I always considered I would do something similar if I owned a used book store. Each year would usher in a new colors. All books acquired that year get that colored dot on the inside page.
Some 5 years (or so) on I could easily go through each shelf of books and find the ones that were not moving. These get one last chance (a year?) in a bargain bin before then they go to Goodwill or wherever.
Otherwise a used bookstore can remain in a "picked over" and cluttered state.
OP did say declining. By your own accounting there were 500 years across which a Roman too might have correctly observed that they were living in a declining Rome.
I'm not a politico, but IMHO Harris didn't have enough time to clarify her positions, and to address the points raised by her opposition.
Also, I wonder if the way she was chosen by the Democratic Party rubbed some people the wrong way enough for them to abstain from voting as a form of protest.
I interpreted the clause “two poor alternatives in a row” as Biden + Harris in the 2024 presidential election, and not Clinton + Harris, since Clinton was the 2016 nominee and Harris was the 2024 nominee after Biden dropped out, but the 2020 nominee was Biden, who did successfully defeat Trump that year.
In my opinion, Clinton’s and Harris’ losses had less to do with their gender and more to do with the candidates themselves:
1. Clinton was facing strong anti-establishment headwinds, and Clinton is a very establishment politician. Many people in 2016 were piping mad at establishment politicians. Trump was able to win the GOP nomination on a platform of “draining the swamp” and pursuing an aggressively right-wing agenda compared to more moderate Republicans, and Sanders, who also had an anti-establishment platform, proved to be a formidable opponent to Clinton. Despite Clinton’s loss, she was still able to win the popular vote. Perhaps had there been less anti-establishment sentiment, it would have been a Clinton vs Jeb Bush election, and I believe Clinton would have won that race.
2. Harris never won a presidential primary election. The only reason she ended up becoming the nominee is because Biden dropped out of the race after his disastrous debate performance against Trump, which occurred after the primaries. Since it was too late to have the voters decide on a replacement for Biden, the Democratic Party selected a replacement: Harris. She only had a few months to campaign, whereas Trump had virtually campaigned his entire time out of office.
3. Let’s not forget the Trump factor in 2024. During Biden’s entire presidency, Trump was able to consolidate his hold on the GOP and his voting base, and in some ways he even expanded his base. The conservative media was filled with defenses of January 6, and Trump was able to convince enough Americans that he and his supporters were persecuted in the aftermath of the 2020 election and January 6.
Look, after lurking through that submission about the Olympics a few days ago I get HN is divided on sex/gender identity, but I'm pretty sure that Joseph Biden is absolutely a man. "Cisgender", if you must.
I get it, anyone claiming "first video game" is going to start a bar brawl.
But pedantry aside, the also rans, even if they were previously rans, are not interesting. They did not spawn million-dollar companies, change the course of entertainment around the world.
Having huffed though, were I the author I would have anticipated these responses and probably gone with "first wildly successful commercial video game".
There was also the IBM Simon, the first smartphone, before the iPhone came about. History tends to remember the product that made the category matter, not the one that technically got there first.
I never saw the Odyssey—unless it was that one night when I saw something in the window of a closed shop that was the first pong-like video game I had ever seen.
You're probably right, the Odyssey is probably as good a contender as Pong. But somehow everyone knows "Pong" (and of course Atari).
I always considered I would do something similar if I owned a used book store. Each year would usher in a new colors. All books acquired that year get that colored dot on the inside page.
Some 5 years (or so) on I could easily go through each shelf of books and find the ones that were not moving. These get one last chance (a year?) in a bargain bin before then they go to Goodwill or wherever.
Otherwise a used bookstore can remain in a "picked over" and cluttered state.
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