I was gonna title this “And here I sit so patiently waiting to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice” and then write “Stuck inside of America with the fascism blues again” here, but I’m not sure if that comes off like gloating and that’s honestly the last thing I want to do this morning.
Isn’t it amazing that both the female democratic candidates for president in our history have campaigned with war criminals and then lost. I wonder if there’s a lesson there?
Democrats were too busy making sure progressive candidates were banned from participating in democracy.
🇺🇸 MISSION ACCOMPLISHED 🇺🇸
The reality is that neoliberals in power, and even many poor deluded neoliberal voters, would rather have Republicans in charge than people interested in addressing the intentional and by design inequity of our economy, despite all the social issues that very inequity causes and exacerbates they then falsely claim to care about, including abortion, which is often correctly an economic decision.
I voted blue out of harm reduction as I always have, without hope, just to minimize what little cruelty I have the power to potentially minimize, but they did this to themselves, as we never get a vote on our economic system or the cruelty it propagates, because (D) and ® are on the take, and I’ve yet to meet an affluent person of either party take issue with the economic system they benefit from despite our legions of homeless and barely subsisting people without the means to bribe officials on their behalf, and their very existence is proof of this economy’s failure as a lowly tool to better equitibly distribute goods and services in service to a society that an economy is meant to be.
Our economy, and by that I mean our oligarch class that sits above the society they have no stake in, instead orders our society around through the legislators they own solely to maximize their private profit against all other concerns, and it’s beyond perverse. We’ve just been propagandized our entire lives to consider it to be the natural state of things by self-serving for profit media and captured state government’s capitalist indoctrinating curriculum.
ah yes, houthi loving, anti-american, antisemitic hasan who wants to flee to japan now. fuck him for brainwashing his audience into not voting. gotta wonder if he’s been cashing russian checks too. unamerican traitor and useful idiot for the MAGA cult.
Meanwhile the far left was cutting their own throats by handing the election to the fascists, thanks a lot.
The people don’t want any more of the status quo, and Trump offered something that wasn’t part of the status quo. The democrats could have offered a left-wing populist alternative but instead the democrats ran someone who was status quo. Someone who was “far left” would have been way more successful than Harris.
Even if that were true, the Dems lost because of their strategy which was based on not giving anything to the left.
It didn’t work for Hilary, what in the hell made you think it’d work for Harris?
Maybe it was the Dems buddying up to the incredibly unpopular bush admin. Or using serial SAer bill Clinton on the campaign. Or calling trump a fascist then moving to the right on almost every issue so really they were just offering fascism-lite.
But no, blame the lefties who had no significant impact on the election and have been constantly telling you that the campaign is doomed and that it should change course if the stakes are really as high as you say
I mean I would love to believe there are trns of millions of silent far left protest abstentions, but the fact of the matter is seventy million plus motherfuckers actively went for the overt fascists. Tens of millions more didn’t care enough to at least go third party. This was a turnout problem, not a protest vote problem.
Or maybe it’s a fascist problem. It’s not just the US either. My latest thinking is that microplastics are eroding empathy in human brains. May sound crazy, but put it next to some of Kennedy’s ideas…
Yeah it is definitely a fascist problem.
Jumping the gun a bit on that post mortum analysis? Put up the data or shut the fuck up you wanker. This is 100% an establishment fuck up, and you are as cognitively twisted as any MAGA freak.
Democrats are completely out of touch. them expecting voters putting other issues on top of them making ends meets and food on the table (like mocking Vance’s egg prices ), all the while most polls showing the economy is the biggest concern with 38 % of all voters, is just simply delusional
And they have lost both the popular and electoral college vote. meaning the real problem here is them.
And don’t get me started on the propaganda of Iowa’s early voters polls showing a Kamala landslide just 2 days before election day. If you live in a left wing bubble and believe this shit, than this should be a hard smack back into reality.
So I guess people actually think Trump and Musk are going to help them with their egg prices?
Yes, you might find it stupid or illogical, but they (trump , elmo) are seen as smart and successful, and they lived under better circumstances in the last Trump term.
That’s democracy, everyone has a say, whether their opinions or feelings are right or wrong. but instead of the democrats putting the work to meet these people they have chosen to belittle them. and that has cost them so far the Presidency and the Senate.
they lived under better circumstances in the last Trump term
I was disinfecting my groceries, and Trump was confiscating my PPE to send it somewhere else. I was getting Covid checks, which was nice, but it wasn’t exactly the same as working. I couldn’t leave the house for a while. I couldn’t buy certain mechanical things without going on a 3-month wait list. I knew some people who died.
They think they lived under better circumstances in the last Trump term, because the media and people like you spreading a certain type of mental landscape and inviting them to inhabit it. But that’s not actually what happened.
instead of the democrats putting the work to meet these people they have chosen to belittle them
If belittling the people could cost you support in America, Trump would be in prison right now.
Now if you ask whether the media told people that Democrats were belittling them, now that’s a different story. That, to me, seems a lot more worth examining than it does to lecture the Democrats how important it is not to do some things they didn’t do, that the media said they did.
“they lived under better circumstances in the last Trump term”
They lived under fucking Covid in the last Trump term, when everyone was confined to their homes while supply lines disintegrated and the cost of food more than doubled, while ashes from rampant forest fires rained down from a blood red sky.
That was only the end of it though. Through most of it, many aspects of the economy were better, for most people. He was just as complicit in why inflation, housing costs, etc. got so bad. However, do you think most people understand how the free money given, mostly under Biden, as a stimulus to the populace, had little effect on the inflation vs financial institutions drowning in oceans of free money, for 20 years? Do you think most people are even aware that was going on? Do you think most of them understand how private equity, and changes in its regulation, caused the housing cost crisis, and not supply being overwhelmed by the demand of immigrants?
I talked to someone I used to do underwriting, for things like mortgages, a few months back. He bought the immigrants buying up all the housing line. He just refused to believe private equity, something he definitely understands, is responsible, regardless of the fact that even those private equity institutions’ data say they are at fault. It is much easier to say “housing unaffordable, close border” than to have to address the massive systemic changes that need to be made.
Oh of course they think Trump and Musk are very smart. That doesn’t surprise me.
I’m surprised that they think Trump and Musk give a fuck about egg prices.
People think that Trump is going to change things, which is very hard to argue against. Yes, it won’t be change for the better, but Harris was offering them 4 more years of the status quo that is currently hurting them.
No one can argue Trump didn’t get things done. He got a lot done, especially when you compare that to the perception people have of the Biden administration.
But I brought this up earlier: Trump may hate his followers, absolutely loathe them, but he still panders to them, even if it’s fake promises. He accomplishes things they want done, and shows he can make progress, something the Democrats botch literally anytime they get any semblance of power. Trump makes his constituents feel heard.
The Democrats, just, don’t. Everyone on Lemmy I’m sure has seen people offering criticism of Biden/Harris, and the response has been to immediately insult, scold, condescend, and shame the individual for not towing the party line. Your concerns, anxieties, hangups, none of that matters because fascism bad so stfu and vote and also fuck you anyway.
Trump’s supporters ask him to abolish vaccines, and he seriously considers it.
Harris’ supporters ask her to not support a genocide in Palestine, and she sends Bill Clinton to lecture them about why Israel has the right to do what they’re doing.
It’s a two-way street, the politicians just can’t keep demanding our votes and ignoring our issues. And if that’s what they’re going to do, then congratulations, you’ve turned your voting base apathetic, and you deserve to lose to fascism.
I saw someone else on here put it perfectly, Democrats feel entitled to votes. They think that because they are logically the lesser evil, not voting for them is wrong. They don’t even consider that American elections are not about logic, and are nearly entirely about emotions. They don’t feel the need to make their constituents feel heard because they think their constituents are idiots if they don’t vote for them. They don’t even stop to realize that they are still an evil.
Seeing some of that entitlement in these threads has been, frankly, infuriating. Blue MAGA is the right term, they act identically to Trump supporters. It’s everyone’s fault but Harris’.
deleted by creator
I was so confused because the voting pattern on this comment is so dramatically different than it was on the comments early on in this exact same discussion here, or in other posts where we’ve been discussing basically the exact same thing.
Sort the comments on this post by “old” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. You won’t see everyone claiming that the Democrats did nothing at all for the economy for the last 4 years. It won’t be all the other way, either, but you’ll see a healthy interplay between a couple of different main points of view. It won’t be all one way.
I don’t usually come to the big communities on lemmy.world for pretty much this exact same reason, so like I say, I was just confused. I looked back on some of my other comments in other communities, where there’s actually a large-scale consensus that yesterday’s tragedy was largely the fault of the people who were holding out voting for the Democrats because they hadn’t done enough to fix everything up, including for example the economy from the last time the Republicans broke it all.
One thing that I suddenly realized is that some of those comments with that very-different-from-this consensus are on Beehaw, which while it still has representation on it from the socialists and anti-liberals, whatever you want to call it, has defederated from sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world because they were at the time too infested with troll accounts. And I used some of my magic powers to look at who’s been voting for this comment with all these universal upvotes…
And lo, I was enlightened.
Edit: Another funny thing happened. The parent comment that this is in reply to was the top comment, 3 hours old, when I made this comment, which was the only reply at that time. Now, in just the last half hour, there are suddenly 7 other comments and replies competing for space at the top of the page, instead of it just being the parent comment and this one as a reply. A lot of those are some variety of “Democrats fucked it” comment.
My guess is that there will be a flurry of continued conversation, and then once things die down, it will all somehow coalesce into there being a few “Democrats fucked it” comments all the way up at the top of the page, with a whole bunch of upvotes, creating a narrative. I’m not sure. But that is how I would guess, if I had to guess.
Edit2: Called it. Look at the default-sorted comments now.
It doesn’t particularly matter. It’s over at this point. But it’s interesting to look at one particular microcosm on one particular platform of one thing that made it happen, I think.
And I used some of my magic powers to look at who’s been voting for this comment with all these universal upvotes…
And lo, I was enlightened.
If you’re aware of someone botting votes, I’m certain the admins of all instances would like to know, why don’t you post the data?
One thing that I suddenly realized is that some of those comments with that very-different-from-this consensus are on Beehaw, which while it still has representation on it from the socialists and anti-liberals, whatever you want to call it, has defederated from sh.itjust.works and lemmy.world because they were at the time too infested with troll accounts. And I used some of my magic powers to look at who’s been voting for *this* comment with all these universal upvotes…
I’m confused, is the implication that Beehaw users are upvoting the comments blaming the Drmocrats? How can they do that if they’re defederated?
Actually I didn’t really understand your entire comment…can you ELI5 or do I need to up my ADHD meds?
I’m saying that the comments under this post look manipulated, especially when compared with comments on Beehaw, which makes sense considering that beehaw excludes Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works which is where a ton of troll accounts come from.
Thank you, this might be a sign that I do need to up my dosage 😭
Also, I agree with you.
Yeah. My initial presentation was unclear. Partly because it’s such a weird conspiratorial thing to believe that I kind of had to come at it sideways.
largely the fault of the people who were holding out voting for the Democrats because they hadn’t done enough to fix everything up,
I don’t know how someone can blame voters for advancing their interests if their finances are in the red. and are holding their vote in protest of the democrats.
I don’t know how are the discussions on beehaw but over the rest of lemmy, it feels exactly the same as on reddit: well off Americans blaming the struggling other half for turning their backs on the Democrats, it isn’t Just Harris who didn’t deliver, it is the whole fucking party. Liberals won’t understand the struggle of people living paycheck to paycheck. and how they are not entitled to their vote if they let the neo-Liberal system fuck with the struggling class.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
Like I said: Trump fucked it, Biden unfucked it starting in January 2021 and got it under control. And, because the media laps up a good narrative like no other, Biden got the blame for what Trump did, when the US recovered better from Covid inflation than pretty much every other country in the world.
If you’re struggling now, and “holding your vote in protest of the Democrats,” then I withdraw a little bit of my sympathy. You’re going to get it right up the ass very hard in the next few years, if you did that, and although it won’t be completely your fault you will have helped make it happen.
The economic struggle and inflation only fell on people under Biden’s presidency and vastly after Ukraine war. what people live under is what matters. not that a trump presidency will alleviate this. but you shouldn’t expect people to reelect the same team that choose to extend a war in Ukraine and send 100 billion to Ukraine while their own are struggling.
A haaaaaa
Hey, what do you think of Alexei Navalny?
Don’t care really! I don’t believe in heroism. He didn’t deserve to Die in a prison though.
Swinging left wouldn’t have worked either.
There is no high horse. There is no right path. Us Americans have the critical thinking skill of an ant. The left should have fought dirty with a full blown propaganda machine, populist lies, and blatant collusion if they wanted to win, simple as that.
It needs a leftist Trump.
What are Republican’s gonna do… demonize democrats even more?
Swinging left wouldn’t have worked either.
It absolutely would have. Progressive policy is insanely popular and easy to campaign on by virtue of being designed to help everyone. Do you think Bernie had such high favorably ratings because they have a thing for 80 year old white dudes?
Tell people “healthcare will be free” or “We will cap rent and build housing that won’t cost more than 3x local median income” and then people can’t afford not to vote for you.
Biden could have cut off arms to Israel, and hundreds of thousands of students so politically activated they’re willing to risk their degrees to protest would be doing everything in their power to keep Trump out.
Instead they sent the police to kick the shit out of those kids, at great expense to the colleges, and called them antisemitic.
Why then do countries with existing left parties and proportional representation elect further and further right-wing parties in Europe?
It’s simple: They promise easy solutions for complicated problems. Banning immigration will fix all crime and the economy, opposing LGBTQ+ rights will ensure a return of the better olden days, climate change is nothing to be worried about etc etc
And even people depending on social support will gladly shoot themselves in their feet if it means someone else will have it worse.
I’m afraid exit polls say otherwise. Kamala’s economic policies were the most left wing we’ve seen in decades (a wealth tax?). If people cared about actual economic issues, such as inequality, they’d have elected her.
This election was lost because Latino men voted for Trump (for starters). We needed populism, not progressivism, to appeal to the small minded American voter. Don’t you see that? Most American men are misogynistic, racist psychos. And they’re unhappy. You appeal to them with populism full stop.
Wealth tax to collect more money to give to Israel and the most lethal military and killing immigrants is what she ran on, she ran as a right wing populist and lost because Trump is a better right wing populist
Small minded voters are told what to think, Harris refused to tell them to want free healthcare because that shit pisses off donors
Delusional
Yes, Democrats don’t know how politics works, they ask Republicans to decide which issues are important, and then argue a slightly more moderate response to those issues is best. Sometimes they accidentally win doing that, if the economy is good and people are happy with moderation, but that’s probably not going to be true any time soon.
I’m not going to say that the Latino shift isn’t huge, but this really feels like a strawman (to a certain extent). Even without the full 2024 turnout numbers, we know less people turned out to vote than 2020. I think NBC last night said Harris was projected to have 15 million less votes than Biden, and Trump voter numbers were steady, so I don’t think it all went to Trump.
There are multiple factors that went into the outcome we have today, and only mentioning the Latino men or the pro-Palestine constituents and ignoring the failures of the DNC (starting with not having a convention) feels really weird.
The Latino men are one example. My point is that Democrats focused on policy and policy is ineffective when the electorate is a bunch of barely sentient macho dipshits angry about economic issues they can’t understand (not to mention most young men are broke and can’t get laid). You use populism. You blame the rich. You blame the wealthy elites. You channel Bernie Sanders.
Every other sentence out of Harris’s mouth should have been about the billionaires stealing from the working class. Instead we saw a bunch of well reasoned economic policy that went completely over everyone’s head.
Ok, I see your point. You’re not wrong here. But I’m always surprised at how averse US politicians are to anything perceived as left wing populism, while they tolerate (or even eat up) the right wing version.
Maybe it’s a remnant of McCarthyism.
Tell people “healthcare will be free” or “We will cap rent and build housing that won’t cost more than 3x local median income” and then people can’t afford not to vote for you.
- It would have to go through congress, which wouldn’t approve it, so it would be a lie.
- They told people “I won’t do mass deportations or order the assassinations of my enemies” and it didn’t work. Why do you assume that this other stuff would?
- It would have to go through congress, which wouldn’t approve it, so it would be a lie.
The policies are extremely popular and universal. Doesn’t really matter in a politicalcampaign if you struggle to achieve those ends. Trying is important and failing gives you ammunition against those who oppose extremely popular policies for next campaign.
- They told people “I won’t do mass deportations or order the assassinations of my enemies” and it didn’t work. Why do you assume that this other stuff would?
The bottom line is that the average person isn’t listening for anything besides “how is the candidate going to help me because I feel like I’m drowning”. The right scapegoats something and promises to fix your problems by hurting the scapegoat (immigrants, minorities, socialists, whatever). This is a lie, but it’s just as, if not more, direct of a solution so some voters will support them.
Harris had attention when she said things like stopping price gouging and providing in-home elder care. Those were extremely popular ideas that she didn’t focus on. Instead, she pivoted right.
It would have to go through congress, which wouldn’t approve it, so it would be a lie.
The US president is probably the single most powerful position in the world between explicit powers and people who serve at his pleasure and can be replaced at will, and undefined powers that that extend as far as anyone is able to stop them, as we saw under Trump. If they just flagrantly broke the law and kept doing it until the SCOTUS and others actually stopped them, the dems would be far more popular than just throwing their hands up and saying "better things aren’t possible.
There’s a lot of indirect ways they can get what they want done, whether it means appointing an AG and other department heads who will punish people who don’t go along or using the military’s vast legal protections and resources.
They told people “I won’t do mass deportations
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That’s not saying how you’ll improve people’s immediate conditions, just that trump will make them worse
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You can’t credibly say that when Biden deported more people than Trump.
If they just flagrantly broke the law and kept doing it until the SCOTUS and others actually stopped them, the dems would be far more popular than just throwing their hands up and saying "better things aren’t possible.
This is basically what FDR did with a lot of his social and work programs during his presidency. He’d establish an agency or authority or whatever, regardless of the legality, and by the time the court’s or whoever made the decision to close it, they’d have 5 others going simultaneously, and/or they’d make another one. And the process would start all over again.
Yup. The nice thing about policy that helps everyone is that it’s incredibly unpopular to kill. Biden could have burned student debt in the most visible way possible, and then dared the SCOTUS to create new debt. If they took the bait, you’d have 46.2 million people ready to vote for anyone who promises to expand the SCOTUS.
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This was also a congressional election you know.
It’s easy to get students to protest. They’re young, it’s exciting.
Voting isn’t loud or angry, so it doesn’t feel effective. It feels like actual work. And so they skip it.
They don’t need to lie, they just need to get better at being direct and stip pulling punches or taking the high road to avoid offending moderates or whatever their stupid logic is.
Instead of cozying up to Cheney, just call Trump a felon constantly, remind people about how he put migrants in cages and is now using durect nazi rhetoric against them. Those aren’t lies, and they jind of half assed brought them up, but they need to actually lean in hard and constantly.
They did call him a felon constantly! They plastered everything he says in every outlet, screamed his threats at the top of their lungs.
No one cares!
That doesn’t get you in people’s facebook, tiktok, and youtube feeds.
Dems need a candidate who’s already famous. They need one totally unchained, unhinged, who would say awful but barely not illegal things in public, so they’re plastered on every news outlet constantly. They need someone who’s a little iffy about vaccines, who will print money and send people fat checks with their face stamped on it, who will straight up collude with the powerful in public, so calling it out does nothing.
They need a liberal Trump.
I’m not sure who it would be… maybe a big pop star that kinda loses their marbles? Think Taylor Swift. But the dems are not going to win a Trumpist election running someone like Bidden, Harris, Bernie, AoC or whatever.
Hasan😈
But I don’t know who that is, lol. Not until now.
But the left in the USA is like half a dozen people, they don’t even have a party, how would they organize it?
Because Democrats are just a more “moderate” right.
So this proves we need to rebuild or create a true opposition party. Running as a moderate party just continously pushes America politics right. Those that wanted a fully different option just stay home on election day. This isn’t a both sides argument, just facts. We can’t keep failing in this way when the writing is on the wall. We need to change the leadership in the dems. They all need to go! Yes race and gender played a role but Trump is projected to get 6 million less votes this time around than last time. So that means the base for dems just didn’t vote. Yes that’s upsetting but trying to shame and meme them into voting will never work. Give people something to vote for, not just against. Republicans get it but using fear and promising a better life for their base. (even at the expense of others they at least give that to their base.)such a sad day in America and the only thing that’ll save us is to come together as a community and create a party that represents that community.
Last time we tried to make a new party it failed and called spoilers.
Last time we tried to do grassroots on the federal level, they pushed him out and said you’re the bad guys for supporting him.
They say to push the next person to the left but when you ask “Hey why are we bombing brown people when we can help Ukraine?” you’re called a Russian asset who hates Americans.
I don’t think Americans want actual policies that help. Every time someone tries to help on all levels of engagement to government they’re shafted, outbid, marginalized, and then blamed for when the milquetoast candidate loses. And pure evil just wins, again.
We’ve been fucked in 2000, the DNC should have used 2016 as a wake up call for what went wrong, and instead learned nothing.
Running as a moderate party just continously pushes America politics right.
100% this
In the UK the left-wing party, Labour, very drastically moved themselves to the centre, rebranding as New Labour.
Since then, the Conservatives have increasingly adopted far-right policies and everybody just accepts it as normal.
Does anybody know if there’s groups organizing already that are trying to cause that kind of reform? Would be good to spread the word if somebody has the ball rolling already. I think a huge portion of the voter base feels disenfranchised by not having an actually progressive platform to vote for.
Doubtful. Best case scenario is the old leadership literally dies off. Because any real progressive organization is deemed a Iranian, Russian, or communist and gets zero funding. Sad truth is, if all the progressives pooled all their none essential resources and money they still wouldn’t scratch the amount of money the two major parties spend on TV ads. Honestly. A collapse of the US is more likely to bring about a progressive change than any “conventional” processes.
What’s a TV ad?
I don’t even care whether your attitude is, “Oh no, we fucked up,” or you go with option B which is what you’re saying. If you have to wonder whether you’re gloating or not, then fuck you.
I’m not sure what your problem is. Is nobody allowed to point out the failures in the Democrat campaign?
No post mortem. Blind support for neoliberalism is the only way.
“Now’s not the time”
“Nobody could have predicted this”
etc…
As one of the dozens of people who are not American, I was chatting to my cousin the other day, and he said that after seeing the amount of dead kids that have come out of Gaza this year, and taking a mental health week off work due to the anxiety of watching the world not give a shit, he hopes Trump gets elected and America collapses into civil war… That Americans suffer for what their government has done, and is doing. He’s not a bad guy. Bad guys don’t have breakdowns from watching foreign children murdered.
I can’t logically support his view, but I completely emotionally understand it. He knew Trump would be objectively worse for humanity, but is a fascist genocide that kills 2 million people better than a fascist genocide that kills 5 million people? At that point you’re really just splitting hairs between failed states, and systems that deserve to be burned to the ground. After enough chances, opportunities, and desensitisation, you want the schadenfreude of watching the American electorate who voted for Trump shooting themselves in the face, destroying their livelihoods and lineage, along with all of their false patriotism and exceptionalism. I still suspect the conserva-russian PsyOps to be the main source of Trumps win, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Israel’s genocide is the straw that broke the Dems back.
With sympathy, panicked thoughts about what to do next, and quite a bit of horror? Absolutely.
With a casual blaming attitude, waiting for someone else to make it better? Sure, they’re allowed to, just like I’m allowed to tell them to go fuck themselves.
Panic doesn’t help anything. Neither does horror. We survived one Trump presidency, we’ll survive this one, despite it being monumentally worse.
Do what you can to help those you can around you. Work in and grow the support structures in your local community, family, and social circles.
Panic leads to stupid, rash, not well thought out decisions. It should be avoided as much as possible while you take a long, honest, realistic look at the situation and evaluate what is and isn’t in your power to effect.
You’re right that passive defeatism isn’t helpful, but you don’t have to go straight to the other extreme of emotional turmoil.
I have to be honest, I am panicking a little bit.
Nothing will change instantly, or everywhere all at once, but it could get very bad, and not even a long time from now.
With a casual blaming attitude
What should my attitude be after decades of saying “triangulation doesn’t work, going to the right to chase ‘moderate republicans’ just depresses turnout.” and watching the dems do this over and over and over while getting accused of being a secret republican because I point this out?
You know what else doesn’t work?
Not voting and letting Trump get elected.
That shit’s going to do more damage to the left than a million Hillary Clintons depressing the turnout.
(I have more I could say on it, especially pertaining to the difference between accurately describing sins of the Democrats which are depressing turnout versus making up imaginary sins of the Democrats which people will then believe which will depress turnout, but I’m not planning on a long exchange so I’ll leave it there.)
Democrats can maybe not run a totally dogshit campaign?
There will be a lot of this. Same thing happened with Hillary. I’m not American, I don’t need to discriminate here, I’m writing off all of the US.
But if you’re there… yeah, that anger seems justified. When the shit that’s about to happen happens don’t let them hide behind the blame game.
I wasn’t talking about Hasan Piker, really. I don’t agree with him, of course. Let me put it this way: If he’d flipped it around and talked about what a good strategy it was for Trump to get all his followers heated up on lies and ready for violence, get billionaires and media to go in the tank for him, and coordinate with enemies of the US to destabilize our democracy in order to get elected so he could keep kicking out the safeguards and guard rails once he’s back in and firmly above the law, seize on any imperfection or compromise in the Democratic side and play it up to the point that a whole bunch of suckers on the left buy into it and depress the vote so he can win, and unfold whatever’s coming now… well, if he’d said that, then he wouldn’t be wrong. But looking at it purely from a standpoint of strategy, in this context, is missing a massive other aspect. Talking about the Democratic strategy, which I think Piker is probably doing sincerely here, is missing the point in the same way. Even talking about how elected officials can get the support of the voters seems like it’ll probably be almost a moot point by 4 years from now.
What I was talking about was OP and the little gang of people who’ve been spreading the narrative that the Democrats are the worst thing, basically indistinguishable from fascism, and are now having trouble hiding their eagerness to double down on assuring everyone that it’s all the Democrats’ fault and this whole thing was inevitable. If any of you guys are inside the United States and honestly believe this, have been withholding support until something more to the your liking comes along, thinking that is a good way to make progress… oh my brother, just you wait, and I hope it’s not too bad for you, when it comes.
That’s why I posted the meme. If OP’s really in the US and on the left, they’re going to be learning a whole bunch of new songs to sing over the next couple of years, I think.
But why would you talk about the republican strategy? After-all Trump got almost as many votes as he did back in 2020, only ~2,5 million less. And it’s not like their strategy wildly differed from what they did 2020. Trump got his followers heated up, he tried to coordinate with foreign entities to find kompromat, he tried to undermine the electoral process, he tested the safeguard and guard rails Jan 6. The only really new thing he did was having billionaires be more prominent in supporting him. But none of it changed his votes.
The question you should be asking is “If trump got roughly as many votes as he did back in 2020, how did he win both the electoral college and popular vote?” I don’t see how that question could be answered by looking at the republican party, they didn’t do anything new and their result was also the same. IMO the answer to that question lies with the democratic party. There is something the democrats did or didn’t do that cost them 14 million votes (81 mil in 2020 vs 67 mil in 2024). And realistically a large part of those 14 million voters were “Fuck Trump” voters who were sick and tired of his shit. But this time Trump went full fascist and somehow people were more apathetic towards his?
I kinda agree with Hasan on the part that trying to appear more moderate when your opponent is a full blown fascist doesn’t really do anything. You just come across as a lite version of fascism. Maybe democrats should’ve stayed more in opposition to the republicans because when the voters don’t want fascism, they also don’t a lighter version of fascism. I don’t know what went wrong, I’m not a political pundit. I just see republicans getting roughly the same amount of votes and the democrats losing ~20% of the votes and I just don’t see how that is not the democrats fault when they’re the ones who lost the votes.
Yeah, no, we’re on the same page. Whether you pin it on the OP or Piker. There are a bunch of presumably leftist pundits that have been asking to see the left’s management all through this process (and I mean since 2016) and will continue to act offended that anybody would suggest there is a responsibility in not being persuaded when the alternative is a fascist anarchocapitalist cabal.
As last time, the response to any mention of this will be “it’s their fault for not convincing me”, which has never been a legitimate argument but will be outright insulting if (when) things start to go poorly.
A better case is that the entire country shifted right, especially fed by a mass of new protofascist youth, but you don’t get extra credit for only being part of the problem and not the whole problem.
In any case, like I said earlier, I have no obligation to split hairs. The US has failed as a country and as a people. They can apportion blame however they see fit. For the rest of us it is now a matter of how to build an international community of democracies in the upcoming climate. We all have to write off the US and find a new way forward without them.
What’s the alternative? Democrats do not fail, they can only be failed?
I’m not gloating, I just said I didn’t want to seem like I was because I’m not trying to antagonize my political allies. I’m sorry if it seems like I am because that really is the last thing I want to do. I want Republicans to lose elections and I’m just putting forth a theory of why they didn’t last night that seems persuasive to me because I’m still operating under the assumption we’ll have more elections (which, like, very TBD, but either way I think building a coalition of like-minded people will be important).
I am absolutely gloating.
Four fucking years of telling liberals exactly what will happen.
Four years of liberals plugging their ears and closing their eyes, continuing to spew their neoliberal fascist rhetoric.
To any liberal reading this: yes, I fucking told you so. Guess reality was on my side again. You deserve Trump.
As if the party that wholeheartedly accepted genocide as a means to an end was going to do shit for any queer folks or leftists if they won.
Obama won his election after being a good bit to the right of either Biden or Harris. I think most of what’s changed since then is the awesome power of the influence operations which succeed at creating alternate realities for people where Trump is important to vote for, and Harris is important not to vote for, depending on the person being targeted.
I’m not trying to be closed-minded about it, and maybe my meme as applied to you was unfair. I’m a little bit on edge when talking with the “what the Democrats did wrong” crowd on Lemmy, since a lot of them also like to make up imagined sins for the Democrats, helping to create that alternate reality, to go alongside any well-intentioned criticism they are giving.
The bottom line is, the Democrats lost for a variety of reasons some of which were their fault and some weren’t, and we are thoroughly fucked as a result. I don’t think people realize how bad it’s going to be.
Obama was about as moderate as Harris and Biden. I’d even say his campaign was more progressive than theirs. He’s been the only Democratic candidate to run on a platform of change in the last two decades. All the others have run on a platform of the status quo, even Biden.
This is correct. Propaganda works, its just that simple.
Arrrg paywalls… at least post the full article in the comments!
I don’t think that you can lay this disaster at the feet of Liz Cheney and a few other star Republicans. That is pretty lazy thinking, and suits a particular progressive viewpoint. This election is going to take years to figure out.
Cue the instant hot takes as to how the orange man climbed the hill he was already sitting on.
Dick Cheney is incredibly unpopular across the board in America. Having him endorse your campaign is asking to lose
Everyone from Sanders to Dick fucking Cheney endorsed Harris. Anyone who was paying any attention and wasn’t a literal fascist voted for her. The direction of the swing seems irrelevant.
The swing fell short because it’s not so much about direction than strength. Macron in 2017 ran the most “hard center” presidential campaign imaginable. Difference is it worked, not because his centrist program was particularly novel but in large part because he is a very charismatic figure and managed to create a voting base of hopefuls for himself. The same can broadly be argued about Obama (whose first act as president was to essentially absolve the previous administration and Wall St of their many sins in case anyone forgot how moderate he was).
Harris ran on a platform of… “I’m not him”. Which to any reasonable person is an obvious “yeah OK”, but unfortunately most Americans are apathetic cretins who will refuse to move their asses to a polling station if the guy on the telly doesn’t promise them a blowie at the voting booth. And the Democrat establishment is simultaneously too big to fail and incapable of producing an actually charismatic leader.
Well, all that and the obvious election interference from Musk, Putin, and the ontological inability of traditional media not to platform literal fascists.
“How did you vote on your California ballot with several highly contentious ballot measures, Madam Vice President”
“I will not speak on this 5 days before the election.”
Leftists have been telling all the libs exactly what this path would lead to.
Looks like liberals ushered in a fascist regime, again. Funny how that always happens.
(whose first act as president was to essentially absolve the previous administration and Wall St of their many sins in case anyone forgot how moderate he was).
I think this very thing led to the 2010 tea party wave election that fucked us for a decade and a similar thing has happened here, except it was the seeming inability of the Biden administration to hold Trump and his supporters accountable and not going after corporations making record profits during an inflationary crisis (“So how would you recommend they have done that?” Great question, I will let you know when I have a good answer).
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Well, all that and the obvious election interference from Musk, Putin, and the ontological inability of traditional media not to platform literal fascists.
This absolutely played a huge roll (also, voter suppressing laws passed by GOP governments), but I don’t know how to change any of that without having a Democratic party that consistently wins elections first
The FBI apparently learned some lessons on how to deal with Russian interference since 2016 and made some arrests this time around. Way too little too late though, and in January Trump’s cronies will take over and that’ll be that. Other countries should take notes though and start being much harsher on Russian trolls and their puppets. Unfortunately Von Der Layen recently fired the guy who was prosecuting Musk over Twitter so I’m not too confident anyone in power learned their lesson. Which is mind-boggling because russian-backed far-right parties are a meaningful electoral threat to people like Von Der Layen.
is this the random andy streamer guy ? why should I give a shit about what he thinks
Because he’s fucking right. Maybe the Democrats should start listening to people who are fucking right for once.
And win with people excited for the candidate? Never. Milquetoast saves money and being in opposition brings in even more.
Why try to codify Roe v. Wade when you can use it for funding?
While trump thanks Dana White and Elon Musk and Adin Ross, democrat are refusing to listen to someone represent the new generation of political motivated democrat voters. Then wonder why they didn’t get the votes.
you dont need to know him and he can be anyone on the internet, it doestnt matter, what he is arguing is still very accurate.
why can’t people see that we will never go left till we go far enough right.
Because “After Trump, Our Turn” doesn’t seem to have much historical evidence of success.
yeah I feel like there is this myth of huge pushes left and right but its pretty much been between right and center.
