Until the next election is cancelled, I will be working under the assumption that it will happen. Fuck that defeatist crap.

When it comes to this issue, you can't really say that Trump is that much worse. Either way Gaza and the West Bank were heading to oblivion. Rhetoric aside, there is no evidence that Harris would have ever stood up to Israel in any meaningful way.

There is always a bunch of relevant factors in the outcome of a national election. It's the job of the candidate to overcome those hurdles. If they don't, then they were the wrong candidate. It's not about blame, it's about how we do better next time.

I'd much prefer that Harris won, but it does warm my heart a bit that the Democratic establishment got fucked for their manipulation of the 2020 primary and subsequent forcing of a Harris run. If we are talking blame, then that's where it belongs. Fuck the Clintons, Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, and the rest of the DNC corporate lineup.

Fuck. Kamala could have run on this alone and swept the nation. This really is the cursed timeline. Anyone looking forward to mandatory daily crypto-scam spam calls in 2025?

Then the next time a MAGA-esque Republican came along, which would probably be in 2028 or 32 they'd feel free to completely take the gloves off.

And you think letting treason pass with no consequences isn't also sending a message?

The Republicans have no shame and aren't waiting for the Democrats to strike first. Take away one rationalization and they will just manufacture another.

It's happened before. You have to go all the way back to FDR, but it happened.

You can't judge primary races like that. The final spread is irrelevant because of how the votes are spread out. The media calls it long before half the country has even voted, then the remaining votes always avalanche to the presumed winner.

Not sure why this applies to what I said, but my few Republican friends and family are uncomfortably aware of what I think about their politics.

You tried to chastise voters to see things your way, and now you're surprised that it didn't work. Sure, you were absolutely right, but the way you and others made your case made your efforts less than useless. The way you feel about those voters is exactly how I feel about you right now, because I was ignored by you and your fellow ranters for months while you berated voters into hardening their stance against you and Harris.

Biden undermined democracy by preventing a proper primary from taking place. The voters never got to nominate a candidate, and the establishment thrust a candidate on them that had already been rejected in a previous primary. That's the establishment's fault, and Biden if the face of the Democratic establishment.

Dems are clearly better on economic issues as well. Not nearly good enough, but better. The problem is that they will only go so far, and they won't talk about it, out of fear of angering their wealthy patrons.

Your right. The anti-establishment mood in this country and abroad has been building for decades. Americans have never voted based on foreign policy unless that foreign policy is directly impacting them.

Your tantrum might be more convincing had I actually called you or anyone else a name. As for tone, read your own comments.

Way to miss the point. Against Trump, it shouldn't matter who the other candidate is.

That's a useless point to make. Of course is shouldn't matter. The important point is, it did matter. The disconnect between these two points ought to make you question your assumptions about how to win elections. Clinging desperately to a model that has failed over and over and over again is insanity.

"This candidate isn't left enough for me. By not voting I essentially vote for fascism"

This is rhetorically a dumb way to argue. I don't disagree with the sentiment, but it's just to easy to point out that not voting for fascism would also have to be considered a vote against fascism. It's just a dumb way to argue and just further antagonizes the person you are supposedly trying to convince. You don't get votes by attacking voters.

Would a more left leaning candidate have more chances? Maybe?

A more populist candidate would have more chances. That does generally mean further left or right, but doesn't necessarily have to be either. I want a leftist candidate but, honestly, an anti-corruption centrist might have as much of a chance. Big money billionaires buying politicians is extremely unpopular across the spectrum. Good luck getting a Democratic centrist to run on that though.

They are, but not nearly enough. The entire primary system is setup to be easily manipulated by the party leadership and their puppets on cable news.

I didn't have time to write a book. The examples I gave were more than sufficient to get the point across. A couple of minor exceptions don't disprove the rule. COVID and abortion dominated in 2022, and Trump looked more like the status quo than a disruptor in 2018.

The half that were victories are when the Republicans took the more centrist approach and Democrats ran as disruptors. Remember Obama's "Change!" slogan? Too bad he didn't mean it.

I note that you only used one election from over a quarter of a century ago to support your argument.

Kamala had a billion dollars. Progressives have a deep ecosystem of independent media that establishment Democrats undermine at every opportunity. Democrats were hand in hand with Republicans in pushing social media "reforms" that today promote media like FOX News as trustworthy over progressive media sources. The Democrats create their own weakness.

That's an impressive writeup. Here is the problem. This is 2024, not 1992. Clinton's strategy has not aged well.

2008 - Hillary and McCain both ran a centrist strategy and lost to Obama who ran as a disruptor. Obama gets a mandate.

2010 - Democrats lose Congress and the mandate on a centrist strategy.

2012 - Obama almost loses to Mit Romney with both running centrist strategies.

2016 - Hillary loses on a centrist strategy against Trump who is clearly not a centrist.

2020 - Biden barely moves towards a disruptor position and barely beats Trump who should have been easily beatable.

2024 - Need I say it?

Here is what you are missing. The point of finding fault is to do better next time. Anything else is just bitching. Yes, the voters got it wrong. Next cycle we will have the same voters and a different candidate. Pretending Harris was a good candidate just invites the same outcome.

Maybe you think the voters are just unreachable. I think that's nonsense.

No it doesn't. A candidate needs a lot of qualities to be "good". One of those qualities is the ability to be popular on election day. An unpopular candidate isn't a good candidate. A popular candidate might be.