One of the biggest problems was that Harris was completely surrounded by careerist DNC campaign managers and strategists, all of whom were insisting whole heartedly on steering right on every issue and not distancing from Biden at all. Unfortunately none of those people had any genuine skin in the game - not only are they incompetent, they actually _like_ those “centrist” positions. They’d prefer to live under a republican admin than under a Bernie-style one, and they aren’t personally the ones who suffer if/when Trump wins. Moreover, they don’t get punished in any way when they lose; feckless establishment hacks always get rewarded for their loyalty alone. They only ever fail UP.
I think the DNC purposely presented the worst candidate they could find to get dem voters to stay home on election Day It worked and Trump was elected That's what the DNC wanted because. They hate the social liberal agenda
the race was pretty close so idk what you mean and It only came down to 42,000 votes in 2020. The cold water is figuring out to keep my family here because leftist hype beasts who wanted to send Kamala a message lol
Maybe I'm dumb, but I don't understand what Sam was disagreeing with Mike on? I have listened to Sam/Emma say similar things for why the Democrats lost the presidential race to what Mike was saying. Idk who Mike is, but this seemed like some other dynamic going on. The vids titled how the Dems blew it, but I guess the main point of contention was that voters should have voted harder? Commentators should have told everyone to vote blue no matter who?
@@WarrenZevon1977I appreciate you normalizing my feelings I had while watching this. I hate to say this cus I love MR...Sam and Emma softballing Harris' bs and using polls as a justification to The Harris Campaign bs right wing turn as a validate winning strategy is kind of what Mike from PA was eluding to(increasing chance of loss)...I mean does Sam really think he or anyone could have gotten Harris more votes? Here is a question...shouldn't getting more votes be Harris' and Dems' responsibility not theirs
@@jruizzzz I think he pissed his guest off..he wouldn't let him finish his ideas and came across as being obtuse and childish for the fun of it. Came across as a basic democrat to me.
I think he didn’t want to get his audience mad. Trying to give them hope.. I didn’t vote for her. But I watch this channel to get another view. Even if I’m not welcomed here
Mike is right.. cant really expect people to vote harder when we the workers are struggling. She had to promise and do more. What Biden did was not enough.
Mike seemed too defensive but Sam also seemed like he wanted him to admit he was in the wrong for not encouraging his viewers to vote for Kamala. Regardless I like both although wrt this particular "disagreement" Mike was right
I found this incredibly uncomfortable. Sam is clearly wrong and is looking for outs that aren't there. He is coming off as accusatory, though he denies it. Mike is more then right. Kamala run an awful campaign, hoping Trump's campaign out flanked hers in poorness. She needed to draw a clear line between her and Biden in a big way. That was evident from the get go. Using Stammer advise was awful. Stammer is soooo unpopular here, using him is just madness. I said even a paper bag will beat Boris and that was before the Tories imploded. Why use this fail machine as an example. Could she have got to the low propensity voter. OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She could have gone on a the chat show circuit, she could have sent her surrogates out on chat shows and the like. It is clear she feared too much exposure and her poor positioning on Gaza DIDN'T help.
That titanic metaphor is wild sam. The captain was steering towards the iceberg. No amount of ppl on the deck can change the ships direction when there is a Liz Cheney in the cabin.
To state the obvious, most of the commenters seem to agree with Mike. Dear Sam, please take on, and maybe address, the criticism. Please don't react the way others in the Left-Wing youtube spaces have, turning against your audience and courting either centrist-liberals or right-wingers as we've seen Cenk, Ana and many others do. The Majority Report has been valuable in moving the Overton window to the left and acting as a counter to neoliberal media.
@ I’m saying don’t turn against your audience because they criticise you. It’s out of respect now but I don’t think Sam is immune to that pivot. There has been a lot of microanalysis of whether Cenk and Ana are grifters or lost their minds. Maybe a mix of both. I think they’ve been in state of flux from being reactionary liberals because of their true beliefs to desperately searching for a new audience after alienating their old one.
I left the comment I did because I noticed Sam pivot in this very debate/discussion when Mike went from criticising Harris' campaign to criticising those that were conspiratorial about the polls (ie Sam). It was after this that he went more on the attack asking Mike if he voted and why the polls matter. He disregarded previous positions he once held about the responsibility of the Left and activists in this defeat.
He's not turning against his audience. He's just holding his position even if it's not popular with his audience. A thing he has literally always done. That's actually why he won't go the way of Cenk and Ana. Because he doesn't need constant validation from his audience.
But what Ana does is just admit that some of T’s stuff isn’t that bad. It seems you guys want toxicity. Want someone to hate and always talk bad about T. That’s what it seems you guys like. Life has nuance. Things aren’t binary. Issues have middle ground. What’s so wrong with that?
Dems blew it by being a party concerned nearly entirely about the issues of white-collar, white-skinned women to the near exclusion of any other priority.
Biden promised he would do one term. A few months ago he admitted he changed his mind because the country was struggling... Much of that struggle was his fault, but can't blame a guy for creating a market for his interests. 🫠
This is all not that hard, she was doing really well fundraising from a diverse base when she was messaging left with selecting Tim Walz, but ever since then she messaged more and more right-wing and dropped supporting the left base, which further depressed the primary youth organizers. When you Bank on abortion to carry you and can't message what you can do about it, you have no chance. You also don't inspire those countless people who don't vote. When you don't demonstrate tangible ways, you're going to help them and motivate them to actually vote this time
The only future Democrats have is people like Tim Walz or Bernie. Everything else is Re-litigating the past. You cannot win elections, frankly, anywhere. If you only exclusively aim to win the approval of Beltway voters around Washington, DC and its suburbs. Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigeg are dead ends.
Donating isnt voting. People who got spare money to donate aren't the blue collar that went Trump. Dems lost because for way too long they have catered to no one but the professional managerial class. That group of white collar America has grown with more people going to college, but it is overwhelmingly female. As such, slowly the Dems made the second error, they became the of OF women. They refuse to address working class America because it is the party of white collar, white skinned, women; the group of people that benefited by affirmative action more than any, the group of people that has more college funding opportunities (and thus, modern job opportunities) than any, the group of people that is most angry at white men (though men broadly). Its why the only social policy they can manage to address men is, "Shit is all your fault, be an ally or you're shit." And its why more men have been put off from the party. We keep saying to stop taking voters of color for granted. But we can't comprehend that white people, esp white men, who not only have little to actually look forward to in the Dem platform but are actively told you shouldn't have anything because fuck your privilege, would go running to the opposing party? I supported Harris because I'm her demographic (the 2% of the planet with a PhD). But shit our side is absolutely toxic. So toxic we are now slagging AOC for calling out our toxicity in saying we have used social justice issues as a way of letting out our worst character traits onto people. And we wonder why they don't vote with us.
She was playing the game like she had already won. "I don't need to take a stand against Israel or separate myself from Biden because I'm going to win anyways."
we all were, weren't we? I mean for those who voted for Harris, there is a lot of coping. And can you blame them? If you made the decision that genocide, trumps wall and border bill were all acceptable policy, and then you lost and gained nothing after swallowing all that BS, wouldn't you be defensive too, in a little denial? Trumps greatest victory is moving the whole party right. Honestly the history of Warren supporters steadily endorsing her, all the way to 2024 where Harris essentially is running trump's 2020 campaign needs to be documented, and put on show in schools for 100,000 years. Look what happens when you make concessions to the right, you end up endorsing border walls, deportation police states, and wars, all under the guise of BRAT SUMMER.... SMH.... People needs to ask themselves which side their on. WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON???? How susceptible to BS are you?
Yeah he is . I believe it's cause the caller was clearly on the opposite end in terms of strategy for Kamala , Emma and Sam were urging voters to stay onboard with Harris despite her unlikable polices and to look at her good side, while the guest was more critical of Harris. Now she lost and it's a bit awkward. But then idk, that's just my two cent amateur psychology.
Mike from PA is an egotistical idiot. I've never heard him speak where he didn't fully convince me of both. Sam isn't being defensive. He's speaking with a man child with similar skill in analysis and he's trying to reel the conversation in back towards sensibility as politely as possible.
@@sureshchiatar-d7p Americans did vote for Bernie, the DNC screwed him over. Bernie and Walz both consistently have high approval ratings across all sectors of working class America.
@@LinkRocks I think the campaign calculated that there weren’t enough progressives to win with so it decided reaching across the aisle was a decent strategy.
@@bklyntonw3187 All I can say is, look at the political leanings and business interests of the various people the campaign had advising them. There's a reason they pushed for her to embrace Republicans instead of calling them weird and it ruined her fucking campaign.
Mike was 100% right. Harris spat in the face of the working class and liberals are confused they didn't vote for them. Biden has been a complete failure and Harris said she'd be the same. It was disappointing that Sam basically pulled a Steven Crowder by rushing Mike off the stream early just as he was going to bring up the data that proves his point.
I love Sam, but this just feels like a vote shaming sesh. Mike said it right, that he couldn’t steer the boat from the violin chair. It was up to Kamala’s campaign, who had their hands on the wheel, to look at the map (the polls) and notice that danger was ahead. Telling a twitch streamer (that I had never even heard of until Hasan platformed him) that he should have voted harder seems kind of asinine.
@@powderedtoastfacekillah734 lol it is the job of the politician to earn your vote. If they look at the polls and see that they are losing vast swathes of the electorate, it is up to them to course correct.
@@powderedtoastfacekillah734 you are painting this as if dems and voters have the same power and responsibilities. shaming voters doesn't work as an electoral strategy or as a political one. it just a way to direct anger to the ppl least responsible.
I've been listening to MR since 2011. I remember Sam arguing with Matt Stoller when he was saying it wouldn't matter if Romney won in 2012 bc Obama was implementing the bad policy that Romney would have implemented. Stoller was right and Sam just can't find another strategy other than voting for the lesser evil. MR also seemed to have fallen for Ettingermentum hyping Kamala instead of staying grounded and acknowledging that bad policy is going to lead to bad election results. David Dayen always points to how in October 2016 a lot of people got a health insurance premium increase and how that could have been a bigger factor than any of why Hillary lost.
Stoller wasn't right; voting for the lesser evil is always the correct strategy when it comes to the general election. "Doing the worse thing and expecting the better outcome" is a losing gamble, and it always has been, but only voting the lesser evil is a bit like taking a 15 minute walk after gorging yourself on a pizza. Absent other changes (in this case, participation in primaries, state, and local elections where you vote for the people you actually want in government) voting the lesser evil just gets you the evil on a longer timeline. And that sounds bad if you don't take into account that accelerationism (voting or enabling the greater evil) just gets you the evil on a shorter timeline with a political mandate. Thinking that leads anywhere good ultimately is a bit like thinking if you blow up a house it might collapse into something completely unlivable, but give it a week and the rubble will shift into your dream home. Ultimately, I have a suspicion that the people who object to lesser evil voting have a very distinctly non-materialist reason for it--namely their personal revulsion at the fact that doing what needs to be done to actually get good results instead of just fantasizing about great results would require them to rub shoulders with liberals and take quarter-and-half steps towards what they (and I) believe in rather than great imagined leaps.
Sam showing the thing that frustrates me about the majority report again, pondering how he shouldve spun Harris' shit campgaign to get people on board with it rather than demanding they do a campaign that they deserve to win on!
You clearly missed the point of this segment and that he was making fun of Mike. Mike and his ilk are a plague on politics. They fundamentally don't understand how things work and so will never achieve much.
It's not about "spinning a campaign" he's speculating on what Kamala could have done differently and won. It's a retroactive analysis of Kamala's campaign and what she could have done to win.
Sam can control himself. He personally, and Left online media in general, was not a primary constituency for the Harris campaign. Demanding the Harris campaign do better would have…done absolutely nothing.
It's tricky because people tried to prop Kamala up in order to convince people to vote for her, while simultaneously trying to stay principled and criticise her where necessary
When Nina Turner lost one of Sam's callers said that he thought that the majority report should have done more to help her campaign and Sam said that there's nothing they could have done cuz they don't have enough influence. Funny how his argument is totally different now.
I don’t understand what Sam is trying to do here. It’s really not that complicated. And I don’t know why we’re focusing on what the people could’ve done to avoid this loss and waving away what the party did wrong.
I was just about to comment that. The whole time I had to assume Sam saw something about Mike that bugged him but wasn’t willing to say it but I couldn’t pin it down. Felt like scapegoating no matter how much I like Sam it was a strange convo. Scapegoating or just trying to catch Mike on something i’m not sure is there, was some wild grilling.
@@ShaunBlacksmith-z3y just cant really think of two people who are more detail and experience oriented, seems like it should’ve been a really sharp and smooth convo
I also thought it was really weird how they got hung up on the union thing. Like, even if Sam was correct that Biden is so pro-union (he’s not), does union membership and the benefits that come with it even matter if living is still a struggle? To be clear, I DO think unions are incredibly important, and ultimately it looks like they will be even more vitally important if the democrats continue to abandon working people, but it’s something I’ve noticed with Sam - he points to union stuff to wave away the material reality of living in an increasingly unaffordable America.
@ absolutely was odd, one metric of labor’s gaining more ground is ‘new unions/locals’ but the data can be taken many different ways, which especially regarding first contracts dont add up to a specifically strong labor environment. I’m just taking everything said between serious progressive content creators/commentators lately as a broader sense of remorse and panic. None of this would have been a heated conversation a month ago. Feels bad.
Worst Sam interview I've seen. When you find yourself disagreeing with a leftist over progressive values in order to defend that horribly ran campaign then you've completely lost the plot. You've already seen the commentary about how progressives are to blame and if this party you defend so much had their way all the progressives would be gone. If you're not even able to be critical (and Sam had to multiple times admit he couldn't argue the bad decisions made but wanted to move on from it) then it gives the impression that Sam doesn't think progressive issues are a winning message or else he would be more receptive of running to the right being the reason she lost. The first 15 minutes he seemed to heavily imply that commentators had to get their act together and vote blue no matter who. Completely disappointing to hear this is the takeaway he has.
I know you guys hate TYT for whatever reason but they struck a good balance this election cycle. They didn't lose subscribers like MR did because they were honest with their audience about Kamala Harris. Cenk advocated voting for Harris but he didn't shame people who disagreed with him.
Mike is right once again! He needs a medal for how hard he raised concerns and no one listened. You owe him and people like Mike an apology for ignoring them.
I don't know if MR could have been more wrong this election cycle if they had tried. Sam turned his nose up at people who were advocating for Biden to drop out, and as it turns out they had internal polling at the time showing Biden losing 400 electoral college votes.
why so contentious, sam? he has a relatively small account. please save your debating skills for right wingers and zionists, not a true leftie like mike from p.a.
I am a bit disappointed with this conversation/debate and is not what I would normally expect from this show. The (repeated) impression I got was that when Mike attempted to provide facts to back up his claims, Sam would almost immediately try to cut him off, including at the very end where it looked like Sam just wanted Mike off the show. While by definition this may not perfectly match as a slew of red herrings, that is how it looks.
Ever notice how toxic the Majority Report community is? His audience is a reflection of himself. Everyone who disagrees with Sam is an idiot and he's so much smarter than everyone else.
@@Top_Weeb Ultimately, I think you should be laying out a case for the error of MR's analysis. Tone policing their audience doesn't constitute a rational contention with the substance of their arguments.
It's not about teaching them lessons or getting them to change, it's about them not representing your values and not wanting them to give them your vote. I voted harm reduction, but I don't see any problem in not voting for Harris because the dems left us behind. The number of people who are politically informed enough to make that decision is still nothing compared to the millions who didn't show for Harris because of any other superficial or not well-thought-out reason.
@@CCFQuelex I think if someone who claims to be politically engaged does not vote for harm reduction, that counts as a not well-thought-out reason. I agree that the campaign was bad and will lose votes because of it. But if someone claims to be a rational actor then it only makes sense to vote for harm reduction.
@@dnddmdb642 harm reduction in what aspect though, you can tell a million arab voters to vote for Kamala for the many valid reasons that she will be better than trump but for those voters, whose family and friends are being slaughtered every day and for hundreds of thousands of young people who find it to be absolutely unconscionable genocide is the already the worst it can get (and I have no doubt trump will be worse for Gaza). You just simply cannot run a successful campaign on harm reduction when you are perpetuating crimes against humanity.
@@dnddmdb642because people should vote harm reduction forever, right? That works, specially when they talk about the danger and then they are friendly and working with the republicans and saying they will have republicans in their administration, that makes the harm very obvious.
And as a young woman, some of us didn’t care about the A...N issue... sams right. Cus most states have it already in law. It didn’t effect us and those that did effect it, mabye they didn’t like it anyways being prolyfe. He isn’t gonna sign it Sam. I bet you. It’s a non issue. It’s done and over.
The question in the mind of the typical non engaged voter is “who is to blame for the problems in my life?” Whether you work at 7-11 or Goldman Sachs it’s always easier to blame the current administration (whether it’s Trump during Covid or Biden/Harris during inflation/price hikes).
You’re right. We’d be a lot further down the authoritarian path if people hadn’t been trying to slow down our descent into fascism. Not the point you think you’re making but oh well. Until a “not evil” option is built up you’re just telling people to stand back while the most evil option takes power and claims a mandate. When the West Bank gets annexed and families get deported and drowned in tariff fueled inflation you should go tell them that you’re okay with that because the other option was almost as bad.
@@Smiley_McPants I've been considering a philosophy of; do what you think would be best if everyone acted the same way, so I guess once you're in the booth you can decide, but I agree that advocating for better is still good. I kinda said a whole lot of nothing
Sam was in rare bad form here and I feel like Mike wasn't being approached in good faith. Why are we finger pointing at anyone other than Harris, Biden and the DP?
He's been running defence for the dems for the entire campaign and I guess he still thinks it's more important for them to win than for them to do actual good politics.
There’s some underlying tension in this interview. Can’t say I fully disagree with Sam’s angle here though. They both fundamentally disagreed on the credence of voting in this election. There’s just an inherent disagreement on that from the jump.
@@Robert_Bob_Bobrob When you say running defense, do you mean Sam or Mike? I don't think Mike's take is really that controversial - I get his point. The Harris campaign was on a course to lose the race and her tepid policies and inability to carve out her own identity from Biden was ultimately what lost it for the Dems. They lost from lack of Democratic turnout and that was something they could control - they just ran a really ineffective campaign for this moment in time. The race was winnable and the loss is on Harris, Biden and the Dems, not Mike from PA or Sam Seder.
This harping on electoral politics and capitulating to the Democratic party, the "blame the voters"/"blame people who are willing to withhold our votes," is where I completely fall off MR's position. Would I rather Harris won, "sure, I guess, (if only because I could then go to sleep at night knowing I had more allies here)," but I think it's important to remember not all of us are in NYC or LA, like myself (someone stuck in South Florida.) As the pandemic began I was studying for and taking Florida teacher's exam, but I stopped because as a trans person I saw my state, (including my own local rep,) crafting specifically anti-trans but also more broadly anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, (and even a local [art] teacher was 'fired' because some of her students wanted to make pride flags,) so I've started studying for the Praxis exams in the hopes I might be able to escape this state. But the point ultimately is, that from my perspective, the Dems decided their position on whether or not I should have a right to exist is the difference between should I be shot in the street or should I instead be pushed into a situation where I die of circumstances as the result of policies. I know that on the ground, regardless of who won the presidency , there are enough fascists and anti-Queer psychos that I need to be ready for a fight, and it has been that way for a few years now 🤷🏻♀️ As a registered Green Party US voter, I'm not likely to vote Dem, at all; however, in '16 & '20, I did switch parties so I could vote in the Dem primaries for Bernie, I switched back afterward, but I will admit, the possibility the Dems earn my vote is there, just not likely. Anyway, rambling now. 🙏🏼😊 Godspeed y'all.
I might not agree with your party politics (I’m a little more hopeful that the dems can be moved in the right direction, though I recognize it’s been trending the wrong way for a while now), but I’m wishing you luck and I’m sorry that you have to fight to be yourself. We’re largely left to fend for ourselves in the coming years, and we’ll have to depend on each other.
I don’t understand how you can look at the treatment Sarah McBride is receiving, and the stated policy of the Trump admin to cut off teen access to gender affirming care, or the stated policy of the Trump admin to stop Medicaid paying for gender affirming care, or the justices he has and will appoint on that issue and not see this as a black and white battle. Dems gave us Title IX. They lost, now that’s gone for the rest of my lifetime. Sorry. I just don’t get it. Best of luck to you too.
I'm surprised this got clipped and put up because I thought it was pretty off-putting. I said it before on the main video, so the short version: You both seem to agree on most of the same stuff, but the defensiveness and talking past each other was awkward. I know MR's chat was doing a purity spiral, and I'm sure Mike's chat was no help either. Just a mess.
I like that Sam allows Mike from PA to slap him around the head with reality. I think focusing on the material conditions and at least fighting to keep candidates honest is a more realistic way forward. Our votes for Kamala have all counted towards these Dems thinking they did nothing wrong. As much as I believe that being a black woman played a role, I’m under no illusions that calling that out will help move the needle, sadly. Democracy doesn’t work that way. Changing things that have no majority support yet because people are still very racist and sexist largely without admitting it, requires activism. Changing things we all agree are fucked up, basically most economic things, are exactly what democracy is for.
Sam was very deferential. A guy who preaches far left 5 times a week. But he still thinks if Hillary won, we’d have Roe. And there’s another shit show coming. But Mike seems to put himself over the disenfranchised.
@@DaveyTrue yeah. I wouldn’t say far left, tho. That doesn’t really exist in America. Only rarely on TH-cam and in Antifa. Sam is a social democrat or democratic socialist. Much like Bernie. That’s the centre left really. Biden is a staunch centre rightwinger, much like the Dems on average. America has an insane Overton window. It’s not representative of the global political scope. Anyway, I appreciate Sam all the same. I mean when I say I like that he appreciates to be challenged.
@@severalwolves Yeah, Mike from PA was trying to inform him and his audience about the impact local socialist organizing can have, referencing the famous Milwaukee sewer socialists that were elected in the late 19th and early 20th century, and Vaush mocked him for it. It's a meme in that community and comes off as a bit anti-intellectual given the context,
Why is Sam so upset with Mike? I didn't hear Mike say anything that was out of line with things that Sam and Emma say normally. People didn't vote for Kamala because she didn't represent the things they needed from a president. Asking people to vote for someone who vowed to keep up the bombings in Gaza was too far for a lot of people. Her being weak on labor and social safety nets didn't help either. She got a huge swing coming in to replace Biden, picking a progressive(ish) running mate but at the DNC and after it was a huge back peddle to appease not the dem base but centrist Republicans that are not going to vote for republican lite when they could just get a real republican. She didn't campaign on the issues people would have responded to. It was Harris' and the old Biden campaign's fault for losing this, not voters.
Commentators like sam and organization need to tell dems if you don't do what we want on policies we wont vote for u. Not saying hold your nose and vote for the party that despise your policies positions because status quo management is all thats allowed
Sam seems so lost in the post-election analysis when the answers are essentially what Mike is saying. Why bother being a political commentator when you can't even do the most basic political analysis?
Why wont Sam let him speak and finish his thought process before bulldozing him I guess idk the lore between the two but I dont get the point of this segment
Sure seemed like Mike showed up for a debate style conversation and Sam didn't set the stage right. No ill will toward either. Seems like there was just a misalignment of expectations.
The man answered the question in 37 different ways 😂. The host was like no that's not what I'm looking for. Answer the question assuming that Biden was great and Kamala was great. How do you get more people to vote for them 😂. I also have a 100% voting record but since the Dems really wanna just destroy the left the last Dem prez I voted for was Hillary.
@ so he gets to brag to his equally ineffective “leftist” buddies. Again, to stretch out the titanic metaphor, it’s like bragging about the iceberg you saw coming and did nothing to try and avoid while you freeze and drown to death as the ship sinks. Real big accomplishment
I know it’s gotta be really hard for Sam to admit he was wrong but damn, Mike is an ally. Give him his W why do you disrespectfully kick him from the show?
I really wish this conversation went longer. It appears like Sam and Mike from PA offer two very different but common views of the Democratic party. -) Sam tends toward lesser evil messaging which leads too a better short term outcome but slowly encourages the DNC to move further and further right. -) Mike is focusing on the long game of convincing the DNC to do better for the people to get the votes out. I've been wrestling with this ineffective bandaid vs. risky surgery question for three elections now. :(
The ineffective bandaid vs. risk surgery metaphor is very good. Which is why we should also remember that, the longer the wound stays open, the more ineffective the bandaids will be once infection sets in. And at that point we'll *need* the risky surgery. I'd have loved for America to receive its risky surgery in 2024. We tried bandaid, but it didn't work, so now the infection only deepens. What will we do in 2028? Will we go for the bandaid solution once again? Or will we be more daring?
The way Sam conducted this interview frustrated me. Took him ages to ask the clear question of "what is the role of leftwing commentators when the Democratic party is running a losing campaign?" He also seemed to insinuate a responsibility of left-wing commentators like Mike for the Democrats loss. It did seem like a lot of the Majority Reports coverage seemed more optimistic about Harris before the election in order to rally voters. I get that Harris isn't tuning in to leftwing media and was plenty coddled in this process and surrounded by the worst political strategists so I get what is wrong with Mike from PA's answer to that question. On the other hand, it can't be good to tame leftwing descent during an election or otherwise. As Sam has stated in other streams the bulk of non-voters are not watching Majority report before the election so why tame any criticism for the democratic party. If 'a couple' voters stay home because the criticism resonated with them then at least your platform still has power and hasn't been made a mouthpiece and apology factory. The role of these spaces should be to unapologetically provide amplification to the opinions of the broad left, so that the less informed or disillusioned liberal can find that someone was voicing concerns before the election.
When Nina Turner barely lost the first time, someone called in and said that he thought MR could have done more to help get her across the finish line. Long term viewers may remember that they barely covered her. Sam's retort was that his platform barely has any influence. But now his assessment of that is totally different. If anything, his platform is way more valuable to a House race than a whole Presidential election.
I'm a total simp for Sam and this interview is the least I've ever liked him. I just don't know why he's got an obvious chip on his shoulder when Mike is right. Isn't the point to bring on a guest and highlight their points and analysis, this felt like Sam on the defense.
@@Charles-qv2ro A lot of the left-leaning content creators have gotten more on edge and a bit more unhinged, and honestly I don't blame them. I remember the night before election day, I smoked a bunch and passed out for hours, woke up and saw the video titles and headlines and had no idea what to do with myself for the rest of the day. Absolutely bedside myself. Felt like I was in a dissociative fugue state from the whiplash of realizing just how utterly low-information and low-IQ so much of the electorate really were. Pakman was freaking out at the loss in subscribers he'd gotten when Trump's victory was announced, apparently this happened to numerous other creators as well, was likely just a lot of people being emotionally finished and just noping out lol.
@alananimus9145 The older generations took a granular approach to politics MORE seriously. That is no longer the case. Americans vote now for teams over issues, personal and general, to the extent that they can perceive the difference between the two.
@@wasntanythingmuch Oh, bullshit. Pretty much everyone over 60 that I know has voted for the same party, straight ticket, since I was a kid in the 90s.
@@wasntanythingmuch You are actually just making things up looking at the past through rose colored glasses. First its not that older generations took a more granular approach. Politics is was and always has been about propaganda. If you actually go back and track the data it contradicts everything you are saying. The mistake you are making is that you are ignoring the scale and operation of politics today and the way in which those two things have changed. To give you an idea of what I am talking about the population of New York State in 1777 was 162,000 while the population of the City of New York is over 8,000,000. Or another example the population of Virginia was 500,000 (the largest state in the union at the time) while the population of Virginia beach is 451,000. In terms of scale there are numerous problems, not the least of which is that the system hasn't scaled. The second big problem is that both parties have failed to adapt to the changing media technologies. Fixing this problem will require changes to the way the parties operate. Let's address the "perceived difference". There are material differences between the two parties. Liberals have fundamentally American (enlightenment) values. Reactionaries don't.
That any Republican was competitive in 2024 was all the evidence we needed to know that we (the entire country) were in trouble. Proper polling isn't going to correct that.
I’m disappointed Sam cut Mike off. I think Mike had some more good insights to share. I love Sam, but Mike is right. It was not our job to help Kamala win. It was Kamalas job to earn our votes. She chose to embrace the donor class and the war machine. Not much we could do at that point.
You can tell that Mike gets yelled at a lot by liberals because he was very defensive when talking to Sam (with good reason!) What drives me insane (and from what I gather, drives Mike insane too) is that we all saw that people playing chicken with Biden WORKED and that he had to step aside in an election year, only for Kamala Harris to just say haha yeah I'm also Biden! The obvious thing to do here was to double down with "yeah well Biden just got thrown out of the candidacy and so will you" but nothing happened!
Yeah except when playing chicken with Biden it was him staying in the race vs them replacing him with at least a few weeks to go , but playing chicken with Harris it was her staying in the race vs either replacing her last minute or her losing. The consequences were so much more dire, and bluffing (which Mike from PA seemed to be seriously proposing) is a losing strategy. Imo Kamala needed more economic populism and a recognition that people were really hurting, less focusing on "small businesses" and appealing to middle class moderates. I mean look at Chappelle Roan, who reluctantly admitted that she would vote for Kamala but was very insistent on her policies not being good. That's the kind of energy I wish there was more of.
People in the comments are overwhelmingly taking Mike's side, so can we all agree that this vote blue no matter who crap got us in this mess in the first place? I was one of the guys saying the same crap a couple years ago. I was wrong.
Mike's called out MRs 'vote blue no matter who' they've been doing since Biden was still running for re-election. Sam had his feelings hurt and just used the time to try to take shots at mike but made himself look silly without even making a point. 100% with Mike on this one.
So you think Mikes “don’t vote” method worked? Because I’m pretty sure Trump won Pennsylvania where he was actively encouraging people to not vote for Harris by a rather slim margin.
What the counter to: Scott Presler, Founder of Early Vote Action, innovative strategies the GOP is employing in Pennsylvania to mobilize voters, how the Republican Party is actively courting truckers, Amish voters, and hunters, the challenge of making sure newly-registered voters actually cast a vote..
I used to be the "they have to earn my vote" guy but I sorta matured out of that Firstly- If you're at the stage where you're asking about the efficacy of voting or not voting you're already at the stage of capture that you personally can't act as though you don't know that Kamala was at least marginally better. Secondly- they are a duopoly and the Democrat party structure doesn't actually get that scuffed up from major losses, or even year on year losses. The Republican party lasted as a minority party during the DECADES spanning New Deal era. The structure will remain through every loss including most of their fundraising apparatuses and donors. You could basically make the case that the ONLY people that get hurt when Dems under a duopolisitic party system lose is the rest of US. Finally- I don't blame orgs for talking about withholding votes, they represent large blocks of votes and they owe fealty firstly to their members. This is how power is built, challenged AND how it is exercised. We vote blue and then we go back to doing the REAL work of building power that can ACTUALLY cow the party, not crying about how your threats don't work.
The Democratic Party itself is not a political party really, they are a collective of donors, lobbyists, consultants and ad buyers who make money whether Dems win or lose. People are sick of voting for these frauds and charlatans, you can’t keep voting endlessly asking nothing in return but expecting a different result! that’s the definition of insanity!
Illinois did not have a lot of push for voting for Harris because Illinois is not a swing state. All of the media talked about was the swing States and people did not feel like their vote mattered
One problem is that Dems lost 10% of their voters, another problem is that Republicans increased their turnout. Any solution needs to address BOTH problems and there is only ONE way to do that: Move left at any cost.
This is actually a great conversation. Leftist politics are almost vigilante in the way that all refinement and organization is somewhat concealed. Two people who are qualified to advocate their position after a historic loss, a welcome sight in a time of scrambling and preparing for the end.
Also there was a Harris ad I voted on and never saw it again on TH-cam! She said she was going to go after price gougers and the reason I remembered is because of the survey afterwards, was I the only one who thought it was good?
One of the biggest problems was that Harris was completely surrounded by careerist DNC campaign managers and strategists, all of whom were insisting whole heartedly on steering right on every issue and not distancing from Biden at all.
Unfortunately none of those people had any genuine skin in the game - not only are they incompetent, they actually _like_ those “centrist” positions. They’d prefer to live under a republican admin than under a Bernie-style one, and they aren’t personally the ones who suffer if/when Trump wins. Moreover, they don’t get punished in any way when they lose; feckless establishment hacks always get rewarded for their loyalty alone. They only ever fail UP.
Now all those same people are in the media claiming they didn't go right enough 😂
I'm affraid you're getting it wrong, she's one of them. She's the establishment just like trump.
I think the DNC purposely presented the worst candidate they could find to get dem voters to stay home on election Day
It worked and Trump was elected
That's what the DNC wanted because. They hate the social liberal agenda
@@kboussa I don’t know if Trump is establishment when he is threatening to jail political opponents.
Yep. Nailed it.
Love this guy pouring cold water on the liberal left hype around Kamala's campaign and chances. This show definitely indulged in that.
the race was pretty close so idk what you mean and It only came down to 42,000 votes in 2020. The cold water is figuring out to keep my family here because leftist hype beasts who wanted to send Kamala a message lol
Maybe I'm dumb, but I don't understand what Sam was disagreeing with Mike on? I have listened to Sam/Emma say similar things for why the Democrats lost the presidential race to what Mike was saying. Idk who Mike is, but this seemed like some other dynamic going on. The vids titled how the Dems blew it, but I guess the main point of contention was that voters should have voted harder? Commentators should have told everyone to vote blue no matter who?
Exactly!
They have leveled the same critique before. Sam was really frustrating here.
I do not get it.
@@WarrenZevon1977I appreciate you normalizing my feelings I had while watching this. I hate to say this cus I love MR...Sam and Emma softballing Harris' bs and using polls as a justification to The Harris Campaign bs right wing turn as a validate winning
strategy is kind of what Mike from PA was eluding to(increasing chance of loss)...I mean does Sam really think he or anyone could have gotten Harris more votes? Here is a question...shouldn't getting more votes be Harris' and Dems' responsibility not theirs
@@jruizzzz I think he pissed his guest off..he wouldn't let him finish his ideas and came across as being obtuse and childish for the fun of it. Came across as a basic democrat to me.
Mike was a long time caller that became a Hasan Piker clout chasing Twitch streamer.
you gotta look up sewer socialism
What’s up with Sam’s attitude towards Mike? So much tension in this interview… not sure why when Mike was right?
I think he didn’t want to get his audience mad. Trying to give them hope.. I didn’t vote for her. But I watch this channel to get another view. Even if I’m not welcomed here
Mike is right.. cant really expect people to vote harder when we the workers are struggling. She had to promise and do more. What Biden did was not enough.
Mike from PA? EW EW EW EW EW.
Yeah then vote for fucking trump!
@@KaylaJones2000 Why are you spamming the same message in every reply?
@@SyphiurApparently America took your advice…
@@XthaProfessor lol
John from San Antonio tried to pull Sam and Emma out of their bubble, but they laughed him off. Mike was right too.
Mike from PA? EW EW EW EW EW.
They didn’t tho? Emma had several spirited debates with him, while Sam played both sides of it.
Mike was wrong. No body will talk about Gaza once trump is in office and mike won't do anything against the republican base to stop the genocide.
Mike seemed too defensive but Sam also seemed like he wanted him to admit he was in the wrong for not encouraging his viewers to vote for Kamala. Regardless I like both although wrt this particular "disagreement" Mike was right
mike was wrong. None of you will advocate for Palestine under the new admin.
I found this incredibly uncomfortable. Sam is clearly wrong and is looking for outs that aren't there. He is coming off as accusatory, though he denies it.
Mike is more then right. Kamala run an awful campaign, hoping Trump's campaign out flanked hers in poorness. She needed to draw a clear line between her and Biden in a big way. That was evident from the get go.
Using Stammer advise was awful. Stammer is soooo unpopular here, using him is just madness. I said even a paper bag will beat Boris and that was before the Tories imploded. Why use this fail machine as an example.
Could she have got to the low propensity voter. OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She could have gone on a the chat show circuit, she could have sent her surrogates out on chat shows and the like. It is clear she feared too much exposure and her poor positioning on Gaza DIDN'T help.
Mike was right!
That titanic metaphor is wild sam. The captain was steering towards the iceberg. No amount of ppl on the deck can change the ships direction when there is a Liz Cheney in the cabin.
To state the obvious, most of the commenters seem to agree with Mike.
Dear Sam, please take on, and maybe address, the criticism. Please don't react the way others in the Left-Wing youtube spaces have, turning against your audience and courting either centrist-liberals or right-wingers as we've seen Cenk, Ana and many others do. The Majority Report has been valuable in moving the Overton window to the left and acting as a counter to neoliberal media.
You're doing the same thing you're accusing him of doing by calling Cenk and Ana grifters.
@ I’m saying don’t turn against your audience because they criticise you. It’s out of respect now but I don’t think Sam is immune to that pivot. There has been a lot of microanalysis of whether Cenk and Ana are grifters or lost their minds. Maybe a mix of both. I think they’ve been in state of flux from being reactionary liberals because of their true beliefs to desperately searching for a new audience after alienating their old one.
I left the comment I did because I noticed Sam pivot in this very debate/discussion when Mike went from criticising Harris' campaign to criticising those that were conspiratorial about the polls (ie Sam). It was after this that he went more on the attack asking Mike if he voted and why the polls matter. He disregarded previous positions he once held about the responsibility of the Left and activists in this defeat.
He's not turning against his audience. He's just holding his position even if it's not popular with his audience. A thing he has literally always done. That's actually why he won't go the way of Cenk and Ana. Because he doesn't need constant validation from his audience.
But what Ana does is just admit that some of T’s stuff isn’t that bad. It seems you guys want toxicity. Want someone to hate and always talk bad about T. That’s what it seems you guys like. Life has nuance. Things aren’t binary. Issues have middle ground. What’s so wrong with that?
The Dems blew it years ago by not having Biden admit he would do one term. Then properly let the people vote and pick a new contender against Trump.
Biden’s hubris wouldn’t allow him to step down when Trump decided he wanted to run again.
Dems blew it by being a party concerned nearly entirely about the issues of white-collar, white-skinned women to the near exclusion of any other priority.
Biden promised he would do one term. A few months ago he admitted he changed his mind because the country was struggling...
Much of that struggle was his fault, but can't blame a guy for creating a market for his interests. 🫠
Biden should have never been the nominee in the first place.
Biden said he would only run one term! He lied
This is all not that hard, she was doing really well fundraising from a diverse base when she was messaging left with selecting Tim Walz, but ever since then she messaged more and more right-wing and dropped supporting the left base, which further depressed the primary youth organizers. When you Bank on abortion to carry you and can't message what you can do about it, you have no chance.
You also don't inspire those countless people who don't vote. When you don't demonstrate tangible ways, you're going to help them and motivate them to actually vote this time
The only future Democrats have is people like Tim Walz or Bernie. Everything else is Re-litigating the past. You cannot win elections, frankly, anywhere. If you only exclusively aim to win the approval of Beltway voters around Washington, DC and its suburbs. Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigeg are dead ends.
Tldr version: if you stand with everyone, you don't stand for anyone, you need to represent the base
Donating isnt voting. People who got spare money to donate aren't the blue collar that went Trump. Dems lost because for way too long they have catered to no one but the professional managerial class. That group of white collar America has grown with more people going to college, but it is overwhelmingly female. As such, slowly the Dems made the second error, they became the of OF women. They refuse to address working class America because it is the party of white collar, white skinned, women; the group of people that benefited by affirmative action more than any, the group of people that has more college funding opportunities (and thus, modern job opportunities) than any, the group of people that is most angry at white men (though men broadly). Its why the only social policy they can manage to address men is, "Shit is all your fault, be an ally or you're shit." And its why more men have been put off from the party. We keep saying to stop taking voters of color for granted. But we can't comprehend that white people, esp white men, who not only have little to actually look forward to in the Dem platform but are actively told you shouldn't have anything because fuck your privilege, would go running to the opposing party? I supported Harris because I'm her demographic (the 2% of the planet with a PhD). But shit our side is absolutely toxic. So toxic we are now slagging AOC for calling out our toxicity in saying we have used social justice issues as a way of letting out our worst character traits onto people. And we wonder why they don't vote with us.
She was playing the game like she had already won. "I don't need to take a stand against Israel or separate myself from Biden because I'm going to win anyways."
Agreed. I’m glad so many people realize this. Unfortunately, the Democratic establishment either doesn’t, or they just refuse to acknowledge it.
Matt popping up at the end made me feel like he was sitting there offscreen quietly nodding along with Mike the whole time lol
we all were, weren't we? I mean for those who voted for Harris, there is a lot of coping. And can you blame them? If you made the decision that genocide, trumps wall and border bill were all acceptable policy, and then you lost and gained nothing after swallowing all that BS, wouldn't you be defensive too, in a little denial? Trumps greatest victory is moving the whole party right. Honestly the history of Warren supporters steadily endorsing her, all the way to 2024 where Harris essentially is running trump's 2020 campaign needs to be documented, and put on show in schools for 100,000 years. Look what happens when you make concessions to the right, you end up endorsing border walls, deportation police states, and wars, all under the guise of BRAT SUMMER.... SMH.... People needs to ask themselves which side their on. WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON???? How susceptible to BS are you?
Matt says stuff on Twitter that he doesn't say on the show.
Sam seems like needlessly defensive here. I don't get it.
feels like there's an elephant in the room that we're not in on
Yeah he is . I believe it's cause the caller was clearly on the opposite end in terms of strategy for Kamala , Emma and Sam were urging voters to stay onboard with Harris despite her unlikable polices and to look at her good side, while the guest was more critical of Harris.
Now she lost and it's a bit awkward. But then idk, that's just my two cent amateur psychology.
Probably because of the non-stop smug mental masturbation that the guest was exuding the whole time.
He's trying to get Mike to address why he repeatedly told his audience NOT TO VOTE without attacking him directly
Mike from PA is an egotistical idiot. I've never heard him speak where he didn't fully convince me of both. Sam isn't being defensive. He's speaking with a man child with similar skill in analysis and he's trying to reel the conversation in back towards sensibility as politely as possible.
Imagine a Bernie/Walz ticket was running, we could have had Utopia but instead it's happening like it always happens.
yep. *deep sigh*
And Americans would've voted for Bernie? Think of the voters. People like mic can be smug because he isn't the candidate. The constituents can't
@@sureshchiatar-d7p Americans did vote for Bernie, the DNC screwed him over. Bernie and Walz both consistently have high approval ratings across all sectors of working class America.
Right! She took advice from the Starmer campaign! Frankly, she deserved to lose.
I said when she started campaigning with Cheney that while I don't want Trump to win again Harris deserves to get blown out for that alone.
@@LinkRocks I think the campaign calculated that there weren’t enough progressives to win with so it decided reaching across the aisle was a decent strategy.
@@bklyntonw3187that was silly thought most of the country is progressive
@Hulkenbreak Maybe the urban areas, but the rest of the country that is the majority, isn't
@@bklyntonw3187 All I can say is, look at the political leanings and business interests of the various people the campaign had advising them. There's a reason they pushed for her to embrace Republicans instead of calling them weird and it ruined her fucking campaign.
Mike was 100% right. Harris spat in the face of the working class and liberals are confused they didn't vote for them. Biden has been a complete failure and Harris said she'd be the same. It was disappointing that Sam basically pulled a Steven Crowder by rushing Mike off the stream early just as he was going to bring up the data that proves his point.
I love Sam, but this just feels like a vote shaming sesh. Mike said it right, that he couldn’t steer the boat from the violin chair. It was up to Kamala’s campaign, who had their hands on the wheel, to look at the map (the polls) and notice that danger was ahead. Telling a twitch streamer (that I had never even heard of until Hasan platformed him) that he should have voted harder seems kind of asinine.
FWIW, Mike from PA has been a frequent caller on MR, going back to before he ever tried to start a career as a streamer.
What’s wrong with shaming voters for voting stupidly?
Everyone should be held to account except for voters?
Let’s not baby them
@@powderedtoastfacekillah734 lol it is the job of the politician to earn your vote. If they look at the polls and see that they are losing vast swathes of the electorate, it is up to them to course correct.
@@SuzakuX I had a feeling, it was obvious from this conversation that they have history lol.
@@powderedtoastfacekillah734 you are painting this as if dems and voters have the same power and responsibilities. shaming voters doesn't work as an electoral strategy or as a political one. it just a way to direct anger to the ppl least responsible.
Everyone needs to give credit where credit's due because this guy called it before the election when nobody else did.
They won't because it requires acknowledging that we were as much or more in a bubble that we try to insult the right for being.
Mike was on the ground in PA, people might wanna listen to what he learned while directly talking to voters.
He "predicted" it because he WANTED Kamala to lose. This guy is no better than Jimmy Dore. Shame on MR for giving him such a platform
He also said Biden would lose back in 2020
He didn't even vote for Harris & wanted Dems to lose?
Mike was right.
Mike is right, the dems failed yet again by appealing to the center and right
Mike is correct
Well done to Mike for holding his ground!
I've been listening to MR since 2011. I remember Sam arguing with Matt Stoller when he was saying it wouldn't matter if Romney won in 2012 bc Obama was implementing the bad policy that Romney would have implemented. Stoller was right and Sam just can't find another strategy other than voting for the lesser evil. MR also seemed to have fallen for Ettingermentum hyping Kamala instead of staying grounded and acknowledging that bad policy is going to lead to bad election results. David Dayen always points to how in October 2016 a lot of people got a health insurance premium increase and how that could have been a bigger factor than any of why Hillary lost.
Me too
Do you remember his conversations with Jimmy Dore in 2016? Cos I do :)
Stoller wasn't right; voting for the lesser evil is always the correct strategy when it comes to the general election. "Doing the worse thing and expecting the better outcome" is a losing gamble, and it always has been, but only voting the lesser evil is a bit like taking a 15 minute walk after gorging yourself on a pizza. Absent other changes (in this case, participation in primaries, state, and local elections where you vote for the people you actually want in government) voting the lesser evil just gets you the evil on a longer timeline. And that sounds bad if you don't take into account that accelerationism (voting or enabling the greater evil) just gets you the evil on a shorter timeline with a political mandate. Thinking that leads anywhere good ultimately is a bit like thinking if you blow up a house it might collapse into something completely unlivable, but give it a week and the rubble will shift into your dream home.
Ultimately, I have a suspicion that the people who object to lesser evil voting have a very distinctly non-materialist reason for it--namely their personal revulsion at the fact that doing what needs to be done to actually get good results instead of just fantasizing about great results would require them to rub shoulders with liberals and take quarter-and-half steps towards what they (and I) believe in rather than great imagined leaps.
I’m surprised more people didn’t mention how healthcare spiked right before the election in 2016
I’m with Mike on this one. The dems were trying to win without progressives.
That’s the argument he’s making. And MR pushes pretty hard left 5 days a week. But they also know that if Hilary won, we’d still have Roe
Sam showing the thing that frustrates me about the majority report again, pondering how he shouldve spun Harris' shit campgaign to get people on board with it rather than demanding they do a campaign that they deserve to win on!
You clearly missed the point of this segment and that he was making fun of Mike.
Mike and his ilk are a plague on politics. They fundamentally don't understand how things work and so will never achieve much.
It's not about "spinning a campaign" he's speculating on what Kamala could have done differently and won. It's a retroactive analysis of Kamala's campaign and what she could have done to win.
@@mkay3310 Rewatch and this time listen to what he sais instead of projecting what you wan't to hear.
@mkay3310 the truth is there is nothing she could have done. There is plenty the party could have done.
Sam can control himself. He personally, and Left online media in general, was not a primary constituency for the Harris campaign. Demanding the Harris campaign do better would have…done absolutely nothing.
It's tricky because people tried to prop Kamala up in order to convince people to vote for her, while simultaneously trying to stay principled and criticise her where necessary
When Nina Turner lost one of Sam's callers said that he thought that the majority report should have done more to help her campaign and Sam said that there's nothing they could have done cuz they don't have enough influence. Funny how his argument is totally different now.
In fact, TMR could have had a significantly bigger impact on that race than a Presidential election.
Yeah Sam tends to change his tune on any of these issues. He flips on a dime
@@Top_Weeb That is arguable
That's one show and a local race, not the whole media exosystem and the presidential election.
People might not like Mike's personality but what he's saying is largely true and he was spot on
Nothing wrong with his personality.
@@cassandratq9301 plenty would disagree
no he sucks...
What's wrong with his personality?
He's the perfect example of having good politics not equating to being a good person. Lol, remember when he punched the couch?
I don’t understand what Sam is trying to do here. It’s really not that complicated. And I don’t know why we’re focusing on what the people could’ve done to avoid this loss and waving away what the party did wrong.
I was just about to comment that. The whole time I had to assume Sam saw something about Mike that bugged him but wasn’t willing to say it but I couldn’t pin it down. Felt like scapegoating no matter how much I like Sam it was a strange convo. Scapegoating or just trying to catch Mike on something i’m not sure is there, was some wild grilling.
Sam was oddly defensive .
@@ShaunBlacksmith-z3y just cant really think of two people who are more detail and experience oriented, seems like it should’ve been a really sharp and smooth convo
I also thought it was really weird how they got hung up on the union thing. Like, even if Sam was correct that Biden is so pro-union (he’s not), does union membership and the benefits that come with it even matter if living is still a struggle? To be clear, I DO think unions are incredibly important, and ultimately it looks like they will be even more vitally important if the democrats continue to abandon working people, but it’s something I’ve noticed with Sam - he points to union stuff to wave away the material reality of living in an increasingly unaffordable America.
@ absolutely was odd, one metric of labor’s gaining more ground is ‘new unions/locals’ but the data can be taken many different ways, which especially regarding first contracts dont add up to a specifically strong labor environment. I’m just taking everything said between serious progressive content creators/commentators lately as a broader sense of remorse and panic. None of this would have been a heated conversation a month ago. Feels bad.
Sam sounds old here. His only real solution is voting for neo liberal war hawks.
What's your plan? Open rebellion?
Mike is right. 🤷🏾♀️
Worst Sam interview I've seen. When you find yourself disagreeing with a leftist over progressive values in order to defend that horribly ran campaign then you've completely lost the plot. You've already seen the commentary about how progressives are to blame and if this party you defend so much had their way all the progressives would be gone. If you're not even able to be critical (and Sam had to multiple times admit he couldn't argue the bad decisions made but wanted to move on from it) then it gives the impression that Sam doesn't think progressive issues are a winning message or else he would be more receptive of running to the right being the reason she lost.
The first 15 minutes he seemed to heavily imply that commentators had to get their act together and vote blue no matter who. Completely disappointing to hear this is the takeaway he has.
Gen-Z are not to blame? check out their votes
I know you guys hate TYT for whatever reason but they struck a good balance this election cycle. They didn't lose subscribers like MR did because they were honest with their audience about Kamala Harris. Cenk advocated voting for Harris but he didn't shame people who disagreed with him.
YES! YES! YES!
FDR'S BILL OF RIGHTS!!!
I've been saying that for a year.
Mike is right once again! He needs a medal for how hard he raised concerns and no one listened. You owe him and people like Mike an apology for ignoring them.
I don't know if MR could have been more wrong this election cycle if they had tried. Sam turned his nose up at people who were advocating for Biden to drop out, and as it turns out they had internal polling at the time showing Biden losing 400 electoral college votes.
why so contentious, sam? he has a relatively small account. please save your debating skills for right wingers and zionists, not a true leftie like mike from p.a.
But Mike wasn't contentious?
I am a bit disappointed with this conversation/debate and is not what I would normally expect from this show. The (repeated) impression I got was that when Mike attempted to provide facts to back up his claims, Sam would almost immediately try to cut him off, including at the very end where it looked like Sam just wanted Mike off the show. While by definition this may not perfectly match as a slew of red herrings, that is how it looks.
The point Mike made about the unionization rate being at a low and offering to show a graph to prove it seemed to especially irk Sam.
Ever notice how toxic the Majority Report community is? His audience is a reflection of himself. Everyone who disagrees with Sam is an idiot and he's so much smarter than everyone else.
@@Top_WeebI don't see very much name calling in the comments, outside of invectives directed at conservative pundits
@@dsm7014The reddit community in particular is a cesspit.
@@Top_Weeb Ultimately, I think you should be laying out a case for the error of MR's analysis. Tone policing their audience doesn't constitute a rational contention with the substance of their arguments.
It's not about teaching them lessons or getting them to change, it's about them not representing your values and not wanting them to give them your vote. I voted harm reduction, but I don't see any problem in not voting for Harris because the dems left us behind. The number of people who are politically informed enough to make that decision is still nothing compared to the millions who didn't show for Harris because of any other superficial or not well-thought-out reason.
@@CCFQuelex I think if someone who claims to be politically engaged does not vote for harm reduction, that counts as a not well-thought-out reason. I agree that the campaign was bad and will lose votes because of it. But if someone claims to be a rational actor then it only makes sense to vote for harm reduction.
@@dnddmdb642 harm reduction in what aspect though, you can tell a million arab voters to vote for Kamala for the many valid reasons that she will be better than trump but for those voters, whose family and friends are being slaughtered every day and for hundreds of thousands of young people who find it to be absolutely unconscionable genocide is the already the worst it can get (and I have no doubt trump will be worse for Gaza). You just simply cannot run a successful campaign on harm reduction when you are perpetuating crimes against humanity.
@@dnddmdb642because people should vote harm reduction forever, right? That works, specially when they talk about the danger and then they are friendly and working with the republicans and saying they will have republicans in their administration, that makes the harm very obvious.
@bluester7177 Yes.
Hoping Mike is on more and people like EttingerMentum are on less.
Mike was right
Mike is wrong. He doesn't understand politics and spreads his ignorance.
@@alananimus9145 Why are DGGers always so cringe
@shadowwolfkano no matter how cringe DGGers are they will never be as cringe as Mike
Liz was an odd choice. I don’t know ANY right ppl who like her. They hate her.
And as a young woman, some of us didn’t care about the A...N issue... sams right. Cus most states have it already in law. It didn’t effect us and those that did effect it, mabye they didn’t like it anyways being prolyfe. He isn’t gonna sign it Sam. I bet you. It’s a non issue. It’s done and over.
The question in the mind of the typical non engaged voter is “who is to blame for the problems in my life?”
Whether you work at 7-11 or Goldman Sachs it’s always easier to blame the current administration (whether it’s Trump during Covid or Biden/Harris during inflation/price hikes).
Liberalism and lesser evil voting is how we ended up where we are
Lesser evil voting has got to go, have we tried... not evil? Let's gamble on Good tm
You’re right. We’d be a lot further down the authoritarian path if people hadn’t been trying to slow down our descent into fascism.
Not the point you think you’re making but oh well. Until a “not evil” option is built up you’re just telling people to stand back while the most evil option takes power and claims a mandate.
When the West Bank gets annexed and families get deported and drowned in tariff fueled inflation you should go tell them that you’re okay with that because the other option was almost as bad.
What is the alternative for individuals?
@@Smiley_McPants I've been considering a philosophy of; do what you think would be best if everyone acted the same way, so I guess once you're in the booth you can decide, but I agree that advocating for better is still good. I kinda said a whole lot of nothing
Bro if we just vote for the green party it'll all be fixed bro trust me bro hnnnggggggg
Sam is very pro establishment, he’s just good at disguising it.
Sam was in rare bad form here and I feel like Mike wasn't being approached in good faith. Why are we finger pointing at anyone other than Harris, Biden and the DP?
Agreed that it came off a little hostile. But Mike did himself no favors by becoming super defensive.
He's been running defence for the dems for the entire campaign and I guess he still thinks it's more important for them to win than for them to do actual good politics.
There’s some underlying tension in this interview. Can’t say I fully disagree with Sam’s angle here though. They both fundamentally disagreed on the credence of voting in this election. There’s just an inherent disagreement on that from the jump.
@@Robert_Bob_Bobrob When you say running defense, do you mean Sam or Mike? I don't think Mike's take is really that controversial - I get his point. The Harris campaign was on a course to lose the race and her tepid policies and inability to carve out her own identity from Biden was ultimately what lost it for the Dems. They lost from lack of Democratic turnout and that was something they could control - they just ran a really ineffective campaign for this moment in time. The race was winnable and the loss is on Harris, Biden and the Dems, not Mike from PA or Sam Seder.
@@dnddmdb642 I suppose. As a viewer I understood the frustration.
This harping on electoral politics and capitulating to the Democratic party, the "blame the voters"/"blame people who are willing to withhold our votes," is where I completely fall off MR's position.
Would I rather Harris won, "sure, I guess, (if only because I could then go to sleep at night knowing I had more allies here)," but I think it's important to remember not all of us are in NYC or LA, like myself (someone stuck in South Florida.) As the pandemic began I was studying for and taking Florida teacher's exam, but I stopped because as a trans person I saw my state, (including my own local rep,) crafting specifically anti-trans but also more broadly anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, (and even a local [art] teacher was 'fired' because some of her students wanted to make pride flags,) so I've started studying for the Praxis exams in the hopes I might be able to escape this state.
But the point ultimately is, that from my perspective, the Dems decided their position on whether or not I should have a right to exist is the difference between should I be shot in the street or should I instead be pushed into a situation where I die of circumstances as the result of policies. I know that on the ground, regardless of who won the presidency , there are enough fascists and anti-Queer psychos that I need to be ready for a fight, and it has been that way for a few years now 🤷🏻♀️
As a registered Green Party US voter, I'm not likely to vote Dem, at all; however, in '16 & '20, I did switch parties so I could vote in the Dem primaries for Bernie, I switched back afterward, but I will admit, the possibility the Dems earn my vote is there, just not likely.
Anyway, rambling now.
🙏🏼😊 Godspeed y'all.
I might not agree with your party politics (I’m a little more hopeful that the dems can be moved in the right direction, though I recognize it’s been trending the wrong way for a while now), but I’m wishing you luck and I’m sorry that you have to fight to be yourself. We’re largely left to fend for ourselves in the coming years, and we’ll have to depend on each other.
I don’t understand how you can look at the treatment Sarah McBride is receiving, and the stated policy of the Trump admin to cut off teen access to gender affirming care, or the stated policy of the Trump admin to stop Medicaid paying for gender affirming care, or the justices he has and will appoint on that issue and not see this as a black and white battle. Dems gave us Title IX. They lost, now that’s gone for the rest of my lifetime. Sorry. I just don’t get it. Best of luck to you too.
You’re getting exactly what you deserve buddy, rollback of any and all federal trans protections. I have 0 sympathy
Sam: this was one of your worst interviews in years. Why are you arguing with Mike? He’s 100% correct.
I'm surprised this got clipped and put up because I thought it was pretty off-putting. I said it before on the main video, so the short version: You both seem to agree on most of the same stuff, but the defensiveness and talking past each other was awkward. I know MR's chat was doing a purity spiral, and I'm sure Mike's chat was no help either. Just a mess.
I like that Sam allows Mike from PA to slap him around the head with reality. I think focusing on the material conditions and at least fighting to keep candidates honest is a more realistic way forward. Our votes for Kamala have all counted towards these Dems thinking they did nothing wrong. As much as I believe that being a black woman played a role, I’m under no illusions that calling that out will help move the needle, sadly. Democracy doesn’t work that way. Changing things that have no majority support yet because people are still very racist and sexist largely without admitting it, requires activism. Changing things we all agree are fucked up, basically most economic things, are exactly what democracy is for.
Sam was very deferential. A guy who preaches far left 5 times a week. But he still thinks if Hillary won, we’d have Roe. And there’s another shit show coming. But Mike seems to put himself over the disenfranchised.
@@DaveyTrue yeah. I wouldn’t say far left, tho. That doesn’t really exist in America. Only rarely on TH-cam and in Antifa. Sam is a social democrat or democratic socialist. Much like Bernie. That’s the centre left really. Biden is a staunch centre rightwinger, much like the Dems on average. America has an insane Overton window. It’s not representative of the global political scope. Anyway, I appreciate Sam all the same. I mean when I say I like that he appreciates to be challenged.
SEWER SOCIALISM
I understood that reference
I love Vowsh
DO YOU KNOW WHAT A TIFF IS?!?!?!?!!?!?
@@nitrowolf13 the “Tacoma wept” guy??
@@severalwolves Yeah, Mike from PA was trying to inform him and his audience about the impact local socialist organizing can have, referencing the famous Milwaukee sewer socialists that were elected in the late 19th and early 20th century, and Vaush mocked him for it.
It's a meme in that community and comes off as a bit anti-intellectual given the context,
Mike was right. Dunno why Sam is trying to debate lord
Why is Sam so upset with Mike? I didn't hear Mike say anything that was out of line with things that Sam and Emma say normally.
People didn't vote for Kamala because she didn't represent the things they needed from a president. Asking people to vote for someone who vowed to keep up the bombings in Gaza was too far for a lot of people. Her being weak on labor and social safety nets didn't help either.
She got a huge swing coming in to replace Biden, picking a progressive(ish) running mate but at the DNC and after it was a huge back peddle to appease not the dem base but centrist Republicans that are not going to vote for republican lite when they could just get a real republican.
She didn't campaign on the issues people would have responded to. It was Harris' and the old Biden campaign's fault for losing this, not voters.
Commentators like sam and organization need to tell dems if you don't do what we want on policies we wont vote for u. Not saying hold your nose and vote for the party that despise your policies positions because status quo management is all thats allowed
This comments section saying Mike was right gives me hope. We must not allow the Centrist Voltron to rise again. A new Bernie type must rise soon.
The lesser of two evil mentality is immoral
Sam seems so lost in the post-election analysis when the answers are essentially what Mike is saying. Why bother being a political commentator when you can't even do the most basic political analysis?
Sam’s point of contention here seems really off-base.
Why wont Sam let him speak and finish his thought process before bulldozing him I guess idk the lore between the two but I dont get the point of this segment
Sam was so annoying in this interview.
Sure seemed like Mike showed up for a debate style conversation and Sam didn't set the stage right. No ill will toward either. Seems like there was just a misalignment of expectations.
@@ElyonDominusnonsense, Sam was annoying. He usually isn't this way. No need to make excuses for him, he's a big boy.
Unc starting his boomer arc with this one
The man answered the question in 37 different ways 😂. The host was like no that's not what I'm looking for. Answer the question assuming that Biden was great and Kamala was great. How do you get more people to vote for them 😂. I also have a 100% voting record but since the Dems really wanna just destroy the left the last Dem prez I voted for was Hillary.
Sam being so weirdly antagonistic towards any of Mike's ideas
Mike is not very intelligent, so there’s that factor involved
@blgctyo632 Except he literally called the election everyone else got wrong, so there is that.
@ so he gets to brag to his equally ineffective “leftist” buddies. Again, to stretch out the titanic metaphor, it’s like bragging about the iceberg you saw coming and did nothing to try and avoid while you freeze and drown to death as the ship sinks. Real big accomplishment
My favorite thing about Mike is how he knows a little bit about a wide range of topics.
why do you say that?
I know it’s gotta be really hard for Sam to admit he was wrong but damn, Mike is an ally. Give him his W why do you disrespectfully kick him from the show?
Mike’s W was trump winning
PA voter here, my vote went to stein. Kamala wanted to court israeli votes instead of mine, it seems
Oh man, can't wait for Jill Stein to resolve the IP conflict. Oh wait ...
Your vote went to Trump. That is the way your system works.
I really wish this conversation went longer. It appears like Sam and Mike from PA offer two very different but common views of the Democratic party.
-) Sam tends toward lesser evil messaging which leads too a better short term outcome but slowly encourages the DNC to move further and further right.
-) Mike is focusing on the long game of convincing the DNC to do better for the people to get the votes out.
I've been wrestling with this ineffective bandaid vs. risky surgery question for three elections now. :(
The ineffective bandaid vs. risk surgery metaphor is very good. Which is why we should also remember that, the longer the wound stays open, the more ineffective the bandaids will be once infection sets in. And at that point we'll *need* the risky surgery. I'd have loved for America to receive its risky surgery in 2024. We tried bandaid, but it didn't work, so now the infection only deepens. What will we do in 2028? Will we go for the bandaid solution once again? Or will we be more daring?
Sam is such a democrat shill
He was basically saying there's nothing Harris could have done to win. WTF?
Go watch Jimmy Dore then, loser
The way Sam conducted this interview frustrated me. Took him ages to ask the clear question of "what is the role of leftwing commentators when the Democratic party is running a losing campaign?" He also seemed to insinuate a responsibility of left-wing commentators like Mike for the Democrats loss. It did seem like a lot of the Majority Reports coverage seemed more optimistic about Harris before the election in order to rally voters. I get that Harris isn't tuning in to leftwing media and was plenty coddled in this process and surrounded by the worst political strategists so I get what is wrong with Mike from PA's answer to that question. On the other hand, it can't be good to tame leftwing descent during an election or otherwise. As Sam has stated in other streams the bulk of non-voters are not watching Majority report before the election so why tame any criticism for the democratic party. If 'a couple' voters stay home because the criticism resonated with them then at least your platform still has power and hasn't been made a mouthpiece and apology factory. The role of these spaces should be to unapologetically provide amplification to the opinions of the broad left, so that the less informed or disillusioned liberal can find that someone was voicing concerns before the election.
When Nina Turner barely lost the first time, someone called in and said that he thought MR could have done more to help get her across the finish line. Long term viewers may remember that they barely covered her. Sam's retort was that his platform barely has any influence. But now his assessment of that is totally different. If anything, his platform is way more valuable to a House race than a whole Presidential election.
I'm a total simp for Sam and this interview is the least I've ever liked him. I just don't know why he's got an obvious chip on his shoulder when Mike is right. Isn't the point to bring on a guest and highlight their points and analysis, this felt like Sam on the defense.
@@Charles-qv2ro Huh?
@@Charles-qv2ro A lot of the left-leaning content creators have gotten more on edge and a bit more unhinged, and honestly I don't blame them. I remember the night before election day, I smoked a bunch and passed out for hours, woke up and saw the video titles and headlines and had no idea what to do with myself for the rest of the day. Absolutely bedside myself. Felt like I was in a dissociative fugue state from the whiplash of realizing just how utterly low-information and low-IQ so much of the electorate really were. Pakman was freaking out at the loss in subscribers he'd gotten when Trump's victory was announced, apparently this happened to numerous other creators as well, was likely just a lot of people being emotionally finished and just noping out lol.
Breath of fresh air
Make blue-colored MAGA hats (is MAGA copyright protected?). US politics has become a team sport.
What are you talking about? It always has been.
@alananimus9145
The older generations took a granular approach to politics MORE seriously. That is no longer the case. Americans vote now for teams over issues, personal and general, to the extent that they can perceive the difference between the two.
@@wasntanythingmuch Oh, bullshit. Pretty much everyone over 60 that I know has voted for the same party, straight ticket, since I was a kid in the 90s.
@@wasntanythingmuch You are actually just making things up looking at the past through rose colored glasses.
First its not that older generations took a more granular approach. Politics is was and always has been about propaganda. If you actually go back and track the data it contradicts everything you are saying. The mistake you are making is that you are ignoring the scale and operation of politics today and the way in which those two things have changed.
To give you an idea of what I am talking about the population of New York State in 1777 was 162,000 while the population of the City of New York is over 8,000,000. Or another example the population of Virginia was 500,000 (the largest state in the union at the time) while the population of Virginia beach is 451,000. In terms of scale there are numerous problems, not the least of which is that the system hasn't scaled. The second big problem is that both parties have failed to adapt to the changing media technologies.
Fixing this problem will require changes to the way the parties operate.
Let's address the "perceived difference". There are material differences between the two parties. Liberals have fundamentally American (enlightenment) values. Reactionaries don't.
@SuzakuX
Right. Now, it's not pretty much everyone. It is everyone, to the tune of 2 million plus votes for the red team.
That any Republican was competitive in 2024 was all the evidence we needed to know that we (the entire country) were in trouble.
Proper polling isn't going to correct that.
Really enjoyed this segment. Great discussions.
Harris's speech at the convention felt like I just got engaged to a great guy and saw a text pop up on his phone and i realized he was a Republican.
this wasnt that bad, maybe its cuz im only listening but as i see this was just a normal disagreement between two ppl who are in a hard position.
Mike got it right
Shame this segment was so short, such a nice and insightful guest
Lmao. Funny joke
@@alananimus9145 Destiny fans still chasing after Mike's jockstrap.
@@shadowwolfkano okay joker
"Just get organized in your community."
Okay, Matt. Will do.
I’m disappointed Sam cut Mike off. I think Mike had some more good insights to share. I love Sam, but Mike is right. It was not our job to help Kamala win. It was Kamalas job to earn our votes. She chose to embrace the donor class and the war machine. Not much we could do at that point.
You can tell that Mike gets yelled at a lot by liberals because he was very defensive when talking to Sam (with good reason!)
What drives me insane (and from what I gather, drives Mike insane too) is that we all saw that people playing chicken with Biden WORKED and that he had to step aside in an election year, only for Kamala Harris to just say haha yeah I'm also Biden! The obvious thing to do here was to double down with "yeah well Biden just got thrown out of the candidacy and so will you" but nothing happened!
Yeah except when playing chicken with Biden it was him staying in the race vs them replacing him with at least a few weeks to go , but playing chicken with Harris it was her staying in the race vs either replacing her last minute or her losing. The consequences were so much more dire, and bluffing (which Mike from PA seemed to be seriously proposing) is a losing strategy.
Imo Kamala needed more economic populism and a recognition that people were really hurting, less focusing on "small businesses" and appealing to middle class moderates. I mean look at Chappelle Roan, who reluctantly admitted that she would vote for Kamala but was very insistent on her policies not being good. That's the kind of energy I wish there was more of.
Oops! All Bidens! haha
My critical reply was blocked :)
People in the comments are overwhelmingly taking Mike's side, so can we all agree that this vote blue no matter who crap got us in this mess in the first place? I was one of the guys saying the same crap a couple years ago. I was wrong.
Jesus Sam...
Most countries which have a MUCH shorter campaign period have a parliamentary system with established party leaders.
Sam should’ve have asked him what a TIF was
Divorcelli brigading again?
@@shadowwolfkano Or fans of Vaush, the horse+loli porn enthusiast
@@shadowwolfkano wasn't that referance from vaush v mike convo
Mike's called out MRs 'vote blue no matter who' they've been doing since Biden was still running for re-election. Sam had his feelings hurt and just used the time to try to take shots at mike but made himself look silly without even making a point. 100% with Mike on this one.
whats a tiff?
So you think Mikes “don’t vote” method worked? Because I’m pretty sure Trump won Pennsylvania where he was actively encouraging people to not vote for Harris by a rather slim margin.
What the counter to: Scott Presler, Founder of Early Vote Action, innovative strategies the GOP is employing in Pennsylvania to mobilize voters, how the Republican Party is actively courting truckers, Amish voters, and hunters, the challenge of making sure newly-registered voters actually cast a vote..
Not the point at all but as a sailor (not the fancy kind) I must inform people that front and back of a boat is Bow and Stern
I used to be the "they have to earn my vote" guy but I sorta matured out of that
Firstly- If you're at the stage where you're asking about the efficacy of voting or not voting you're already at the stage of capture that you personally can't act as though you don't know that Kamala was at least marginally better.
Secondly- they are a duopoly and the Democrat party structure doesn't actually get that scuffed up from major losses, or even year on year losses. The Republican party lasted as a minority party during the DECADES spanning New Deal era. The structure will remain through every loss including most of their fundraising apparatuses and donors. You could basically make the case that the ONLY people that get hurt when Dems under a duopolisitic party system lose is the rest of US.
Finally- I don't blame orgs for talking about withholding votes, they represent large blocks of votes and they owe fealty firstly to their members. This is how power is built, challenged AND how it is exercised.
We vote blue and then we go back to doing the REAL work of building power that can ACTUALLY cow the party, not crying about how your threats don't work.
The Democratic Party itself is not a political party really, they are a collective of donors, lobbyists, consultants and ad buyers who make money whether Dems win or lose. People are sick of voting for these frauds and charlatans, you can’t keep voting endlessly asking nothing in return but expecting a different result! that’s the definition of insanity!
Sam seems pretty contentious
Illinois did not have a lot of push for voting for Harris because Illinois is not a swing state. All of the media talked about was the swing States and people did not feel like their vote mattered
This was contentious for no reason
I agree with Mike on policy which is all I care about.
12:00 i knew he was going to try to condescend. He was leading up to it the whole time. Good on mike for not letting sam walk all over him
One problem is that Dems lost 10% of their voters, another problem is that Republicans increased their turnout. Any solution needs to address BOTH problems and there is only ONE way to do that: Move left at any cost.
I like this guy. Have him on again.
Stop mass posting, put it all in one post.
Found Mike's alt
sewer socialism right here, hes gonna tell us what a tiff is
@@AlexandraSpeakstriggered pepela d?😂😂
This is actually a great conversation. Leftist politics are almost vigilante in the way that all refinement and organization is somewhat concealed. Two people who are qualified to advocate their position after a historic loss, a welcome sight in a time of scrambling and preparing for the end.
Also there was a Harris ad I voted on and never saw it again on TH-cam! She said she was going to go after price gougers and the reason I remembered is because of the survey afterwards, was I the only one who thought it was good?
I am curious the voters he says didn't vote do they vote typically.
Go take a vacation Sam, this isn't it. I mean, who wouldn't need it?