to make decisions about their own bodies, and not have the government tell them what to do.
Donald Trump handpicked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom – and now he brags about it. In his words, “I did it, and I’m proud to have done it.” He even called for punishment for women who have an abortion.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Vice President Harris has driven the Administration’s strategy to defend reproductive freedom and safeguard the privacy of patients and providers. As Governor, Tim Walz led Minnesota to become the first state to pass a law protecting a woman’s right to choose following the overturning of Roe. Vice President Harris has traveled America and heard the stories of women hurt by Trump abortion bans. Stories of couples just trying to grow their family, cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Stories of women miscarrying in parking lots, developing sepsis, losing the ability to ever have children again — all because doctors are afraid they may go to jail for caring for their patients. As President, she will never allow a national abortion ban to become law. And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom nationwide, she will sign it.
Protect Civil Rights and Freedoms
As President, she’ll fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education, and more into law.
Cut Taxes for Middle Class Families
Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe that working families deserve a break. That’s why under their plan more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans will get a tax cut. They will do this by restoring two tax cuts designed to help middle class and working Americans: the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Through these two programs, millions of Americans get to keep more of their hard-earned income. They will also expand the Child Tax Credit to provide a $6,000 tax cut to families with newborn children. They believe no child in America should live in poverty, and these actions would have a historic impact.
Unlike Donald Trump, Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are committed to ensuring no one earning less than $400,000 a year will pay more in taxes. They believe that we need to chart a New Way Forward by both making our tax system fairer and prioritizing investment and innovation. They will ensure the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations pay their fair share, so we can take action to build up the middle class while reducing the deficit. This includes rolling back Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, enacting a billionaire minimum tax, quadrupling the tax on stock buybacks, and other reforms to ensure the very wealthy are playing by the same rules as the middle class. Under her plan, the tax rate on long-term capital gains for those earning a million dollars a year or more will be 28 percent, because when the government encourages investment, it leads to broad-based economic growth and creates jobs, which makes our economy stronger.
Stand With Our Allies, Stand Up to Dictators, and Lead on the World Stage
Five days before Russia attacked Ukraine, she met with President Zelenskyy to warn him about Russia’s plan to invade and helped mobilize a global response of more than 50 countries to help Ukraine defend itself against Vladimir Putin’s brutal aggression. And she has worked with our allies to ensure NATO is stronger than ever.
Democrats have the backwards idea that trying to be conservative enough to siphon off republican voters is how they’ll win, while they’ve got this mass of chronically ignored, disconnected progressives who they never serve “because they don’t vote”. And they don’t vote because no one represents them.
Just eternally chasing that cracked out meth head of a party over to the right.
US presidential elections aren’t about swaying your base. They’re about swaying very specific swing states.
The electoral college means pushing to the center is the only way for progressives to win an election. Conservatives can generally do what they want, they have an inherent advantage in the electoral college.
Giving up the chance to make small change because you refuse to compromise only means that, within the system we have here, we end up backsliding. Every small improvement is hard won, and giving up means dramatic losses.
It’s a shit system, but it’s the system we currently have to work with.
To play devils advocate on their behalf: why chase the people who are on the extreme end of your side of the spectrum? Most of those people probably live in safe blue states, and they’re never going to flip and vote R in any case. There aren’t enough far left liberals to truly worry about as most people are somewhere in the middle. For every far left radical the Democrats please, they disaffect three moderate Democrats, who then maybe don’t vote.
Yes it looks weird when they try to cater to the odd and very narrow slice of undecided / persuadable voters, but that’s exactly what they should be doing. And there is more to lose than gain by chasing extreme left voters.
Signed, an extreme left voter.
Without evidence I will say it’s more likely that she has significant funding from the fracking industry and is under the thumb of rich executives. The difference is that they likely understand that supporting fracking could cost them the election, but they know that by not supporting it they lose a huge source of funding. They have weighed the costs, benefits and risks, and decided it’s a risk worth taking.
A good solution is to get corporate money out of politics. There are narrow ways to achieve that, but a broad solution that fixes a lot of problems is to end corporate personhood. This organization has made steady progress toward that and I think is worth supporting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_to_Amend. Considered signing up for their email list.
Another solution is more wisely voting. People don’t vote in primary elections, but they’re more important than the general elections. They determine what the field of candidates looks like. Vote in primary elections. You don’t necessarily want to vote in primary of the party you most align with though. An obvious example where you’d vote in a different party is if you live in a gerrymandered district. There’s a near 100% chance the gerrymandered party candidate will win. It doesn’t matter who the other candidates are. Vote for the least bad candidate in the other party. You won’t get everything you want, but you’ll get more than you would otherwise. It will also force the party to change.
That’s not the only time you’d vote in a party you don’t align best with. Maybe you’re relatively happy with all of the candidates in a party, so why split hairs if you’d be ok with any of them? There are so many considerations that the only advice is to keep an open mind about party membership, evaluate where you make the most impact (not what looks the most like you) and vote in every damn election, primaries included.
The fact of the matter is that the parties are arguing over a small slice of swayable or “undecided” voters in a small slice of states that are in play ie: “swing states” and each party is honestly focusing on a subset of swing states they think they can win.
The result is that their messages look really odd at times and don’t always line up with what the majority of their party want. Because the majority of their party are safe votes. They’re going after the wingnuts in the middle and on the margins, few as they are, dumb as they are.
This is a far more obvious explanation than “she’s in the pocket of Big Oil.” A lot of Pennsylvanians work for Big Oil. So there is more going on right in the light of day than the clandestine bribery which by your own admission you have no evidence for. Occam’s razor, here.
I have no evidence of her motives. Campaign donations are public record, and she receives funding from oil companies. The idea that politicians are not swayed by finance is absurdly naive. They don’t need to accept that money. And, regardless whether convincing swing voters is a part of the campaign’s consideration, it should be clear that influence from corporations is not an influence. Then we could sit here an take them at their word. As it is, it’s impossible to think that millions of dollars from oil companies is not affecting the decision to make a complete u turn on supporting fracking.
Show me the millions of dollars from oil companies to the Harris Walz campaign which are public record. Actually provide your evidence, don’t just conjure it with words.
EDIT
Here, I’ll do your work for you since you dont seem ready to substantiate your comments.
The Harris campaign has taken 661 thousand dollars from oil interests. There’s actually a house candidate who took more, even though she’s running a presidential campaign!
And 9 of the other top 10 recipients and honestly almost the whole list of recipients are her Republican enemies. It’s clear they are funding her opponents.
So how much loyalty did they buy for their $600k? (Not “millions” of dollars as you mis-called it). I doubt very much at all.
Harris took in $47 million in donations in the 24 hours after the debate. If anything this is chump change from the oil industry to just maybe say hey don’t obliterate us. She doesn’t work for them.
No, you are wrong, her position is about swing state voters.
How big is that mass, really? Here on lemmy, a few hundreds or maybe thousands, globally? In 2016, Bernie running against a weak candidate in the more progressive party got 43% of the vote.
It does no good to falsely believe we have some critical mass of progressives when the data shows we don’t. Instead we need to continue grassroots work to keep expanding the progressive base, so someday your fantasy actually becomes true. It is not yet true though.
We gain nothing from denying reality.
The “mass” is small and more importantly, located in safely blue states anyway. I’m extremely liberal and I accept that these presidential elections are never going to be about me. I still vote in them because I’m not a moron. But I put more of my energy into the Democratic primary, always trying to tug the D party left. And I focus on state county and city ballots where these ideas are much more in play.
That’s the adult move here. The teenager move is to vote 3rd party or not at all because the political world hasn’t rolled a red carpet out to your doorstep.
