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I dont think a lack of primaries was part of the problem.
Y’all had a choice between less-than-perfect & and straight up hatred. Your choice was to let hate reign. And now you’re gloating about it. So fuck you for that. And your quaint meme is the equivalent of smearing your own shit on the wall in a tepid little tantrum, complete with wrongly framed arguments. Go ahead and downvote me or write a pithy faux angry response. This is social media. It’s fucking meaningless. Voting had meaning. As do the mass deportations that are the cornerstone of Trump’s campaign promises. You petty fucks.
I agree with both you and the meme. You’re right that everyone should have sucked it up and voted for Kamala anyway. The meme is right because the Dems fucked this royally at several stages. Yes, American voters have made a decision that I massively disagree with… But you also have to recognise the vast political mistakes the party have made that led to this point.
I have no skin in this game, but if the two options are that clear, you absolutely can blame the voters.
At the end of the day, this rhetoric is trying to find absolution by delegating responsibility to a higher authority. Not we, the voters, are wrong, it’s the party elites, that forced us to vote fascism into power because the other offer wasn’t good enough. It’s not our fault, it’s theirs.
No, you don’t get a pass. Germany didn’t get a pass, either. And rightly so.
Germany absolutely got a pass though?
Voters are blameless, they don’t get to choose how the parties manipulate them into voting or what they do afterwards.
And that is a deeply deeply undemocratic thing to say.
You’re taking away all agency from the voters. In what you’re saying, voters are completely unable to understand anything and are led by elites against their own will. This is how Putin, Hitler, Xi think about their subjects.
There is manipulation, without any doubt, but every single voter in a free country, like the US, has the ability to see through that. They have all the information they need, they have the critical thinking abilities they need, but they choose not to use them.
Listen to interviews with Trumpets. They know, he’s lying. It’s clear to them. But they like the sentiment of his lies and that’s good enough for them. They are to blame. And whoever chose not to vote against open fascism is also to blame.
I’m German, and the “We didn’t know of anything!!!” quote of the willfully ignorant Germans 80 years ago is infamous here.
And that is a deeply deeply undemocratic thing to say.
Of course it is, America’s “democracy” is deliberately undemocratic.
You’re taking away all agency from the voters.
The parties did that from the moment they got to start picking their voters rather than the other way around.
In what you’re saying, voters are completely unable to understand anything and are led by elites against their own will. This is how Putin, Hitler, Xi think about their subjects.
You forgot to mention Trump in that list as well, and it doesn’t matter whether the voters understand anything or not. The people who get to make the choices did so long before the voters were brought in to legitimize the government.
There is manipulation, without any doubt, but every single voter in a free country, like the US, has the ability to see through that.
I wish I could still have that much faith in the intelligence of Americans, lol~.
I’m German, and the “We didn’t know of anything!!!” quote of the willfully ignorant Germans 80 years ago is infamous here.
I’m American, and the epitaph of the country I was born in will be “Thoughts and Prayers”.
Yeah. Fuck.
What mistakes specifically?
They pushed further right to try and court republican voters who want nothing to do with them, and alienated their own base.
Well, directly funding genocide is one that SO many people have been calling out as a mistake for over a year now.
Only on lemmy. I haven’t met anyone irl that has had anything to say about “funding genocide”.
According to the polls the voters were motivated by inflation and immigration the most.
Knowing the rdds’ history of trying to cheat elections, I’m pretty sure that every person screaming about sitting out the election because of Gaza is a paid troll. One candidate repeatedly called for a cease-fire, and the other told Benny to end it before he takes office. Only a moron would skip the vote because of that.
Yeah sorry. The facts are ppl voted for Trump over the fucking economy. Everyone out for themselves. The Israel/Jill Stein nonsense was a drop in the bucket.
Hope they’re all happy with the results. It’s gonna suck. Buckle up.
Thank you. Republicans did all these things and won. These posts look like a narrative being pushed to divide us further.
I voted for her. This meme is still correct.
No, no, but they ‘understand’ the choice of abstainers to embrace fascism.
It rings as hollow to me as the annual pancake-breakfast op-ed by city liberals before every fucking election about how rural Republicans have Legitimate Grievances™.
Nothing is changing. The voters won’t change. The DNC must be held accountable now.
I agree, and said so in 80, 84, 88, 2000, 2004, and 2016.
“If only they had done-“ still ignores two key points:
- Anyone can step up, so . . . where are these political masterminds the other 1400 days
- running a political party, or any organization with thousands of people in it, is hard as shit
The DNC silences anyone that isn’t a neocon establishment pick. They don’t let the people have a voice and just listen to their donors. They need to have real open primaries where they do not obstruct the outcome. Once they can find their maverick like Republicans found theirs maybe they’ll start winning decisively again.
The DNC silences anyone that isn’t a neocon establishment pick. They don’t let the people have a voice and just listen to their donors.
Name a single DNC meeting you’ve attended as an adult. Just one. Any one, any time. And no, college doesn’t count.
I think he’s referring to the time when the DNC legit fucked over Bernie Sanders. We all saw it, yet the D voters in the US sucked it up and voted for Biden, only to see the shit show known as election 2024.
If so, it’d have been better to put it how you did.
But Bernie got screwed in 2016, 2020 was a whole different planet.
Wasn’t 2020 the year when all of the primary candidates but Biden just decided to drop out before super Tuesday in order to not split the vote against Bernie? In my opinion it was worse than 2016.
So you think the 8-15 million potential voters so politically disengaged that they didn’t vote…
Spend their time hanging out on political forums?
The people you see online talking about it are politically engaged, which is why almost all of us voted D like every other election since we’ve been 18.
The ones you’re mad at will never see your insults.
And pointing out this years strategy was fucking stupid does still matter.
It mattered more years ago when we had plenty of time before the 2024 election, but it matters today for the 2028 election.too
Our country can’t afford the only options to be fascists and halfway fascists, we can’t keep moving to the right and expect anything to change
You just sound sad, to be honest. Take some time away from the internet, to heal, to organise, to prepare for the next fight. Don’t give yourself up to hate as well, as it will only eat you from the inside.
Hate has motivated me.
Maybe I’m not that smart, but shouldn’t we blame the fascists and the people who voted for the fascists for the impending fascism?
blame the whole fucking electorate. buncha fucking clowns pissed off because eggs cost $5 or some shit. the fuck is gonna happen when there’s tariffs on everything and no one working the fucking vegetable fields? what happens when the republicunts generate 8 trillion in new debt?
the fuck is gonna happen to the price of eggs?
Turnout didn’t change for Trump. In fact it was less than 2020. What happened was a repeat of 2016, this is the third time they put up an establishment candidate, when it’s been glaringly obvious Americans on the left and right are tired of that. The DNC is going to eat a lot of the blame this time–if not the majority, there are hardly any excuses this time.
They’d rather have Trump than a non establishment candidate they can’t control.
You got 3.5 years to change that. Go.
3 groups of eligible voters. Trump voters. Harris voters, and 3rd party/abstainers.
Yes, the first group to be upset with are trump voters. But largely they arent here, so discussion and memes focus on the other group, the abstainers.
The phrasing I’ve settled on personally is “the only choices were Harris, Trump, or Either.”
In a winner take all election, anything but a vote for the runner up is an endorsement of the winner.
But largely they arent here
Nah, they’re here.
Largely
This election has a remarkable ability to make people forget about the magic of Multiple Causes ™️
But it’s of course overwhelmingly the nazis’ fault, yes.
There’s plenty of blame to go around. One thing a politician needs to do is effectively sell themselves to the people who will be voting. Harris spent a lot of time selling herself to Republicans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/kamala-harris-progressives-democrats.html
The people who voted for the fascists were always going to vote for the fascists.
I have no need or desire to argue with you about it. There is no end to people smarter and more eloquent than I who are explaining the exact same thing in more detail than I could, from Bernie Sanders to Rolling Stone.
Harris spent a lot of time selling herself to Republicans.
I disagree completely, but who can say. She refused to kiss a woman on stage, so maybe you’re right.
You don’t really have to take my word for it, there have been articles about her courting Republicans for weeks. You are free to disagree, but she very explicitly did do so. The article I linked in the comment you replied to gives specific examples, but your search engine of choice will find numerous articles listing the ways in which she did so, often with video. It’s not like it’s some tinfoil hat thing, it was her very obvious strategy.
Blame them and the fake leftists trying to pretend democrats lost for not being left enough. Both are responsible for the impending fascism.
Who was running the Democratic side of the race? Centrist democrats, or leftists? Maybe try blaming the people who had any kind of power, rather than those of us who were pointing out all along what a shitty campaign it was from the outside.
You’re blaming the leftists for not controlling the Democratic Party?
I guess? I still don’t know what leftist means here. Liberal is apparently an insult, no one admits to being a tankie, communists arent tankies, socialists are not anarchists who also aren’t leftists, and progressives apparently support genocide and hate trans people, I’m told? Neoliberal is - ? Corporate Democrats I think, or possibly nazis depending on what country you’re talking about.
Or the genocide Joe/Harris or blue maga crowd.
Sure, but what’s your solution to that? What can Dems do differently next time that will stop the GOP cult from voting?
The answer is nothing, that’s why they are a cult. Nobody can break through to the entire group, just trying to get through to individual members is difficult enough. The time to try and prevent the cult from rising was two decades ago. Now that it’s here, our only option is to acknowledge its existence and fight it directly.
Blaming the GOP for running an effective campaign that motivated their cult to vote is how nobody learns anything. The Dems have to realize that they failed to run an effective campaign in opposition.
I just think finger pointing on the left is dumb, especially considering we don’t have proper breakdowns yet. Nobody has any good data, they’re just restating their opinions as the reason we lost.
The Democrats have tried the same shit for over a decade and you’re saying we don’t have enough data? People were calling out reasons before Harris had even lost and you think nobody has answers?
You lacking information doesn’t mean the information doesn’t exist.
You forget the last part of the trick:
Double down, blame everyone else, go even further to the right. Then collect an even bigger check from billionaires
The DNC doesn’t exist to get Dems in office, it’s only purpose these days is to make sure when the billionaires lose, they just win a little less then they would have.
At this point there’s no other explanation for why they’re so fucking bad at getting a Dem elected.
So when we burning it down? It’d be better to start now, not 3 years from now.
They’ll demand we start burning the system down just before the next election, don’t worry.
If anyone wants to make an actual difference, the big time to do so would actually be midterms. I’m pretty sure we’ll still have 2026 midterm elections, so working to replace pro-corporate Democrats in historically safe Dem districts would be the place to start. Checking in with any politically active leftist groups in your area is a good way to start finding candidates to rally around, and local protests are generally a great place to connect with leftist groups.
Well never have midterms. The reds won’t want to risk giving up any co trol.
“If I win, you’ll never have to vote again!”
No argument here!
“Unpopular”? Wasn’t everyone stoked when Harris took over? Genuine question.
People were stoked when she stepped in for Biden, but that was largely a result of Biden’s unpopularity. Then she spent her campaign not building any distance between herself and him
Bullshit. Not least of which was the alternative is horror.
This isn’t anything close to what went “wrong”.
Harris had very little to do with it. The DNC, I mean, yeah it’s on them, but that’s still not all of it.
People are so goddamned stupid and confused, we’re gonna murder the planet because of it. That’s Harris’ fault? Fuck no.
You don’t need to tell me the alternative is horror, but Harris absolutely deserves a lot of blame in botching this campaign. She ran a campaign that had a lot of parrelels to Hillary’s, and brought out both Clintons at the convention. If you lose to Trump running a centrist campaign and taking unpopular positions in important swing States in a virtual repeat of 2016 and even bring the same people that lost in 2016 to be your campaign spokespeople you shouldn’t get to throw up your hands and act like you couldn’t do better.
Sure, it was a total repeat. Bullshit.
I don’t give a good goddamn if she went entirely underground and said absolutely nothing for the entire five months – there is zero excuse for not getting out and voting for her. ZERO.
This hand-wavy “wasn’t progressive enough“ bullshit is exactly the same as the genocide Joe bullshit. Promoted by many of the same people who wanted her to lose and will now enjoy that lovely reality. They can shut the fuck up about it because they didn’t lift a goddamn finger to help then, and they’re just out for taking cheap shots now.
Absolutely unironically, this is also the New York Times’ position.
I don’t think I’ve been clear enough, I did vote for her. She shouldn’t have lost, and she absolutely should be criticized for pushing so hard for voters who are conservatives. I’d rather we look at the strategic decisions being made at the highest level than try and find a demographic that didn’t vote hard enough to throw under the bus. Kamala, her campaign, and the media all failed us. If you think posters on Lemmy threw the election by not being enthusiastic enough, wait until you hear about the power and platform that Kamala and the media squandered this election.
It’s been the same actors spreading F.U.D. while pretending to support Harris the whole time.
She built some distance. She moved to the right of Biden.
People were happy she’s at least coherent, but she didn’t exactly impress when she ran in the 2020 primaries, in fact, there were some stories after the fact about how badly that campaign was run.
She would have won primaries this time around, though. While conservatives primarily believe in the “right people for the job” (where “right people” here is defined by the social hierarchy), liberals believe in the “right way to do things”. And the “right way” here would have been to give the VP her free pass at the general election.
But it’s so clear that this campaign was run badly, too. They had all of the momentum coming out of the summer, and it just evaporated in September. You could feel it just as surely as you could feel the seasons change. It’s still blowing my mind how they managed to drown themselves.
There’s no telling who would’ve won a competitive primary, but the process would’ve allowed the eventual winner to distance themselves from Biden on the right things, have a program that would’ve actually appealed to voters, and picked their own team to run the campaign, and there would be buy-in from the Democratic base, instead of feeling like Harris was imposed on them.
I don’t think she’s a bad candidate, but she made the mistake of listening to the wrong people that told her to run to the right and cosy up to millionaires, instead of building on the work Biden had done with unions and anti-trust, which was reasonably good for a neoliberal Democrat.
I don’t think she would have won a primary at all. I mean let’s say that some of the names of potential candidates had run in a primary against her. Does she beat Mark Kelly? Does she beat Gavin Newsom?Buttigieg? Klobuchar? Maybe the last two, although I certainly wouldn’t have voted for her over either of them. Newsom though? There’s no doubt in my mind that he would have beaten her.
The fucking primaries were over. What makes anyone think the states would just be happy to go through the hassle and expense of another primary election?
What does that have to do with anything? The other person said she would have won a primary if we had one. If you don’t want to accept the premise of the question why respond at all?
Because it’s a ridiculous premise. There was never going to be a second primary. It’s not worth taking into consideration.
Well go argue with him then.
Harris was an improvement over Biden, she wasn’t Bernie or AOC, but miles ahead of Trump. I’d take Biden at this point, hell Biden with dementia would be better than what we got.
Lmao I voted Kamala Harris but she fucking did worse than Hillary. Hillary at least won the popular vote.
“Stoked” is definitely a word. “Mildly relieved but a little pissed” is a more accurate phrase.
in the same way one is stoked to find out it’s herpes and not full-blown aids, yes.
Stoked, lol. Relieved is more like it. Biden and Kamala were a fucking embarrassment for Democrats. The DNC annointed a geriatric and a wildly unpopular VP for 2020. It’s a fucking miracle they won.
Then she started up with the “drill, baby, drill!” and the “build the wall!” and the “genocide is fine”…
The fuck
Speaking only for myself - sure - until she abandoned all progressive stances and sprinted for the right, then allowed a Cheney (and other Republicans) to speak at the DNC while also refusing to give even a minute of podium time to anyone with a pro-Palestine viewpoint.
She turned right the moment she announced the candidacy and just kept moving further and further, as if somehow 1) All D votes were in the bag so it didn’t matter if they were pissed and also 2) R was going to give any D candidate the time of day.
Didn’t work out so well. It turns out that trying to become the watered down version of your opponent doesn’t win a lot of good favor among the folks who put you in that position in the first place.
100% Neoliberalism will always move to the right and normalize fascist ideology over improving the livelyhood of the working class. Progressive policies are popular with Republican voters too, that’s the correct way to fracture the Republican base into voting Democrat.
Conceding to right-wing policies and disinformation, like on immigration, only alienates more of the Democratic base while bolstering Republican voters support for the Republican party.
Polls on campaign messaging
How to Win a Swing Voter in Seven Days
“The View” Alternate Universe: Break From Biden in Interviews, Play the Hits in Ads
Polls on policy
How Trump and Harris Voters See America’s Role in the World
Majority of Americans support progressive policies such as higher minimum wage, free college
Democrats should run on the popular progressive ideas, but not the unpopular ones
Here Are 7 ‘Left Wing’ Ideas (Almost) All Americans Can Get Behind
Finding common ground: 109 national policy proposals with bipartisan support
Progressive Policies Are Popular Policies
Tim Walz’s Progressive Policies Popular With Republicans in Swing States
Keep on Stalin?
Jesus fucking christ.
Are you upset about an edgy pun for an online username or something?
I’m anti-authoritian, anti-capitalist, and leftist. I’m critical of all Colonialism and Imperialism, regardless of what country is the perpetrator. That goes for Russia, China, America, and every other country. I will always be anti-war and anti-genocide. I will also always advocate for policies that improve the material conditions of everyone. The Democratic Campaign tacking to the right, instead of popular progressive policies, at the expense of alienating their own base is by far the major reason for Harris losing this election. Their terrible campaign strategy is responsible for the loss of millions in turnout.
Yeah yeah, I got it.
People were searching the day before the election to see if Biden was still in the race. Some people were stoked, far more stupid.
She was deeply unpopular before she took over. Even her own staff hated her.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article289792134.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290
I kept pointing this out before she was selected, but naturally nobody listened.
The people going absolutely ballistic over pointing out the flaws of the Harris campaign are wild. If seeing someone criticize a politician makes you that upset, in all sincerity, log off. If you can’t differentiate criticizing a politician, campaign, and party from supporting their opponent, you have been sucked into an anxiety/rage spiral and you’re helping nobody, especially yourself.
There is nothing useful in screaming at your allies because you don’t like seeing the post-mortem. And make no mistake, anyone who didn’t vote Trump is either your ally or someone you need to make your ally. Some Trump voters are even going to need to be your allies when they see and regret what they did.
Aye.
People are upset, I get that, that’s perfectly fine to acknowledge one’s emotions.
Now what?
The next step is reflecting on the failure.That’s how you learn from errors, not just in elections, but literally anything. It’s certainly more useful than pretending everything was perfect and there’s nothing that could’ve went differently, that’s just defeatism.
Criticizing and reflecting to be more self-aware of flaws and strengths, to grow.Then you can make new goals and strategies for the future and kick future’s butt.
Right, right. We’re all terminally online and need to touch grass. In addition to being genociders, transphobes, colonialists, and corporate shills. I read that in the GRU manual too.
Anyone who isn’t here to help can shut up and get out of the way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This was a race between a B student and an orangutan throwing feces everywhere. We’re spending all our time talking about the questions the B student got wrong, but in the meantime we voted the orangutan as valedictorian and all he did was smear shit on the test and try to hump the microphone stand.
No her mistakes aren’t the problem. The problem is we’re willing to elect a monkey to shit on everything and blame an average decent person for losing.
…
Fuck…
A class of kids would TOTALLY elect a monkey… We’re just old high schoolers… We’re so fucked…
Well that’s the problem, innit? The orange shit heap will get a good chunk of votes from the idiots no matter what. So the other candidate needs to be an A grade to attract the rest of the votes, otherwise the pile of feces will win. At this point it’s obvious the diarrhea puddle can do whatever he wants and still get his share of votes, so asking why he can do and say whatever and get away with it is pointless.
Well, this was their last opportunity.
“When I win, you’ll never have to vote again!”
I don’t really believe this. Trump says a lot of stupid things to stay in the headlines, it makes his followers think the media is against him and nothing they say is true. Remember when he wanted to lock her up? Or build the wall.
In saying that, I also have to say this is one of the biggest things I wouldn’t want to be wrong about.
Every time a Democrat loses, blue voters turn on each other and say that a lack of X or a policy change to Y would have won over the fence sitters in state Z. It’s exhausting folks.
The party is driven by an oligarchy too, with multimillionaires as candidates and even a D governor who is a billionaire. Now that voting is done, please see the underlying argument for “both sides” - it isn’t their policy but the make up of the organization. D and R will never be progressive or interested in the issues affecting the broad majority of folks. Dems use the worst consultants and listen to “moderates” more than their dedicated but inactive voters. They are trying too hard to include Rs that don’t want them and it’s a bad look. The desperation undercuts any message about hope.
It means the money is being spent in many wrong places for voters who will never be helpful. it means that even though D campaigns raised more money, it was frivolously wasted.
The Democrats need Gen Z to take over the party and push for a culture shift, seeking optimistic policies that generate actual hope. Institutional inertia is killing any hope the left can find. Remember when Michael Bloomberg spent $500 million to derail Bernie’s campaign trail momentum which allowed Biden to win New Hampshire and become the presumptive nominee even though he had far fewer wins than Bernie? There are bad actors running things for the Dems and they are steering the party into ineffective effort each election.
While it is true that voters absolutely should have turned out to vote for not-hitler over hitler, there are lessons that the dnc can learn from this. for example trump reaches normal, non-political people since conservatives go on talk shows like rogan and others and shows the “human” side of him. im not saying going on rogan would have saved the campaign, but democrats dont do any non-political talk shows until just before the election if they do any at all. As the surge in “did biden drop out” searches indicated, the electorate has no idea what the fuck is going on. if democrats want to reach the common person, they should go where the common person is. the undecided voters dont understand policy, so they vote for who they like more.
I’ve been thinking about “don’t hold primaries” since reading this
Last part is missing lose 3 state trifectas that went purple.
Cost PA a Senate seat too.
With a republican majority Supreme Court where Trump can appoint more younger justices who could keep their positions past 2060.
Hatred and racism didn’t win because the other party had an non-perfect policy.
Hatred and racism won because not enough people cared to vote against it.
You’re fucking complicit. And when you’re complicit with fascism, you’re also a fascist.
You’re fucking complicit.
No my dude, I voted for her. I don’t agree with the decision from those who didn’t vote or voted elsewhere.
But I understand. /ChrisRock
That sentiment might be the one that pisses me off the most.
I wanted her to win. I voted for her myself.
I also saw how her campaign was fucking up constantly. Neutering Walz, embracing early 00s Republicans from Cheney to Frum, ceding all argument on immigration to the fascists…
The list goes on and on.
The Democrats had a billion dollars and all the goodwill in JULY. I’m so mad at them. The party needs to burn and something else needs to be rebuilt in its place.
I am not interested in voting for the candidate of choice of Liz Cheney, Richard Spencer, and the Lincoln Project.
It turns out to be difficult to do.
That is if you’re not a demented sociopath backed by an armada of billionaire propagandists.
But sure, letting Liz Cheney support her was bad too. I guess.
If you couldn’t see that Harris would be near-infinitely better than Trump, you might be the problem
Sorry, I forgot I have to preface every criticism with “I voted for Harris, but”
So did everyone else. Since we can’t make that a requirement, I guess we’ll just have to give them the benefit of the- heyyyyyyyy waitaminit!
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It’s hard to admit the russians tricked you into enabling fascism by convincing you no choice is good enough.
Not me, Sir, I voted for her despite all my complaints.
