I think we don't even need the best leadership...just someone who is kinda courageous and somewhat competent. That plus all the good things the US has going for it might be enough to solve this crisis.
We have had instances in the past of a black swan coming out of nowhere to save the day. Maybe this will happen again in 2024. As far as I can tell the Democrats don't have to choose Kamala although how often has the VP not gotten serious consideration in recent times? Especially when she is the establishment favorite?
And while it would be nice to see Trump get knocked out in the primary, all signs point to him being too far ahead of any other republican to be knocked out.
Just a sad situation all around that we have to hope for a pleasant surprise.
Exactly 100% of the time that it was the election where the party had a first-term incumbent, back to Humphrey in 1965, and that...isn’t something the DNC probably wants to repeat. Harris is only a potential candidate in 2024 if Biden doesn't run for reelection, and even then isn’t a shoo-in for the nomination unless Biden resigns before the primaries and she runs as the incumbent President. Which is such an extreme scenario that its not worth considering.
Heck, even for outgoing Presidents, the sitting Vice President hasn't been a contender in the subsequent Presidential nomination contest since Gore on 2000 (neither Biden not Cheney were contenders), and the only VP to actually be elected (rather than succeeding on death or resignation) to the Presidency in...quite a long time...was George Bush in 1988.
The media bubble around Harris is driving Democrats straight to the cliff. Minorities, who make up 40% of the party and are over represented in critical swing states, don’t like her. She was polling at mid-single digits among Black voters in the south (behind Biden, Sanders, and Warren) before she pulled out: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/04/kamala-harris-black.... She was polling around the same among Latinos in her home state of California.
Apart from that, she’s a terrible retail politician. When I went to see the candidates speak in Iowa back in 2019, Elizabeth Warren stood around giving everyone hugs and taking selfies after the speeches were over. Harris, meanwhile, quickly retreated to her campaign bus to avoid having to shake hands and talk to people.
You mean the bubble of persistently hostile coverage, or something that doesn't actually exist?
This sort of coverage is a liability for Democrats because it insulates them from information. A glaring example of this is Elizabeth Warren. It should have been news from the beginning that she had failed to establish personal networks with Black or Latino voters during her tenure as Senator. Her Super Tuesday supporters were 80% white, for an electorate that was only 50% white. When Democrats win elections by turning out Latinos in the southwest and Black people in the south, Warren won just 5-6% of those voters on Super Tuesday, behind Michael Bloomberg.
Elizabeth Warren was a dead-on-arrival candidate because minorities didn’t like her and they’re 40% of the Democratic Party. That should have been a huge story. Instead, the media fawned over her for months because they personally loved Warren. Super Tuesday this blindsided everyone, even though it should have been predictable given what we knew about Warren from the beginning.
If Biden doesn’t run in 2024, expect to see similar fawning coverage of Harris, focused on her “historic” identity and papering over her flaws as a politician. That creates a very real risk that Democrats nominate someone who their own base doesn’t like very much.
We need someone who understands capitalism and favors markets but also knows when to control the markets and not allow them to sell us under the table. Someone who understands their responsibility is the American economy and its people and not how well companies do in China or Indonesia or not. Yes, sure, we need foreign markets and they need us, but we should not cave in and let them limit what we can do in their country but then allow them to do as they will here. It has to have some reciprocity. We also need to take into account labor laws and environmental impact when assessing tariffs.
Edit: At this point I believe that cutting the cords to China would at least incur a 50% drop in purchasing power of the average consumer in the medium term.
Biden is a bust and next time around we either get Trump or Kamala...I don't think any sane person would feel confident in either of them. The elite in this country caused this mess with China and they will end up finishing us off thanks to their election games.
Maybe leadership at the top doesn't matter. There is the rest of the government, a huge organization of mostly unelected life term bureaucrats many of whom have probably seen the last cold war. They may end up saving us or China stumbles massively and their disadvantages(aging population, badly built infrastructure) bite them enough for us to survive.