From @melissaryan.bsky.social. I would hope that this might finally kill the late 90s/early 00s idea that all our problems as Dems are about not reaching out enough, failure to understand, campaign execution. Our divisions are not superficial; they’re values based. Rs know this, operate accordingly - ThreadSky

espiers.bsky.social • 181 days ago

From @melissaryan.bsky.social. I would hope that this might finally kill the late 90s/early 00s idea that all our problems as Dems are about not reaching out enough, failure to understand, campaign execution. Our divisions are not superficial; they’re values based. Rs know this, operate accordingly

Comments

tasiaf.bsky.social•181 days ago

the firing squad needs to be pointed at those who continue to uphold white supremacy. people need to be held accountable. we didn't do that in the civil war and this is the result

sandnesharry.bsky.social•181 days ago

I would hope that this might finally kill the late 90s/early 00s idea that all our problems as Dems are about not reaching out enough, failure to understand, campaign execution.
---
It will take years of upgrading the education system before there is ANY chance of electing a woman for president.

guiri99.bsky.social•181 days ago

Another point. So many GOP voters have said they “hated” Harris. She was “horrible”. Very ad hominem. I can’t recall such language about Romney, McCain, or even Bush. The right wing demonization of Dems effectively created, more than permission structure, but an obligation to vote against Harris.

tennesseegreg.bsky.social•180 days ago

tennesseegreg.bsky.social•180 days ago

She never had a chance with many voters

queengwenevere.bsky.social•178 days ago

They had the same irrational, visceral hate for Hillary.

They just really really REALLY hate women.

guiri99.bsky.social•181 days ago

What strikes me is the predictive value of any common right wing belief. Tell me you believe that dems unfairly vilify Russia & I’ll tell you 15 other things that you believe - Dems want open borders, defund the police, support unsafe vaccines, 3rd term abortions, high crime… they come as a set

treadingwater1.bsky.social•181 days ago

I agree, the Dems bleeding heart strategy, support all minorities at all costs, support transgender (which I think need some support). This fucking base is killing them. Their message should be jobs, jobs, jobs for all

wicked-lizzie.bsky.social•181 days ago

She ran an EXCELLENT campaign in 3 fucking months!

beegutjahr.bsky.social•181 days ago

In Pennsylvania my friend was getting 2-3 anti Harris post cards a day for months and every commercial break had 1-2 anti Harris ads. Not to mention the onslaught of the anti trans ad. My friend got one pro Harris post card, after voting began. The ground game couldn’t make up for that.

brailovsky.bsky.social•178 days ago

:-( I sent 1000 cards to PA.

venomousgoat.bsky.social•181 days ago

Any ideas on what "operate accordingly" should look like? Not being snarky, genuinely curious what the approach should be

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

Stop trying to reach out and spend those resources building power with people who are naturally in your coalition. When you do talk to them it should be counterprogramming not acceptance of their shittiest values

venomousgoat.bsky.social•181 days ago

Makes good sense

kjbrowning.bsky.social•181 days ago

Yes!!! We need a strategic push for counterprogramming - and research/education into how best to do it? Nothing else matters until that happens.

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

I have tried to get Dem donors to put money into talking to young men with a self improvement message that does not adhere to hegemonic masculinity. You know who wants to fund it? No one.

drewhoover.com•181 days ago

I want this so much

gregcastanias.bsky.social•181 days ago

I want to hear more about this. I wrote this in another space earlier today as I have tried to make sense of yesterday. Is my point #2 along the lines of what you’re talking about?

amyhoy.bsky.social•181 days ago

nobody wanted to fund a well-tested and proven disability message either. i fundraised for it myself.

kjbrowning.bsky.social•181 days ago

Among the *many* terrifying things right now is attempting to raise a white son, knowing he is exposed to these ideas at every turn - much as we try to educate and warn him. And raising a daughter who will be dating these guys.

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

And maybe they just don’t understand why it matters but most of them are white men and for some of them, it’s just not a thing they want to fight against because it mostly works for them

venomousgoat.bsky.social•181 days ago

This is disappointing and I wish I was surprised but I'm not

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

There are also a lot of women this works for, especially if they have benefited from personal relationships where men take care of them and they have little independence

kskm3.bsky.social•181 days ago

At the end of the day, white and Latino men were upset about the economy and their allegedly threatened masculinity - they wanted to be lied to about the economy. Trump gave them what they wanted.

A different candidate and different policies wasn’t going to change that.

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

They are mostly cut off from relationships with other women who are independent and are convinced we’re enemies or just by existing, indictments of their choices

junqueiraliv.bsky.social•181 days ago

So true. It goes both ways, I personally have some women in my circle of acquaintances who will never vote for a woman.

corir23.bsky.social•178 days ago

I’d love to hear more as a college student who wants to work on turning men my age away from Trump

jaksays.bsky.social•181 days ago

Liberals *always* vote on principle, regardless of whether it hurts them personally

Conservatives *always* vote for who the authority tells them to, regardless of whether it hurts them personally

This is the fundamental issue

townsquare.bsky.social•180 days ago

Exactly this! ⬆️ I don't know if there is anything Kamala Harris could have done to overcome the structural barriers.

My main worry is USA will head back to the 1850s. Both major parties are siloed, divided & never the twain met in the prelude to Civil War. A very ugly time.

planecrazy.bsky.social•180 days ago

I saw an insightful comment that the US is less like a conservative European country and more like a rich Latin American country. Our right wing is more like those countries including the religious component.

gkar222.bsky.social•180 days ago

I agree with this 100%. The american people showed their true colors on Tuesday, and it wasn't pretty.

gutwein.bsky.social•178 days ago

This is also what makes it all so much sadder. Because it is, in fact, confirmation that 75+ million people hold those values or, at minimum, don’t feel strongly enough about rejecting those values to stand against them.

eikonos.bsky.social•181 days ago

Trump ran a terrible campaign, and that's how he won? So why didn't Harris run a worse campaign so she could win instead?

herdingphotons.bsky.social•181 days ago

Because half the country was going to vote for Trump no matter what. He could have dropped trou and taken a dump on the stage, and then shot someone in the face, and they *still* would have voted for him.

mmlarthur.bsky.social•181 days ago

And also misogyny.

sarahjeanne22.bsky.social•178 days ago

This times a million!!! There was barely a shred of substance that the Trump campaign could hide its bigotry behind. Voters went all-in for the bigotry! How can we pretend Dems can logic their way out of this with the right policy ideas?!?

nabbp.bsky.social•181 days ago

AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!

kjbrowning.bsky.social•181 days ago

It is a difference in values in many cases, but it is also a difference in information. Most of the MAGA people that I know truly believe the false version of reality they have been sold and are virtually unreachable by Dems. It’s not a party issue. It’s a national security issue.

catlace.bsky.social•178 days ago

Values drive the acceptance of misinformation, which is why conservatives believe so many of the same lives. Truthiness over Truth.

espiers.bsky.social•180 days ago

Disinfo is a big issue but when people are getting their false version of reality by avoiding sources that don’t seem conservative enough, they select for what kind of disinformation and they opt for messages that confirm their existing biases.

tennesseegreg.bsky.social•180 days ago

100% IMHO one of the biggest drivers of the election was the effect of the RW propaganda machine- yrs & yrs of Rush/Fox/etc. calling us socialist communist marxist who hate America over & over until it seeps into the brains of the listeners/viewers. They define us before we open our mouths

tennesseegreg.bsky.social•180 days ago

She never had a chance with many voters.

kjbrowning.bsky.social•180 days ago

Agreed, but we should have been recognizing that as the threat that it was and putting big resources into cracking it. It wasn’t always that way. It’s the problem that has fed every other problem - separate information environments creating separate realities.

ardalis.com•181 days ago

Constant exposure to propaganda which of course claims any other information source must be false/false comes to mind…

kjbrowning.bsky.social•181 days ago

This is the deadly one-two combination. First, being pumped full of fear and rage bait propaganda, and two, being inoculated against any information that comes from outside your bubble. That bubble is our greatest threat.

ardalis.com•181 days ago

Since Nixon

ardalis.com•180 days ago

*fake/false

lilywight.bsky.social•181 days ago

There is one underlying reason why Kamala lost. Sexism. Yes, there are a bunch of contributing factors. But a man with the same experience & policies & who ran the same campaign would have won. Sexism is so deeply ingrained that many people don't even recognize how much it colors their reactions.

islandofreil.bsky.social•178 days ago

...not racism too?

lilywight.bsky.social•178 days ago

Absolutely racism too.

risakoizumi.bsky.social•181 days ago

Agreed. I keep thinking if the ticket had been Walz-Harris instead, Dems would have won. Now, Dems will never run anybody but a boring white man for the rest of our lives.

agreatsound.bsky.social•181 days ago

Yes please! Neoliberalism needs to die a loud death. We cannot be so high minded or so magnanimous but we need to get messy and fight and stand up for what we believe in.

fplynch.bsky.social•178 days ago

The electorate have a civic responsibility to get engaged. The tree fell in the forest. It made a sound. Too few people listened.

mariefeesavante.bsky.social•181 days ago

Here is some good points about the results and the Dems’ campaign. Dems consultants think that they have to move right to gain voters. They should have consolidated their base with the left. Progressive policies won on the ballot in red states.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JXdDK0YdFEg

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

This is why every dumbass column castigating women for not being willing to date Trump supporters made me angry: it assumes the default is acceptance of dehumanization we just a difference in viewpoint. It’s not. It’s a difference in values—the foundation of a relationship

leosmith.bsky.social•177 days ago

One of my views that has changed, around the time the "weird" messaging began, is that, when it comes to Donald Trump, it is that is absolutely ok to judge someone entirely on the basis of who they voted for. I would have no problem defending the position to anyone.

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

*is just

ecbean.bsky.social•181 days ago

All of this. "So, why did YOU lose and what do YOU need to do?" FFS

espiers.bsky.social•181 days ago

If you vote for politicies that treat women as inferior humans, no woman who understands your politics and doesn’t buy into a view of masculinity that regards men as dominant as a matter or morality has any incentive to give you the time of day

jojadev.com•178 days ago

Seeing his staffers on the other site 2016-2020 claiming they’re “discriminated against” on dating sites in D.C. was hilarious.

moxiecotton.bsky.social•178 days ago

On of my 12 yo daughters friends dumped her “little boyfriend” (my daughters words) because he supported Trump. She was still sad they broke up and my daughter spent the day consoling and supporting her. All of her friends are MAD that Trump won. That kid gets it.

moxiecotton.bsky.social•178 days ago

It also led to a conversation about relationships and how often we mistake a man’s possessiveness for the feeling of being cherished and what that looks like. I think a lot of ppl don’t realize the difference until much later in life. That convo came about because of the “your body my choice” slime

wissewords.bsky.social•178 days ago

And Harris abandoned those values to court socalled reasonable republicans.

This was not an inevitable defeat.

rochambeaux.bsky.social•181 days ago

they also cheat and delete 15 million votes openly across america and hide it and no ones gonna investigate or do an independent recount.

bill-comeau.bsky.social•181 days ago

My view: not sure the Dems would have lost if not for the astronomical level of big lies and disinformation from the right/foreign actors. Parsing Dem policies, demographics, etc seems to miss the elephant in the room - we are in an age where truth can be swamped by lies and fear/hate triggers.

macronomicus.bsky.social•181 days ago

Its true, but there were nearly 20 million less Dem voters this round, even Trump got less votes, overall less voters. America failed, Democracy Failed, if it survives whats coming, there will be a lot more wisdom to go around about how important elections can be.

coldfusion.bsky.social•181 days ago

I would say the fact that most non college educated people voted for trump reflects the fact that the Democrats have lost their traditional middle class base, even in blue states. That will make it almost impossible to win moving forward without adjustments.

atriana.bsky.social•181 days ago

We have been sucker punched and driven deliberately into a corner where we cannot ask questions about possible voting irregularities.

They taunted us and we kept repeating that our elections were secure. What if they weren't?

https://bsky.app/profile/mcspocky.bsky.social/post/3lacyypjdua2v

mausellmoli.bsky.social•181 days ago

This by Nicholas Grossman in a similar vein.

kgsbca.bsky.social•181 days ago

The only things Harris did wrong were being a woman and not being white. If a white man, with her background, had said and did everything she did, he would have been elected in a landslide. The country has a fatal level of misogyny and racism.

bkania.bsky.social•181 days ago

I'm trying to figure out how a woman got elected as the President of Mexico. Hispanic culture is fairly machismo.

warren.nyc•181 days ago

Glad to hear more people saying this.

the-enigma-files.com•178 days ago

I want to push back a little because the reason her campaign was terrible is because her policies were terrible. The two are linked.

The message is just as much a part of the campaign as the ground game. I don't see value in treating them separately.

smirklin.bsky.social•181 days ago

They would rather keep the moral high ground, even if they lose. Republicans just care about the winning.

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