Harris ran a perfect campaign. If she was running as a (pre-Trump) republican. However, we know that:
- She isn't a Republican
- She banked on pulling in republican voters, instead of rallying her base
- Republicans will almost always vote for the R instead of policy
- She backed off of every single progressive idea she started with
- She trotted out establishment Democrats to lecture the electorate instead of inspire them
- Tlaib pulled twice the numbers as Harris as the only anti-genocide Palestinian in Congress
It's Harris and the Democrats. Should people have voted? Yes. Is it understandable why people didn't want to vote for the person telling them that she'll be a good republican and support a genocide? Also yes.
Way more than two options here.
I voted for Harris, and I encouraged others to as well. And I think the Democratic leadership royally fucked up here.
The polls kinda sucked in the end, and I think one reason is that folks were embarrassed to admit they were voting for Trump. That to me says that they voted for him not because he's a racist sexist pig, but in spite of this.
But the polls did afaik get that the economy was hugely important. And the Democrats failed here both in current policy (groceries got more expensive over the course of Biden's term), and in proposed policy messaging. No one cares about home buyer credits if you can't afford groceries. (And no, I don't think Trump has a plan to lower prices aside from shady back room deals that will ultimately cost us big --- but voters want something new...)
To be clear, I voted for Biden, I voted for Harris, and I'm pretty scared about the future. But the Democrats need to learn something from this or it's same story in four years. Maybe the lesson is "we can't count on the left in this country to vote for us by default," and maybe the lesson is, "for the love of God raise hell if the cost of living goes up, and do it in a way that appeals to the lowest common denominator."
Two things can be true at once.
Everyone who didn't vote, voted third party or for Trump, or encouraged others to do the same, supported fascism coming into power in this country.
Harris failed her country when it needed her, specifically, most; and the Dem leadership in general failed the country grotesquely in the same manner.
The left: Infighting is why Kamala lost!
Also the left: In this essay I will detail every faction of the left that is guilty of infighting, and why they are wrong...
False choice fallacy. Both can be the problem.
Yeah its fucking both, duh.
There’s a perverse bunch here on lemmy that are blaming the Democrat Party for their failure to vote. They justify it by essentially saying that because they weren’t catered to (being further left than centrist platform Harris ran) that it’s the democrat’s fault we got trump. That’s some republican-level victim shit. “We did the opposite of what we should and things didn’t get better!”
No, motherfucker, you sat this one out in a battleground state so we got a fascist and that’s better than Harris? WTF kind of logic is that?
This meme makes me so mad. It completely misses the point that the government is supposed to be working for us. They are here to make our lives better from our collective power. The right to rule is derived from the will of the people. You are misunderstanding how government is supposed to function on an essential level.
Making it out to be the voters fault because we didn't like the shit sandwich that the were serving us is absolutely incorrect. Harris had zero progressive ideas in her platform. She ran on basically the same platform as the GOP.
As soon as you start putting the onus on the voter, you are putting our politicians up as the aristocracy. You make them into our ruling class. This is incorrect. They are supposed to execute the will of the people.
I'm just absolutely shocked that so many people are acting like the voters failed, when the DNC has done this to us so many times lately.
No, it's the democrats fault!
It's so fun to blame one single group for a national failure. It's fun, but it just doesn't make any sense.
The sad thing is that we all predicted this blame game would occur. And you can use almost the same words and almost the same reasons and blame a different group, and it sounds about as convincing.
I'm actually getting a bit upset at these idealists. They have this childish notion that democracy works in this tit for tat way where politicians "earn" your vote by instating policies that benefit you and that you believe in. Like grow the fuck up already.
Keep yelling at those who are so tuned out that they can't care enough to give a fuck about who's running the country. Keep making excuses for the Democrats' decade of mediocre complacency. I'm sure things will change.
So if after his term ends Trump doesn't remain in power, will you just shoot yourself? Or how do you plan to prevent people from having to listen to your half-assed doomer opinions?
Yeah, he's a fucking idiot and he never should've won. Says a lot about the democratic party that they got beaten by a fucking idiot.
Maybe in the future own your mistakes instead of fearmongering, idk, just a thought.
What is important is the next steps. It is obvious that the left will not win unless we are unified. Go volunteer, use these next four years to try to create the Democratic party you want to see. Make them reliant on your help and use that to push the items you are passionate about. Or you can sit on the outside and watch this country fall while complaining that the people who are actually doing something aren't doing enough.
Voter turnout was the second highest since women got the right to vote. Voters came out and narrowly voted for Trump in seven key states. Many didn't like him, but didn't believe that the Dems actually cared about their issues. And while Trump is crass and wish he were nicer, at least life during his presidency wasn't bad for them.
This was the most important election in our life time and the best the Democrats could do was pick the next person in line.
Voters voted a fascist ‘as a punishment’ knowing full well what was going to happen?
That’s akin to blaming your significant other for your decision to cheat on them.
Dear voters who pulled this shit: Go get some big pants on and wear some blame. While you’re at it grow the fuck up.
It is both.
A LOT of the US voters want exactly what Trump is saying. 77 million adults heard all of his fascist rants, and said "That's my guy!" Also the majority of people who voted Biden, then sat out this one, are older, white, men.
The DNC also aren't messaging to the people who don't like the GOP, they are messaging towards those who are statistically most likely to have voted for them in the past, and are most likely to vote in general. They also are watching what the GOP is saying, seeing the rabid fervor their bigotry elicits, and work elements of that into their messaging, because it's working for the GOP, thus it's working.
The whole "Democrats are to blame" thing just seems like a continuation of the media bullshit that we saw through the entire campaign.
Harris was expected to be perfect, but Trump got a pass from the media because everyone already knew he was a shit show and was numb to it. 70+ million people voted for him, even after seeing exactly what he was like for four years and even after he ran an even nastier campaign than last time.
Am I the only one calling bullshit? Trump voters are to blame for Trump, first and foremost. Could the DNC have done better? Sure, but the armchair generals on Lemmy are making it sound like they have all the answers and if they were in charge at the DNC, surely they would have been able to run a campaign that could have beaten Trump.
Clearly it's not that easy folks, Trump and the current anti-facts movement in the US are a huge problem that does not have an easy solution.
Oh wait, it did... the solution was to unite behind an imperfect candidate like we did in 2020, this time with a younger, better spoken and arguably more exciting candidate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsAVupx6gOI
The democrats are now throwing trans people under the bus!
Yeah, it's advised to vote for the lesser evil, unless you're literally choosing between Mussolini and Hitler, but you need to provide even more than being better on social issues than Trump. I cannot vote in the US, but saw many of those who could begging the democrats to put a weapons trade embargo on Israel. They were already being called "too antisemitic" even by dumping all the weapons into Israel anyways.
It's amazing how we get convinced to fight each other. The reason the orange felon got elected is that people voted for him. They are at fault that he got elected. Stop bickering amongst each other and call out those who would incite you to do so!
"A jewish black trans woman would have won Alabama in a landslide, but only if she was a really outspoken socialist" - Half of Lemmy users
I think a lot of left-oriented people are in denial that Trump made no secret of who he was the past eight years, and Americans got exactly what a majority of them legitimately wanted. Trump voters know he is a bigot and that is why they chose him. There is no degree of populist social welfare rhetoric Kamala or the Democrats could have said that would have moved the needle when for most voters, electing a bigot was the priority over all other issues.
The tactic of shaming and blaming voters LOST. I understand where you're coming from but stop doing LOSER shit if you don't want to keep LOSING
