AIPAC went after less targets than they suggested they would. And some of our strongest pickups in PA, IL survived. I think that’s worth exploring.
Reflection doesn’t automatically mean capitulation or left-punching. It can mean actively identifying the strategies that are actually *working,* too.
Reflection doesn’t automatically mean capitulation or left-punching. It can mean actively identifying the strategies that are actually *working,* too.
Comments
The Cheney thing is a clear example of a bad idea that the people who pushed it won’t take responsibility for. They need to
Also corporate dems after voters abandon them: "Damn wokeness"
This finger pointing at everyone except them.
Or the Supreme Court for letting an insurrectionist run.
Really pisses me off.
If the Dems FOR ONCE embraced their REAL base and fought for actual left ideas you win.
Do what ever parliamentary thing you need to, but get Pelosi and Schumer etc out of power. They are wall street puppets.
Clinton lost in '16 for a reason. She was a lousy candidate then and is still a major turn-off, even among lots of Dems. Voters made that known loud & clear 8 years go, who listened?
Offer it with Cheney on the stage, on Joe Rogan. Or not. Just offer it.
that's why people were angry.
personally I can't put aside "likes to excuse war crimes" or "it's 'enhanced interrogation' not torture'." and I'm not the only one.
they messed up when they made that choice.
The WH and media covered it up and we were gullible.
Brandon is a winning strategy I love when dems get tough and we have to if we want a democracy
I would love if dems talked more about their plans and less about 47, he loves the attention, maybe we could talk less about him we are sooo tired of hearing about him
your party got hijscked by nazis so now you’re trying to hijack the democrat party and turn it in to the old republican party.
the harris campaign was centrist. nothing ‘far left’ about it.
Never abandon your base.
I'm gonna bet it was mediocre white dudes.
Imp
What doesn’t work is important
I’m with @joshtpm.bsky.social on this one.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/get-off-the-floor-and-keep-it-simple
Wild guess who was a big part of her campaign strategy team??
Hillary.
Because of course
My enemies enemy is likely my enemy in waiting.
Voters voted their hatred.
While they may not be as blatant (and stupid)as those targeting the right, they definitely exist.
Caveat: I remain dubious of the overall outcome’s grounding in base reality.
How about primaries which are actually democratic?
https://observer.com/2017/08/court-admits-dnc-and-debbie-wasserman-schulz-rigged-primaries-against-sanders/
I think he needs to be ignored more often like yes we need to be informed but maybe we don’t need to respond and dwell every time he says something moronic which is 37292872 times a day
Staying true to Dem ideals would have won us this election.
Is the belief “the Cheney thing” was bad supported my evidence?
https://bsky.app/profile/usapolling.bsky.social/post/3lbkmowvdfc2f
Liz Cheney. She did more event with her than ANYONE else.
She also, you know, didn't get elected, so something clearly went wrong with it
I don't dislike the idea of a big tent party, but the constant emphasis on Liz (and courting conservatives) late in the game really *did* take away time which could have been better spent courting younger voters and people focused on the economy.
bloody “celebrities.”
That was one of the
huge mistakes.
I could not believe it
when I saw Cardi B
I like her, but she was out of place along with the other “celebrities.”
That sucked big time.
This is true. I could not vote for someone whose main thrust was “pro-abortion”. However Harris lost because of collusion. Use of artificial intelligence to twist her words & change the meaning. I am Reg Republican in Colorado. It was an invalid election
I could equally say Biden won because he wasn’t the incumbent and because Trump screwed up Covid.
Harris lost because her explanations vis a vis the economy were weak.
(⬆️ could also be wrong)
We just failed in other ways 😔
Fact: brain struggles 2 see diff in 2 completely dissimilar subjects.
Old ethical white male vs old white male convicted felon.
But enthusiasm vs democracy
We can Monday morning quarterback it all day. The prosecutor theme failed her in 2020. Prosecutors are not popular for most avg people
?
The goal should have been to make the never-trump GOP, a small faction, stay home then recruit the left and young. Instead they courted the nevers and lost a big portion of Biden's voters.
… and i think a lot on the left left saw it as being more centerist war-hawking crap and didn’t vote at all ‘on principle’.
It was a completely insane idea from the jump. The Cheney's have no active constituency and a metric fuck tonne of people that want them gone, absolute lunacy.
And Dem voters who activated were already voting for Kamala
As for the 10M who didn’t vote, obviously she didn’t inspire them
Not a terrible theory but didn’t work at all.
I vaguely remember a bunch of democrats saying, “reach out to republicans” in the days before. And if she hadn’t won they’d be blaming her for that too.
The left lost Rogan, Musk, Gabbard and many Muslim Americans who were once true blue. How? Why?
Whether Cheney flipped voters is a fair question, but just wanted to add that distinction.
What is abundantly clear is massive loss of votes for Democrats. People that just chose to not vote.
Why? Going right is clearly one reason
just because a regular ol' rightoid gets BTFO in a primary by a trump backed rightoid, doesn't mean she's a rightoid anyone on the left will be okay with
Epitomized by Trump winning 54% of hispanic men
"Triangulating to the center[right]" has NEVER worked. Not a single time.
The same amount of time the GOP has had to play their vile long game.
We could see who would win but STILL the Dems refused to play hardball.
The right had fighters like Mitch. They tried a coup.
We got Mueller and Merrick Garland.
She *did* perform better with white women than Clinton or Biden.
She lost because she didn't win white women outright.
We can't know how Harris might have performed had she embraced trans rights and held the Cheney's at arms length.
Once bitten, twice shy.
And Harris chose to chase white suburban Republican women.
And rejected Palestinians and Arab-Americans.
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2024/11/22/new-data-shows-the-economy-was-the-deciding-factor-for-voters-in-pennsylvania-and-michigan-and-harris-missed-opportunities-to-play-up-economic-populism
In particular, there are young Black voters who were not going to vote for Biden, but who decided to vote for Harris, but who then decided not to vote for Harris, based on the "hug a Cheney" tactics.
Some were tired of a USA where they live under fascism, but the rest of the US lives under democracy.
So they chose a world where we are all under fascism together.🤷🏿♂️
This is not the decision that I, or most Black folk made. But about 5% of us did.
Having a bunch of famous hard right bigots supporting her really reinforced that idea for people I talked to.
I'm no political strategist but my strategy there would be to let Cheney go make her case while keeping an arm's length distance from her… let some centrist PAC deal with her.
We used communications to fight back against propaganda. We seem afraid to fight “class warfare”. Cheney was an appeal to the status quo perhaps.
I remember thinking it would have been better to spend that effort talking about home ownership grants, small business grants, protecting the ACA, or even student loan forgiveness
@aoc.bsky.social
I’ve also noticed women with policies and how they will pay for them (Harris & Warren) aren’t respected
I'm talking about the people who were wasting their breath and time trying to convince GWB to endorse instead of just staying on message
A whole different universe!!!
There were some uncontrollable headwinds too, for sure. But look at the numbers. This thing was winnable, and they flopped it
The Dem base outnumbers the GOP base but they didn't show for this election.
The Dem focus on undecided voters and the shift in messaging towards center right voters alienated the Dem base.
The social safety net is popular even amongst trump voters. Again, Dem messaging problem.
Harris did meet with Muslims in MI, Oct 4th. They "taught Harris a lesson" and now Palestine will be wiped off the map.
Most Dem voters are progressives &want corporations outta politics &know that corporate control of US is literally everything wrong with the US.
The DNC is corporate controlled. They ignored them cuz that’s what their donors wanted.
Donors would rather Trump win than progressive policies
It’s a gaslighting campaign.
They know why they lost.
This is all damage control.
A real primary process would have helped.
Also. Are we that sure Tim Waltz was the best pick?
The mistake IMO was trying to pin specific policies to either the left or the right for all eternity. That made defining "sides" absurdly tangled.
Would more leftism appealed to them? Hard to imagine
You are the only national political figure who has spoken STRONGLY in support of trans women, and this one thanks you.
Had Democrats stood up like you did on these human rights issues instead of waffling and ignoring the attacks on us, maybe we wouldn't be in the present mess.
America.
To give you their vote.
Him decide to vote for Harris. You can’t just flat out say it was a
wrong decision as in certain circles it did have a positive impact
Why the man who chose to fail to uphold his oath of office kept his job after the first time so he could destroy America.
Why did you not make any noise?
Not good.
Out here in CO, they hit Adam Frisch with it.
But we know that progressive policies are popular.
If they're going to call you a socialist anyway, why not just be one? Is this being discussed in the DNC?
Not
Work
You need us in the middle, go left and we out..
she ran a centrist campaign.
i mean i disagree with you but it’s irrelevant to the conversation at hand.
The left voters need to get actively involved & create an “alternative” culture. Just having more pro-left media presence won’t work unless we create a “movement”. (Like the 60’s anti-war counter culture)
The 2024 result shows that the choice is unite or die. Anyone who can't agree to do this prior to the 2028 selection process starting, is an enemy of progressive politics and needs to be framed as such.
People don’t like republicans! They ruin people’s lives!
They thought they could get imaginary “moderate republican”votes &ignore their own damn party &win on a warmongering campaign in the middle of a huge anti war movement.
Republicans yeeted the Bush era warmongerers cuz they cost them elections. It’s profoundly stupid
Even republican voters are antiwar these days
https://bsky.app/profile/williamlidc.bsky.social/post/3lbljf33mok2c
Republicans always have a token “ex-Democrat” or two to shit on the D candidate, and nobody accuses them of “moving left”!
The real issue that will continue to be swept aside is just how influential the propaganda is, even though it seems obvious to people who read and understand even a little bit.
My own thoughts based on reading what others are saying is that people stayed home because Harris' actual message was not getting through the static Twitter was putting in the signal.
Democrats have been at each other since Biden’s debate and it’s not a good look.
Harris ran a good campaign, she had everyone believing she was going to win, even Trump.
BTW the constitution isn’t going to save us - figure that out!
Pelosi makes a point of telling people to throw her under the bus if that's what it takes. Loyalty is admirable, but the point is to win!
Dems need to get tough on crime, tough on the border, and that will give them the votes to help average Americans. This isn't difficult.
And I can’t understand why????
But not that hard to see why he was vulnerable.
The fire alarm thing wasn’t helpful.
“She opposes codification of IHRA. This non-binding resolution didn’t do that.”
I can't imagine why AIPAC no longer felt the need to go after some seats.
So there's that! The volunteer effort definitely had a great impact.
But I am shocked that we only barely lost the Senate and seem to be basically right where we were with the House1/2
Shameless lies by Drumpf and his legion of enablers.
There’s no rational way to take what you said in the way they did. No matter what you suggest, it’ll never be enough for that type.
WE ARE #TheResistance 🦋
I'm not complaining, I'm pointing out no new strategy will be comprehensive if we don't take into account the media environment
This is class warfare. Forget red state vs blue state. It’s greed vs everyone else. Our army is bigger but the people who should be fighting with us are devoted to the other side.
Its a dire message and not one ever conveyed during the campaign.
We only need a few million more to Stand Out with you…
Hopefully, we can regain unified momentum.
I feel like those two things were major contributors to the inflation. Dems would've won if he stomped out inflation before it went crazy.
Hammer home that your agenda is the way hit back at the ultra wealthy and HURT them. Repeat ad nauseam. Stay on message.
https://bsky.app/profile/us-gov-funding.bsky.social
like they won, we need to figure out how to beat the bad guys, that’s the point!
the stakes are too high to coddle people who can't think clearly about what comes next.
https://youtu.be/TKBJoj4XyFc?si=bmQvAvyOsS279xl-
That's why the party, whose vast majority are centrists and liberals, look to pick up moderate and independent votes. Because leftists are completely unreliable.
Grow up. You’re a disaster.
You attack Israel & do nothing about the hostages while falsely blaming AIPAC for losses it had nothing to do with.
You ignore polls that show most voters weren’t interested in Israel/Hamas. You’re out of touch.
Maybe a show called "Roses and Thorns", where you analyze two races that were won, and one that was lost. (alternate title: "Shit Sandwich")
Just admit you were WRONG to back Biden, & LYING that Harris was working in a ceasefire.
You've burned years of political capital on this. Either admit it, or you're no better than them.
I dislike the term "left punching" because I've never once thought of any of my democrat criticism as an attack on Democrats.
Glad you're here!
But Wesley Bell is trash for so many reasons, and we'll be lucky if he just turns into a new Lacy Clay that shows up to vote and cash paychecks instead of outright turning into a Blue Dog or flipping parties
And Ann Wagner is the redistricting queen. My best friends parents live a few blocks from me and are in her district. NOW. Every few cycles they just redraw the map and cut it in her favor
I saw some of the attack ads between Bell and Bush, and... oh no... yeah, the shit I saw on him wasn't good. Wasn't he accused of rape, or SA?
The ads were just ridiculous. He ran on a record he didn't have after somehow being worse at the job than McCulloch was
And he once asked me if we did discounts for public officials at my business. Nope, and certainly not a bad at his job prosecutor
Someone I respect deeply went and identified some major problems that few if anyone in Washington is discussing: https://bsky.app/profile/ynot1989.bsky.social/post/3lbkqxqoeys2u
Thank you for being a light in the black.
It's why most of these post mortems are useless.
https://www.planetcritical.com/p/cyber-security-experts-warn-election-hacked
AIPAC is the reason HRC was forced down our throats in 2016.
They forced Jon Stewart to step down, knowing he would tell the truth about Clinton.
Because of AIPAC members of our Congress can now hold dual citizenship with Israel.
But yeah, Gen X has really failed.
https://bsky.app/profile/kilpatds.bsky.social/post/3lajzfak2zs2g
https://www.planetcritical.com/p/cyber-security-experts-warn-election-hacked
Not in Ohio, not for Sherrod Brown not against the big money and the messaging of the other.
Campaigning against President Biden and VP Harris caused us the election.
AOC should know that the president can’t withhold appropriated funding without the approval of Congress .
That is what Trump was impeached for .
Trump went from “it’s rigged” to “vote twice” to
“we have a secret” to “we don’t need your votes” to “you won’t need to vote again”. He is a serial liar and cheat.
#recount @marcelias.bsky.social
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoVqbuCihAM
https://youtu.be/RJR5uQpweko?si=1CKDt0PguTbh-4vk