MOVE LEFT DAMMIT
Capitalism will continue shifting right until there is only fascism.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
Historically, yes. Thankfully, history is known to not repeat itself.
I say this as a woman who is pretty bummed to say this.
I don’t think women candidates can win over enough men to get votes on a national level. Radicalized men aren’t ever going to empathize with women and sure as hell aren’t going to vote for one anytime soon.
Obviously there is a lot more than that, but it’s a big part of it.
I still think it was policy and not gender :/
But I understand that the evidence isn’t exactly clear on this.
Exactly.
Harris was dead last on my preferred candidate list in 2020, and it had nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with how little I trusted her due to her background as a cop. And she got hammered in the primaries that year, so I’m certainly not alone. I didn’t like her performance as VP (she had a pretty poor public opinion score up until she became the candidate for Pres), and she certainly didn’t convince me that she had any interesting policies this time around.
Likewise for Hillary Clinton. She was dead last on my preferred candidate list long before she won the nomination, and she didn’t get any better after winning.
In both 2016 and 2024, I voted for a third party because neither major candidate interested me (and it didn’t matter because Trump won my state by ~20% in each election anyway). I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people who would have voted Democrat didn’t bother voting or voted for a third party because they found her uninteresting. Her policies suck, her campaign sucked, and she has pretty much no charisma. It has nothing to do with her being a woman and everything to do with her being a crappy candidate.
So my vote is on a mixture of:
- no real primary, just a candidate switch (feels very undemocratic)
- poor, vague policies, especially on the issues people seem to care about most (inflation)
- very little charisma
- weird obsession with getting celeb endorsements instead of appealing to the average person
Being female doesn’t register at all.
It would be foolish to say that gender wasn’t a factor, but I don’t think it was the deciding factor.
It’s definitely both but it’s starting to look clearer that a man can potentially overcome the potential policy issue and a woman just can’t.
Apparently the gop doesn’t need a policy to win. Harris lost to someone who just promised vague amounts of success without literally a single concrete plan in place. Maybe the dems just need to treat the voters like they’re the dumbest fucking people on the planet and promise everything will turn to rainbows and unicorn shit with nothing to back it up.
Legalize weed, provide universal health care, give a job with a million dollar salary to every single citizen, create high speed rail across the entire country, fix the ecosystem, stop every war on earth, approve an annual day where you can legally slap your boss, etc etc. Then if asked for specifics just say they have concepts of a plan.
Why should dems bother doing anything concrete? Seems like the country is dumb enough to vote for anyone who tells people what they want to hear.
Because dems are smart, and care about things, so their party has to give qt least half a chance actual policy.
And this time around, Harris ran on republican lite. Courting Liz Cheny, anti-immigration, those that cared about those things were demotivated.
Americans choosing Trump twice instead of a moderate woman candidate is all the proof I need that the country won’t have a woman become president in my lifetime.
I don’t think Hillary Clinton was rejected primarily because she was a woman but primarily because she was about as establishment as it gets in an election that was shaping up early on as an anti-establishment election.
I think a lot of people just realized that. I would be surprised to see one even do well in a primary in the next decade.
Omar would have done better than Harris. And she’s the ‘scary communist’. And Muslim. But she has actual policy and very clearly communicates it. That’s literally the baseline for any candidate for any race, and somehow Harris fucked it up. Stop running candidates who only see regular people on TV and maybe you’ll get a win.
This election was not decided on clearly communicated policy because Trump has not clearly communicated anything in his life.
On the contrary. He told voters that ‘those people’ are they reason they’re hurting and he would fix it. That’s a very clear message, and one a lot of people responded to.
Harris didn’t even seem to realize there was a problem.
Well yeah. Trump was campaigning on discrimination. I don’t know how you can measure what percent of it was racism and what percent of it was sexism plus a little bit of xenophobia and various other such b*******.
I do think there is hope for women candidates because there’s a lot of women in the country and you don’t need to get the majority of men to vote for you. If Harris or Hillary had a platform as good as Bernie Sanders, I think either of them could have won, easily. Of course that’s just my opinion, and the only way to actually find out would be to give that a go next time around.
Radicals by definition aren’t the majority.
Women don’t empathize with men, women treat men as disposable, men are blamed for everything wrong in the country. The Ds didn’t even think to try to appeal to men until the end when they realized “oh shit, we actually need to make an effort to get male votes” It’s not a surprise that Trump appealed to men, he was the candidate talking to them.
Honestly, I’m about to get downvoted and I don’t mean to be offensive but I’m going to say how I feel.
I’m sorry men are having a hard time, but I don’t care. Men have been on top of the world for all of history and now they are upset because they have to share.
Everyone else has been having a hard time for much longer and if men are having a bad time right now, I guarantee everyone else is suffering a lot more.
And factually, they don’t need male voters to win. Female voters have outnumbered men since 1964 which should tell you something. Women are willing to vote for men, but men can’t be fucking bothered to support women. I’m done walking on eggshells around male egos because men can’t handle their emotions.
Note: I’m aware not every man or woman is like this. I’m generalizing to make a point. There are a lot of great men in my life who don’t feel emasculated when women ask to be respected. And, there are plenty of women that are hurtful to each other.
What primaries?
Blow it up. The DNC is never going to get it, just blow up the party.
Sounds nice. How?
Seems halfway done to me
In a sane world, literally anyone would have beaten trump. A rotten ham sandwich would have won a write in vote over trump.
I do not blame Democrats for running a bad campaign.
I blame the jellyfish stimulus eater organisms that insist they’re the same species as me who were “not impressed” by Harris but were dazzled by the funny orange meme man with the dick sucking dance.
At this point I don’t hate Trump supporters any more. They’re just dogs. I hate the left for allowing us to get to this stage.
I hope the apocalypse is painful for everyone. It would be the first instance of justice our species would experience.
This attitude is generally insane.
“I don’t hate racists, I hate people who hate genocide so much they can’t stomach voting for it.”
Look, I voted for Harris, but it wasn’t easy. Because that blood is on this administrations hands. The party is moving further and further away from my ideals every election. Because they keep moving right. On immigration, tax breaks, health care, foreign policy. She was courting the fuckin neocons!!!
I understand how frustrating it is, because you’re right—not allowing trump to win is better than allowing him. But it’s not so straightforward when your vote is support for something you can’t stomach. Can you understand how that is difficult for people? I sure can. But I also understand how many people stand to get hurt under an authoritarian regime, so i sacrificed my morals again to do what I can to somewhat stem the bleeding.
But that’s not an easy decision to make. Much harder than, say, blaming the racists for racism, and not the people who are anti-racist.
The dismissal and condescension towards Arab-Americans who were upset over Gaza was fucking insane. That isn’t going to be forgotten.
But it’s not so straightforward when your vote is support for something you can’t stomach. Can you understand how that is difficult for people?
No, I honestly can’t understand that. That whole mindset that doing nothing is somehow more in line with your morals than doing something even though both can have equally bad outcomes is incredibly bizarre to me and reminds me of stupid moral exercises like the trolley problem.
Here’s how I put it elsewhere in this thread:
You have two choices, one is to poison a town’s water supply without telling them.
The other choice is poisoning the town’s water supply, not telling them, and then shooting the survivors as they flee the town.
No question that slaughtering fleeing survivors is worse. But either way, you’re being asked to sign your name to poisoning innocent people.
You can only see “you’re voting for slaughtering fleeing townspeople!” But plenty of people cannot stomach voting for poisoning the townspeople in the first place.
You’re both looking at the same situation but seeing different elements.
The nuance comes in here: both are valid stances to take. If you don’t vote “against” shooting the survivors, there’s a greater chance survivors will be shot. But voting for the people poisoning the water supply is untenable for many, and not understanding why that is, is a huge problem.
But plenty of people cannot stomach voting for poisoning the townspeople in the first place.
But they are not doing anything against that by abstaining from voting. They are still giving their consent to the poisoning, just by doing nothing instead of doing something, that is literally the only difference.
My whole point is that the “inaction is better than action” bias when evaluating options is bizarre to me.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omission_bias seems to be the term used for the phenomenon.
But they’re not throwing support behind it. That’s exactly my point.
The option they were given was either “vote for this or do nothing.” Yes, the doing nothing option meant it was more likely a worse scenario would take root.
But no matter what, we were being asked to vote for genocide. Genocide 1.0 or genocide 2.0. That cannot be on the people who don’t want it in the first place.
I definitely get what you’re saying and I agree. The 2.0 option was best avoided. But if that means supporting the 1.0 devs…? It goes completely against peoples moral fabric to support it. Even if that means things could get “worse.” Which, let it not be forgotten that we are still talking about an ongoing genocide.
Not to mention, Kamala’s weak, ineffectual waffling on the issue was still her in campaign mode. That’s best case scenario, and still highly unlikely to be followed through on.
It was a no-win scenario. But we all lost even worse, and everyone understands that. But it was a completely hopeless, no-win quandary.
I hate the left for allowing us to get to this stage.
I’m curious what you think the left did.
Well maybe if you could fucking read…
I do not blame Democrats for running a bad campaign.
I do:
- no primary
- select the candidate who dropped out early due to terrible polling in 2020
- have pretty vague set of campaign policies
- go after celebs instead of appealing to people facing actual issues
What they should have done is:
- run a primary, with Biden choosing to retire instead of seek reelection
- select the candidate voters actually want
- have a clear set of campaign policies
- appeal to everyday people with even an ounce of charisma
The main issue people seemed to care about was inflation. The Democratic candidate really needed to attack that head on by explaining why inflation got bad, how it’s better, and what they’ll do to help wages continue to catch up. But instead, Harris made vague promises to “fight price gouging” (that’s not what’s actually going on) and give handouts to people to buy houses.
That said, there’s no way any Democrat would’ve won my state, so I voted my conscience by picking a third party instead of picking either unqualified candidates. I just wonder how many people felt completely uninspired by Harris like I was, and I can’t help but think that cost her the election.
Once they decided to skip the primary and started getting contributions to a Biden/Harris campaign, it became virtually impossible to select anyone else once Biden dropped out. Only a Harris campaign could take over the money already raised for the campaign. Any other candidate would have to start fundraising a few months before the election starting from nothing, and would have been at a massive disadvantage.
voted my conscience by picking a third party instead of picking either unqualified candidates
Are you implying there was a qualified third party candidate? Is this an oxymoron?
Once they decided to skip the primary and started getting contributions to a Biden/Harris campaign, it became virtually impossible to select anyone else once Biden dropped out.
Right, and that was the first mistake, they should have held the primary.
Are you implying there was a qualified third party candidate? Is this an oxymoron?
I thought Chase Oliver was pretty decent. I especially like his immigration policies, I like that he’s pretty young, and he seems to tick off both parties equally, so hopefully both parties would have to actually work together to get something he can sign. I highly doubt he’d get any of his policies done (except maybe ending tariffs, which would help a bit w/ prices), so the main benefit of having a third party in the White House is as a moderator between the two parties.
He had absolutely no chance to win, especially since his own party largely turned on him (I guess he wasn’t conservative enough or whatever), but I felt he was a decent protest vote.
I resent the idea that people need to be dazzled and appealed to in order to not sell the country out. Absolutely no integrity. No intelligence.
Hence why I called all of you stimulus eater organisms. Paramecium. Fucking amoebas.
The recent election and 2016 say otherwise. When Biden said he’d follow Sanders’ policies, he won the biggest margins ever in American history.
Fascism is tempting for undecideds and people scared of the future. Some dude says “hey you’re hurt, I’ll help you” you might not care what the costs are as long as you feel safer.
We could have built a policy of “Everyone is hurt, everyone needs a leader, I can be a leader for those Trump is targeting.” She could have been a silver bullet to Trump’s thick skull. She could have done so many things differently than Biden or Trump, and she played to the middle ground.
And the middle ground was still pro-border protections, fracking, not listening to the marginalized people Trump hates, and how the policies could improve America at the cost of the trolley problem of Gaza. Instead we’re getting none of her promises, but Trump is getting all of his high demands for order and fascism.
You don’t need to “dazzle” to win elections, you just need to be very clear about what you’ll actually do if elected. Existing isn’t enough to win votes.
I did quite a bit of research before the election, and I still can’t tell you anything concrete that Harris plans to do, not even in the first 100 days of being elected. Here’s the best I got:
- ban “price gouging” - what does this mean? Price caps? I don’t think she’s that crazy, this feels empty
- taxes - these are somewhat concrete, but new revenue will likely be low because wealthy people are good at avoiding taxes
- immigration - one of her major jobs as VP was border security, yet she didn’t do much, so I question how committed she actually is to her proposed changes, nor do I know if she wants to increase or decrease net immigration
So, her plans are either vague or seem ineffective, so what would she actually do in office? It’s not clear, and it seems like she’s running just because the DNC needs someone to run. I don’t want a President who is running just because their party said so, I want a President who sees actual problems and has a plan to resolve them.
That said, my vote absolutely doesn’t matter because my state has consistently gone to Republicans, and will consistently go to Republicans for the foreseeable future, so I don’t know what people in swing states think. But what I do know is that her campaign was entirely uninteresting.
I have to say that by all means, Harris’ campaign was not a failure by any means. She rocked most of the debates and her speeches were insane. Her only issue was the lack of a proper procedure for being elected at primary candidate, and she focused on ideologies that alienated her from the more centrist and slightly red leaning views.
But despite what has been being spammed in the lemmy communities for months now, her way of being elected was just the old way, that was replaced by the current primaries. I don’t agree that they didn’t hold another primary but, I also can totally see the argument of “We can’t just hold back the election process because someone dropped out”
Harris’ main campaign goals alienated a crucial part of the voters though, which was the side that had given up on Trump but had no valid alternative. I had so many friends that if they gave a reason for voting for trump it was “I don’t really want to, but I have no other choice, and there is no way I can vote for her because of what her standing is with rights are”.
I don’t personally agree with the ideology but, sadly she needed those votes the people who didn’t vote for trump, ended up doing write in instead of voting blue, because coming out super strong with that as the main argument more or less pushed them back into voting Trump.
there is no way I can vote for her because of what her standing is with rights are".
What does this mean? Do your friends actually talk like that?
some yes, granted its missing a comma but yea, they want to dodge giving an actual reason, most of the time its just a rights issue. or sometimes they just say they don’t level with her
Which rights are they talking about here?
That’s the point I was making. They never say what rights, and never clarify when asked again.
Harris is more progressive than every single person who voted for Jill Stein. It’s an incredibly low bar.
Why do the republicans love the RNC no matter what and the democrats hate the DNC no matter what?
For a long time, they didn’t. The RNC was legendarily attacked by the Tea Party movement, by Trump during the 2016 primaries, and continued to be slated by MAGA up to the point it was wholly taken over by Trump.
because when the Republican Party wasn’t serving the “needs” of it’s racist, xenophobic, misogynistic voter base, it was murdered and skinned by the Tea Party, who has gleefully worn the skin ever since.
Progressives have never done the same for the DNC, they’ve just let it continue being the same old shitty party for two decades. Every time they drift further rightward, people complain, and then forget.
Progressives have never done the same for the DNC, they’ve just let it continue being the same old shitty party for two decades. Every time they drift further rightward, people complain, and then forget.
I disagree on that part. Everyone is just fucking tired trying to save the country from our fellow dummies. We are just trying to survive and have no idea of what to do.
It’s fair to be tired, it’s exhausting having to do the same shit every four years.
but the reason we have to do it every four years is because everyone lets their civic duty end with voting. Whether or not you’re tired doesn’t mean the responsibilities end. Believe me, I know trying to get people to politically organize is an exercise in misery, but the Democratic Party is never going to change. People have to start supporting third parties in their local elections, and start forcing out Democrat politicians who have historically had safe seats.
The one and only good news I can provide is that we have the playbook the Tea Party left. Cannibalizing a party is possible, I watched it happen and have tried to oust my local Dems with independent leftist candidates ever since. Maybe if more people had realized the Dems were going to let them down forever sooner, we could have avoided all of this. Maybe we’ll never have elections again, and it’s all a moot point now anyway. but trying the same shit election after election is just not going to create change.
What would you have these people do differently once they’re in? I’m going to go through the issues and it ain’t “the dems.”
- Russia did an amazing social media job and played the r’s like a fiddle. We probably don’t even know the half of it because of the bubble world they live in.
- The r’s have placed SCOTUS judges that are openly corrupt and actively harmful to our country.
- The r’s have placed judges to fuck with many states with gerrymandering and it worked.
- Half of the voting public of America is sexist and racist.
I’ve seen an active population going after the dems today and it makes me laugh my ass off. It’s pretty good propaganda. The r’s voted for a monster and you’re blaming the people who thought there were enough decent people on that side to keep him away. Nope, we were wrong.
The “both parties are the same” thing is one of the most successful right-wing talking points ever, just after “conservative parties are more fiscally responsible”.
That’s very true. I would love it to be arguments between progressive and normal democrats vs democrat vs fascist republican, but that’s not the world we live in. I’m angry at the voters, there is no way they didn’t know what they were voting for this time.
I would love to see some new form of having arguments that prevent all that going in circles with the same arguments reappearing again and again. Possibly even one where it matters less if you don’t think of just the correct way of phrasing it in the moment because the arguments can be refined in place and extra info like evidence added later, something like a wiki with a graph of common political arguments.
Somehow I feel the form of our public discourse, both within the various camps and in greater society, is in large part to blame for the state our political systems are in today. Sound-bites, tweets, short videos at best, headlines. Nuance is required for a lot of modern problems and it just isn’t there.
You simply can’t do anything for the Republicans. There is no hope for them. You have to assume that moving forward, at least half of voting Americans will go for a fascist. Ignore them completely. Sure, they clearly have the largest part of the blame, but none of them care and will laugh at you for trying to change their minds. The only option is to aim for independents, undecideds, and uncommitteds. Progressive policies remain overwhelming popular in the United States, you do not need conservatives to help you win elections.
As for what these leftists politicians should do once elected, the answer immediately is to caucus with the Dems and try to work with them on progressive issues like wage stagnation. It will fail, but it will identify which members of the Dems are willing to work with a new movement and which will not. Once a base of candidates is built in Dem strongholds, we can start working to replace the Dems who refuse to work with the new movement, even if they’re in battleground states.
again, I’m not inventing anything here. This is how the Tea Party killed the GOP from inside. There’s nothing stopping us from doing the same, but it takes a lot of participation in local races. The Tea Party started with state governments and House Representatives, and it took them nearly a decade to realize their dreams in the form of Donald Trump. It will likely take time we no longer have, but look at the last three elections and ask yourself this; do we have any other option?
You’re right, I didn’t mean to go after you. I’m just frustrated at how shitty our voting and purposely non-voting country is.
As far as dems go, Biden won with the Harris strategy. That’s what they thought would work against trump. Obviously they were wrong. There’s a bunch of gerrymandering (cheating) going on as well.
Here is the bottom line and what I don’t think people understand though, the people funding these campaigns for higher office don’t want progressives. That’s it, the end. How do you fix that now? People may vote for them if they’re given the opportunity, but they will never get the opportunity. That’s just the reality of it.
And again, that’s the shitty part, it requires a lot of fucking work. I have worked for independent leftist campaigns. It was incredibly long hours for weeks on end. Canvassing is gruelling work, cold calls are fucking miserable. Do you know how much money I typically made? None, not a single dime. The independents don’t have the support of big donors. In fact, I typically end up losing a few thousand dollars if I work for a campaign.
You have to make the reality you want with your own hands. You have to grab your friends and say “Hey, let’s all go to the town hall meeting tonight,” and double the attendance for the night. You have to make a hundred calls a day, getting laughed at all the time, just hoping to get your message out. Hell, depending on where you live and what options you have, you might have to run for office yourself. It’s hard, and it’s shitty and awful, but it’s the only option left when your leaders consistently fail you.
I will say though, it was a clear mistake to call 2020 a win for Biden. 2020 was a loss for Trump. Biden’s approval ratings were ass, he barely beat out Trump, and his approval just dropped further the second he entered office. If the DNC saw that and made the conclusion they could demand progressive votes for nothing a second time, then they’re incompetent.
I understand the general feeling you’re presenting, but I encourage you to be far more precise. You said everyone lets their civic duty go, and that’s just not true. I know many people, including myself, who have tried hard to effect change for the past few years or decades. Basic honesty suggests that you shouldn’t diminish our existence simply because we didn’t get the results that you wanted.
Vote Green. That’s what you do.
Because one delivers on its promises. They promise hate and divisiveness and deliver in kind. Democrats promise hope when what we need is action.
Maybe it’s the fact that America’s national character is to lust for domination and revenge. Compassion cannot win because America despises it.
What action do you think we should do? Real talk. The government has been taken over a long time ago by anti-democracy peeps, how do we get it back?
The DNC suppresses leftist voices and demands leftist votes.
I don’t love or hate the DNC but I do hate the RNC.
I don’t love or hate either, I’m largely disappointed by both. I’m disappointed w/ the RNC for allowing Trump to happen, and I’m disappointed with the DNC for forcing Harris to happen.
Since my vote is a lock-in for Trump (he won w/ like ~60% of the vote in each election), I vote for third party/independent candidates, because both major party candidates are completely unappealing. Since my vote won’t matter anyway, I instead choose to vote my conscience and show that throwing my vote away has more value than picking one of the two major party candidates.
The numbers on that screen contradict the conclusion (of the media): IND voters are rising and DEM voters are decreasing. Those IND are not more conservatives, they’re the Cornell’s and the Stein’s and such (I know, Russian plant, not the point, voters are not right wing). The left wing is leaving the DEM, you don’t get them back by moving right. What the fuck is NBC talking about?
Not sure I agree with your assumption of IND. Many of us don’t want to be locked to a party for the primaries.
Our voters constantly and consistently reject candidates and policies that only benefit billionaires and their stooges, what could that ever mean to the electability of our candidate who fawns over Reagan staffers?
That highly organized distraction in gaza really worked
