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Comment by returningfory2 | Hacker News Reader

By successfully pressuring Democratic politicians like Kamala Harris to publicly adopt progressive positions that are unpopular, but highly favored by the kind of people who donate to and operate organizations like the ACLU.

For example, the (unfortunately very successful) Trump ad “Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you” ultimately originates with the ACLU. In 2019 they successfully got Harris to pledge government funding for gender affirming care for people in e.g. immigration detention [1]. It is totally insane that the ACLU thought it was important and worthwhile to get a pledge on this edge case. In general this advocacy was way out of touch with the country at large, has totally backfired, and now landed us with an anti-trans administration.

[1] question 14 here https://www.aclu.org/documents/aclu-rights-for-all-candidate...

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I really disagree with the premise that Kamala acted "too progressive"...it sounds a little bit ridiculous to even say. The Trump campaign effectively made a mountain out of a molehill, and if it weren't for this molehill, he would have used another, or fabricated one.

In 2019? That was before 2020, and that election resulted in Harris being vice president.

Is your claim seriously that Kamala Harris's image on cultural issues like trans rights did not harm her election campaign? One of Trump's most successful campaign ads was the one that included her talking about government-funded gender affirming care for people in prison. It even has its own Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_is_for_they/them). The fact that this stuff started in 2019 that she won as VP in 2020 is irrelevant; it _clearly_ was an issue in the 2024 that hurt her.

But that's just one example of many. There's also, say, Biden's handling of the border. Even though in 2022 it was clearly deeply unpopular and playing right into Trump's reelection campaign, he didn't change course (until too late) because of pressure from groups like the ACLU.

Overall, IMO one of the biggest factors in Trump's reelection is that the left and the center-left _talked_ about Trump being a big problem, but were unwilling to actually alter their policies or behavior or messaging to broaden their appeal and ensure Trump lost.

But when Democrats did change course they were blocked because Trump explicitly said Democrats passing something on the issue would hurt his election chances:

> In February 2024 and again in May 2024, Republicans in the Senate blocked a bipartisan border security bill Biden had pushed for to reduce the number of migrants who can claim asylum at the border and provide more money for Customs and Border Protection officials, asylum officers, immigration judges and scanning technology at the border.[79] It also provided for thousands of work visas for migrant spouses of U.S. citizens awaiting immigrant visas, and 250,000 new visas over five years for people seeking to work in the U.S. or join family members.[80] It was negotiated in a bipartisan manner and initially looked like it had the votes to pass until Donald Trump opposed it, citing that it would boost Biden's reelection chances.

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policy_of_the_Joe...

He had no political consequence for encouraging blocking it.

I agree that Trump's move was very bad, but we know that Biden didn't need a new law to "fix" the situation at the border. After Trump blocked that law, Biden made the executive order that for years he claimed he couldn't make, and then the situation at the border got "better". If Biden had instead made that executive order in, say, Fall 2022, there's a good chance that the situation at the border would not have been as salient in 2024 and Trump wouldn't have been elected. (Or, if Trump was still elected, he wouldn't have a mandate to come down so hard on immigration like he's doing now).

The reason Biden didn't make the executive order earlier is because of pressure from groups like the ACLU. The ACLU was simultaneously telling us that Trump is a threat but also pressuring the administration to keep pursuing policies that were clearly playing right into Trump's reelection campaign.

By the way, the ACLU was also against the border bill that Trump blocked.

The border situation is a red herring. I'd say that the transgender issue is too.

The main reason Trump won in 24 because he captured the Great Lakes area. Outside of major cities, there are not large Hispanic communities in the Upper Midwest. Migration has far less of an impact there than, say, inflation. And that's what Trump campaigned on.

Now, did he cause that inflation? Partly. Does the US government have to print off money en masse in order to make up for deficits that have been made larger by three decades of GOP refusal to have an adult conversation about revenue policy? Yes.

Does that matter to the average person in the Upper Midwest? No.

Trump won by a slight majority. Given how close the race was, I don't think it was any one issue. Inflation was the problem. So was anti-DEI sentiment. So was bending over for donors and journalists who didn't reflect majority sentiment. Any one of those things would have probably helped Harris close the gap.

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