Uncommitted movement leader reminds senile Democrats why they lost.

During negotiations with the DNC and the Harris campaign, we were repeatedly told by interlocutors that Harris couldn’t meet any of our basic requests (a policy shift from Biden, a Palestinian speaker at the DNC, a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel, or even a meeting with Michigan families who lost loved ones to Israeli bombs) because of AIPAC-aligned politicians like Fetterman, who might take to TV, rile up suburban white and Jewish voters, and fracture the party’s coalition in a swing state.

That political calculus alienated a key voting bloc, although likely not large enough to have shifted the ultimate election outcomes, that should be part of a durable Democratic majority. But few will ever be held accountable for that choice.

A Fetterman staffer condemning Uncommitted for not advocating for Palestinians 'the right way' is like an arsonist scolding the fire department for using the wrong hose.

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77 comments

From a pure political science perspective, if the Democrats were a real party they would either purge themselves of Zionists or purge themselves of anti-Zionists. This coalition is objectively impossible to sustain and will make them lose any time Israel is bombing.
- It is starting to come out that the Democrats blatantly censored voter concerns for the genocide during the campaign. And lied about them not existing.
  A Harris organizer who worked on youth turnout said that senior campaign officials gave them an order: When they sent out mass volunteer or fundraising emails and people replied by asking about Gaza, they were told to mark it as “no response.” The result? They seldom ended up engaging with voters on that issue.
  https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/uncommitted-leaders-stand-2024-strategy-trump-floats-gaza-takeover-rcna190782

honestly disgusted by how meager and purely symbolic the demands made by the uncommitted movement were
as if getting every single thing on that list would have spared a single life
- All they demanded was basically a lip service and they didn't get even that
  
  They had a foolish belief in the humanity of their oppressors. That being asked to look their victims in the face would give them pause.

Voting isn't some bargain between a thousand voting groups and one candidate. Let's break it down.
THERE ARE TWO CANDIDATES
YOU PICK THE BEST CANDIDATE
Note that 'best' isn't 'great'; nor is it 'good', 'awesome', etc. And, while there are more candidates, sometimes only two have a chance (Hi Ross Perot!). So it's a binary choice. There has to be someone in office. You pick the least-worse one.
The unmentioned third option is "If you vote third party or don't vote at all, you accept the consequences of a worst-case scenario".
I'm really thinking America didn't educate people on 'this or that'.
- No you can force a political party to abide by your wishes by showing you are willing to not vote for them.
  What lesson can the Democratic party learn from this?
- Angsty, disaffected, adolescent me in the 1990's believed that repeated rounds of "least-worst" would lead to, well, it's here. He wasn't proved wrong.
  Voting isn’t some bargain between a thousand voting groups and one candidate.
  That's literally what it was intended to be. Political party conventions once were real, high-stakes meetings to hash out a platform that appealed to as many interests as possible.
- The elections over champ, you can stop screeching the same thing over and over again. Unless you're already gearing up to lose the next election too.
- Sounds like US democracy with the US voting system is deeply flawed and the only moral action is to no longer engage with it. Otherwise you are expected to choose between different approaches to an ongoing genocide.

It is truly sad that the Democratic Party has become this incompetent.
- I don't think it's incompetence. After-all they have successful defended the corporate duopoly for at least 50 years, probably longer. Sure there are some upstarts, but the machinations of the party ensure those people never get to actually threaten the status quo. Plus they make good sound-bytes so that the democrats can talk about how they are "fighting," in unspecific ways.
- I mean, it kinda has been for a while.
- I wouldn't think it'd take much to dunk on the current republican party.

Cool that it’s the DNC’s fault. Sucks that anyone who was working towards Palestinian liberation now has to shift their attention to not getting jailed or deported.
I heard the organizers are expanding their strategy to other issues, like protesting capitalism by refusing to buy food or stopping an oil pipeline by refusing to drive to the blockade.
They were quoted as saying “These failures are already guaranteed to be someone else’s fault, and that’s the most important part.”
- Ask the campus protestors arrested during the Biden administration about their felony charges and then tell me about how activists have to worry about being jailed now.
- Cool that people making a principled stand to engage with a political party to encourage a change in policy are at fault for the leaders of that political party refusing to change policy, despite being told at multiple levels, for a multitude of reasons, including electorally, why that policy was bad.
  Liberals hate democracy. Expecting to engage with a political party to affect change? Ew, just tick the box with a D next to it regardless of what they do or say. Don't you know trying to engage with a party that doesn't listen to its base or membership might lead to bad PR and might hurt them in an election? How could you be so inconsiderate? Your role is just to sit down and do nothing and accept whatever they say is true on MSNBC.
  
  Sarcastic tone, but I was telling the truth there: It is the DNC's fault. The policy and the defeat. And that fact is real cool for anyone who thinks that's the important part.
  I'm not mad about Uncommitted's principles, and I don't pin any moral blame on them. But I do think they have shitty tactics. This is a war. The RNC and DNC vs. us. If you have any chance to weaken your opponent, you take it. The Dems will never be your ally, so stop expecting them to.

Trump won but you're still arguing about Harris. Weird as fuck. Do you have anything relevant to say? Picking on the democrats is so last election.
- "Damn, you're all still talking about that Hitler guy? That was decades ago!"
- Then have the Democrats shut up about voting Democrat whenever someone posts about Palestine. Democrats do not get to start a blame war and then pretend to be the victim
  
  The democrats lost, the war is over, im australian but you americans had better get it together fast because your opposition is killing you. Stop arguing about the past and fight for the future. Seriously. The best i can hope for right now is that the USA goes so badly wrong that even your average bogan Aussie votes left. Kamala is such old news, focusing on her is a distraction that seems designed to let the broligarchy slide.

Who gives a fuck? Stop trying to sew division and relitigate an election that ended three months ago. Fuck the politics of division. The left needs unity now. Fuck the dividers.
- Why should the left work with liberals, who propped up the genocide and refused to work with the Left?
- People who support genocidal democrats aren’t the left nor were they ever the left. They’re milquetoast liberals happy that at least trump is protecting their 401ks.
- The dividers are Democrats trying to blame their loss on people who refused to support their genocide.
  They want to learn nothing from the election and have turned their propaganda to justify their loss into overdrive.
  
  What does the paragraph right below the one with a red square around it say
- The left might need a unity, but the Democrats are not a part of that or any left.

Well good thing trump is president now eh? Right? RIGHT???
Edit:
I'm remembering now why I blocked the hexbear instance 😂
- In your mind, what are acceptable ways to pressure a political party that is actively carrying out genocide?
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
- If the Democrats didn't want this outcome then they should have run a better campaign. That's the point of this. Harris was asked at one point how her policy towards Palestine would differ from Biden's and her response was she couldn't think of anything.
  Not to mention Harris embraced the 2016 Trump border wall proposal and openly campaigned with the endorsement of Liz Cheney. Her most disgusting moment to me was when asked if trans people should have access to gender affirming care, in the context of individual states banning trans healthcare, her response was "I believe we should follow the law."
  Yeah great campaign. Truly a person who wanted to win
  
  Goddamn, that question was, like, babytown frolics! Even I, as a non-career-politician, know the answer which stays true to your principles (insert worried Padme face) without giving the opposition a sound bite would have been, "I believe that all decisions about appropriate treatment should be left up to the doctor and patient."
- Unironically yes, considering that after 15 months of Biden letting the war go on a ceasefire came when Trump took power.
  If the Democrats were really passionate about winning, maybe they should have listened to their voter base for once, instead of alienating them. The Dems blame everybody but themselves for their loss and it's disgusting.
  
  Genuinely. At least so far, Trump is the lesser evil when it comes to Gaza. That could certainly change, he talks like he plans on changing that, but so far Biden did 15 months of genocide and Trump enforced a ceasefire on day 0

a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel
Quoting @jordanlund@lemmy.world again:
Harris stated multiple times that she wanted a cease fire and a two state solution. Polar opposite of Trumps “sweep them out and take over.”
July:
https://www.the-independent.com/tv/news/kamala-harris-says-two-state-solution-is-the-only-path-after-meeting-with-netanyahu-b2586161.html
August:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/23/politics/gaza-israel-harris-convention-speech/index.html
September:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-harris-says-two-state-solution-end-of-israel-hamas-war-is-crucial
October:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/harris-dodges-direct-question-on-palestinian-deaths-calls-for-2-state-solution-during-cnn-town-hall/3372480
Every month from becoming the nominee until the election: cease fire, hostage release, two state solution.
These are not genocidal statements.
Trump?
https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-israel-pr-hugh-hewitt-21faee332d95fec99652c112fbdcd35d
“But they’ve got to finish what they started, and they’ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.”
She did, but you didn't listen.
- As ever, blueMAGA shitlibs care more about what politicians say than what they actually do. Because decorum is more important than the lives of hundreds of thousands of foreigners.
- Actions speak louder than words.
  The only difference between the republicans and democrats, is that one is better at lying.
- The White House routinely makes mutually exclusive statements about its desire to “end the war,” while saying Hamas could “have no role in postwar Gaza.” Yet no mainstream reporter, editor, or opinion writer bothers to reconcile this contradiction. This calculated vagueness is central to why Israel is permitted to continue bombing and killing at will for an indefinite amount of time. How can US officials simultaneously push for an “immediate, lasting ceasefire” while, at the same time, saying the other warring party must be completely defeated before they can support a lasting ceasefire?
  This isn’t a call for a ceasefire—it’s a call for, in Netanyahu’s phrasing, “total victory.” The pairing of these two mutually exclusive phrases can only mean one thing: In common usage from the White House and its friendly media, “pushing for a ceasefire” means “continuing to bomb and besiege Gaza while reiterating terms of surrender.”
  One linguistic trick that permitted this contradiction to go unchallenged is the sleight-of-hand in what the White House means by “ceasefire.” In some contexts, it means the term as it has been used by the Israelis, namely by Netanyahu: a temporary pause in fighting to facilitate hostage exchanges, followed by a continuation of the military campaign whose goal, ostensibly, is to “eliminate Hamas.” But this is explicitly not an effort to “end the war” as Netanyahu made clear repeatedly throughout the conflict.
  The White House’s demand to “end the war,” increasingly popular since the summer of 2024, is just a reiteration of surrender terms. The State Department banned its staff from even using the word “ceasefire” for the first few months of the conflict. But in late February 2024, on the eve of a Michigan primary that was embarrassing then-candidate Biden, the White House, as we noted in The Nation at the time, pivoted to embracing the term. But the Biden administration changed its definition to mean (1) hostage negotiations, but with a firm commitment to continue the “war” once Israeli hostages were freed, and (2) a reiteration of surrender demands, sometimes using both definitions simultaneously.
  The concepts of “ceasefire” and “push to the end the war” became, like the “peace process,” a ill-defined, open-ended process for process’s sake that US officials could point to in order to frame themselves not as participants in an brutal, largely one-sided siege and bombing campaign but a third party desperately trying—but perpetually failing—to achieve “peace.”
  How the US Media Helped the Biden Administration Distance Itself From the Horrors of Gaza | White House–curated stories of performative outrage and feigned helplessness provided cover for an administration arming death on an industrial scale.
  Several attendees at the November meeting — officials who help lead the State Department’s efforts to promote racial equity, religious freedom and other high-minded principles of democracy — said the United States’ international credibility had been severely damaged by Biden’s unstinting support of Israel. If there was ever a time to hold Israel accountable, one ambassador at the meeting told Tom Sullivan, the State Department’s counselor and a senior policy adviser to Blinken, it was now.
  But the decision had already been made. Sullivan said the deadline would likely pass without action and Biden would continue sending shipments of bombs uninterrupted, according to two people who were in the meeting.
  Those in the room deflated. “Don’t our law, policy and morals demand it?” an attendee told me later, reflecting on the decision to once again capitulate. “What is the rationale of this approach? There is no explanation they can articulate.”
  Soon after, when the 30-day deadline was up, Blinken made it official and said that Israelis had begun implementing most of the steps he had laid out in his letter — all thanks to the pressure the U.S. had applied.
  That choice was immediately called into question. On Nov. 14, a U.N. committee said that Israel’s methods in Gaza, including its use of starvation as a weapon, was “consistent with genocide.” Amnesty International went further and concluded a genocide was underway. The International Criminal Court also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister for the war crime of deliberately starving civilians, among other allegations. (The U.S. and Israeli governments have rejected the genocide determination as well as the warrants.)
  A Year of Empty Threats and a “Smokescreen” Policy: How the State Department Let Israel Get Away With Horrors in Gaza
  Absolutely wild the apologia for Democrats doing genocide you guys will do to avoid holding Democratic politicians and campaigners to account for their own decisions on policy and how they campaign.
- Her words are meaningless when her actions are genocide
  
  I, too, hated when President Harris committed genocide. Oh wait
- The fact that you read "she called for a two state solution" as anything but her endorsing genocide makes you appear to be a fucking moron.
  This assessment of you is only reinforced by one of your links literally saying "She dodged the question on Palestinian deaths" in its URL
  Of course I don't really think you're an idiot. I think you're a nazi. You don't give a flying fuck except for the fact that refusing to back down on this subject cost you the election. And because you're nothing but a fucking nazi, you will literally say fucking anything. You will insist that the person who refused to budge an inch from Biden's "zero conditions for unlimited support" position was actually the opposite. You're only upset that people got upset at you. You are a nazi.
- Didn't the Biden administration vote against the two state solution at the UN after claiming to support it?
  
  but but but the Russians and Chinese vetoed the usa ceasefire! (that was ceasefire in name only and usa had vetoed everyone put forward before and almost every after)
- Are you lost?
- So Harris said the same thing as Biden said... while Biden and Harris were complicit in genocide. And this changes anything about the post... How exactly?
  Did Harris say no bombs? Did Harris draw red lines? Did Harris to concede any of the demands in the post you are trying to strawman?
  
  stop moving the goalposts. The subject was a statement distinguishing herself from Trump on Israel
- She was calling for a ceasefire for at least 6 months. As VP.
  And the money and the weapons kept flowing.
  So you can see the problem .

77 comments