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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...
Blame the left. Tried and true strategy to cope with all your losses.
You know who else blames the left for everything? Republicans.
A) They know they can hurt the feelings of people of conscience, whereas Trump voters will just act like sociopaths and "drink their delicious tears," and...
B) Since Reagan, Neoliberals and Republicans largely both agree on and defend the shape of our necrotic, highly and intentionally rigged crony marked capitalist economy, and both would rather have the other in power than a political movement that would get rid of the corruption that feeds our profiteers because they believe they might be one one day. Thats why neoliberals like Pelosi hate people in their own party like AOC and Sanders more than their Republican opposition.
And as long as Americans are fed and eat the TOXIC dream/delusion of becoming the wealthy ones inflicting themselves upon society, things cannot improve.
A society competing against itself cannot stand.
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.