If you know me, you know I volunteered hundreds of hours trying to get Ds elected last year. But I'm hard pressed to find anything I disagree with here.
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While I agree on being more left economically, I don’t think the av American is capable of a discussion that wonky in our current media env.
The anti-war stuff of this argument (while I agree with it) is so filled with delusional ideas and zero gaming out of GOP responses that it is ridiculous.
Honestly, I wish I could agree. But I think there’s way too many people in our country who will just quietly vote against a *black* *lady*. They have not analyzed their biases, they are not introspective, and they would find a reason not to vote for her. We were fucked regardless of policy. :(
She was at a crossroads and made a political decision. Things could have backfired if she had gone the other way. She could have lost the Jewish vote, which would have been worse in the end.
There was no legitimate way for her to win against this tyrant.
Knowing a couple of the people who didn’t vote for Harris (or didn’t vote at all) because of Gaza, it would not have mattered what she said or did. She was already guilty in their eyes so this “if only she’d” is bullshit. This includes the mother of a trans child…
It was working and it was true. People would hear it and say "that's totally right" and Trump was on stage saying "JD's not weird. I know I'm not weird"
Then they stopped, and started peddling a vague "joy" like from feminine hygiene ads. Then celebs
I got a love/hate with Dems but God doesn't feel like every election they tell their left flank "we know we're you best option, so we don't have to work to appeal to you, we gotta appeal to the middle"
Which, now, hear me out: The middle isn't actually really persuadable. And that's because of polarization and the middle is largely unengaged in politics.
So you have "middle" voters who are least educated and when it comes to voting just fall back on partisanship
So what we got was Dems hoped to persuade uneducated, unengaged voters hoping for pick up of soft Republicans, depressed their own turn out, and partisanship of unengaged voters self sorted into partisan voting patterns anyway.
Because it’s really difficult to persuade low information voters if the information they do get mostly comes from right wing media. In hindsight it seems like a pretty bad miscalculation.
That's probably a key too, or rather low info voters listen to more alt media. I'd say more highly engaged partisan voters religiously watch/listen to bubble media (Daily wire, Fox News, etc)
The low info I'd say disengage from politics and look for entertainment news
The far left is convinced that the only thing the Democrats ever think about is punishing the far left, and I'm pretty sure the Democrats rarely if ever think about the far left at all.
Politicians chase voters who can be swayed, not people who hate you no matter what you do.
*Failure to pass:
●John Lewis Voting Rights Act
●George Floyd Act
Failure to mssg to the entire public (not just voters) what other successes actually meant.
●Didn't dumb it all down to sound bytes every day of 4 yrs.
●GOP voter suppression worked.
●Trump: "Elon knows those vote counting machines."
Felt like I was yelling this last bit into the void from July-November. But pragmatism apparently has no place when you’ve decided that Gaza is your only issue. And I can’t downplay that it’s a deadly serious issue. But if it was your only issue, well, we all sow what they reaped.
Our only hope is that we temper excess with pragmatism yet NEVER stop moving the ball forward. We need to unify, not divide, prioritize issues while assuring all remains on the agenda. We can no longer risk thowing decades of progress on the bonfire because the work isn't done yet.
Last thing here: where is the most unpopular Pres and second most unpopular Pres stat based on? GE left office with like a 25% approval. Biden not a great president but more unpopular than Nixon? LBJ in 1968? Americans have stronger feelings about Israel’s war in Gaza is than US in Vietnam?
If Harris had appealed to the left and anti-war movement how many votes would she pick up, vs. how many would she *lose* in the middle after being branded a communist and antisemite? Until someone can answer that…?
The income bloc voting in the piece supports that it was mostly the economy
Well, much like people say those who are on the left and anti-war should have voted Harris to stop fascism, maybe the people who would have complained about this appeal should suck it up and vote to stop fascism as well?
Fair but I’m talking about the objective question of how those two numbers compare. Everyone across the political spectrum should have voted to stop fascism
Republicans called Harris a communist and an antisemite anyway. Fucking hell, Democrats tried to pass a Republican bill on immigration and Republicans still called them communists. I am begging you to get this through your head
Yes I acknowledge that, and the Dems get too scared about that stuff. I’m not a fan of the Dems and basically disgusted with them. But “she would have won if she appealed to the far left” is just not a proven proposition. I don’t know if it can be proven
That's fair, and really all I want is for elected Democrats to stop voting for fascist shit and to embrace progressive policies and causes more. Like I'm realistic enough to know they're not gonna ever go even socialist, but like more of what progressives are pushing would be nice
Agree. Our current system is getting completely scrambled and/or scrapped right now, so hopefully more progressive policy will be possible coming out of the ashes. The GOP has abandoned the center and the Dems moved to take it and I think that was an understandable choice but obv didn’t work
It was not about the war. It was about Fox being the most popular way people get news. And the podcasters that amplify the lies. People believed what they wanted to believe. If you hear a lie repeatedly, you begin to believe it. It is the wolf they fed.
Is there a point in trying to answer a question which has not been asked? As it is, they answered "Harris or Trump" by accepting Trump. The outcome is their expressed wish.
I hope they keep their rage for some primaries though, but I am afraid by that point their attention has faded.
The left was not anti-war. They were anti-Israel. They just didn’t recognize that the right-wing faction responsible for the atrocities in Gaza were strongly pro-Trump and were waiting for his return so they could act with impunity
I'm so tired of all the "If Harris had only...". This was, and always was, a binary choice between 2 candidates that we all knew. Harris would have won if all the childish dumbasses who didn't hear exactly what they wanted to had cared enough to pick the obviously better choice.
And that's not to say I don't think the fight should happen.
I think the Democratic Party has forgotten that, since Johnson, their success as a party depends on the marginalized. They forget that at everyone's peril.
Right now the marginalized are in the most danger. We need to help them.
Most Americans are poorly informed about the reality of Israel and just think they are good and Arabs are bad. Harris opening herself up to be called an antisemite by AIPAC and the ADL in the months before the election would probably have been extremely damaging.
Yeah, entirely possible. People kept saying “I don’t know enough about her or her policies” and I’d be confused “why don’t you just look them up? Read about her, watch her speeches?” Then it struck me Oh—they mean a black lady is just too weird & different
She would have won if votes had not been suppressed. Stop perpetuating the idea that it was because she was a bad candidate. This may or may not be true, but the real reason she lost was voter suppression. https://youtu.be/0LN65qFUDDo
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she did win
https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/
And a left that (at least online) seems all to willing to take their ball and go home. Not crazy for us to ask for better allies.
The anti-war stuff of this argument (while I agree with it) is so filled with delusional ideas and zero gaming out of GOP responses that it is ridiculous.
I don’t vilify people for voting in accordance to their values. Our government has abandoned the people in favor of absolute corporate control.
There was no legitimate way for her to win against this tyrant.
It was working and it was true. People would hear it and say "that's totally right" and Trump was on stage saying "JD's not weird. I know I'm not weird"
Then they stopped, and started peddling a vague "joy" like from feminine hygiene ads. Then celebs
1/
So you have "middle" voters who are least educated and when it comes to voting just fall back on partisanship
2/
Dems figured their left flank would self engage and tried driving turn out for the least engaged voters, hoping to persuade soft partisans.
3/
The low info I'd say disengage from politics and look for entertainment news
1/
Politicians chase voters who can be swayed, not people who hate you no matter what you do.
●John Lewis Voting Rights Act
●George Floyd Act
Failure to mssg to the entire public (not just voters) what other successes actually meant.
●Didn't dumb it all down to sound bytes every day of 4 yrs.
●GOP voter suppression worked.
●Trump: "Elon knows those vote counting machines."
Some very Left Democrats, unhappy with Harris' positions on a few issues withheld full support for Harris. Potentially compounding the loss in 2024
So, given what Trump is doing just this week, how's that working for those most leftist Dems now?
The income bloc voting in the piece supports that it was mostly the economy
It's not a one way street.
I hope they keep their rage for some primaries though, but I am afraid by that point their attention has faded.
But my strongest opinion is that the longer we focus on post-mortem-ing the election the longer we're not addressing the now.
Roughly a third of this country voted in a fascist government. THAT is the problem. People are in danger right now. Bicker later.
I think the Democratic Party has forgotten that, since Johnson, their success as a party depends on the marginalized. They forget that at everyone's peril.
Right now the marginalized are in the most danger. We need to help them.
Had those more left-wing policies induced a mass-delusion that Harris was a white guy from the Midwest maybe that would have done it.
https://youtu.be/0LN65qFUDDo
https://bsky.app/profile/kjephd.bsky.social/post/3lgg53dvfh222