I dont think a lack of primaries was part of the problem.
Y’all had a choice between less-than-perfect & and straight up hatred. Your choice was to let hate reign. And now you’re gloating about it. So fuck you for that. And your quaint meme is the equivalent of smearing your own shit on the wall in a tepid little tantrum, complete with wrongly framed arguments. Go ahead and downvote me or write a pithy faux angry response. This is social media. It’s fucking meaningless. Voting had meaning. As do the mass deportations that are the cornerstone of Trump’s campaign promises. You petty fucks.
I agree with both you and the meme. You're right that everyone should have sucked it up and voted for Kamala anyway. The meme is right because the Dems fucked this royally at several stages. Yes, American voters have made a decision that I massively disagree with... But you also have to recognise the vast political mistakes the party have made that led to this point.
I have no skin in this game, but if the two options are that clear, you absolutely can blame the voters.
At the end of the day, this rhetoric is trying to find absolution by delegating responsibility to a higher authority. Not we, the voters, are wrong, it's the party elites, that forced us to vote fascism into power because the other offer wasn't good enough. It's not our fault, it's theirs.
No, you don't get a pass. Germany didn't get a pass, either. And rightly so.
Yeah. Fuck.
I voted for her. This meme is still correct.
Thank you. Republicans did all these things and won. These posts look like a narrative being pushed to divide us further.
No, no, but they 'understand' the choice of abstainers to embrace fascism.
It rings as hollow to me as the annual pancake-breakfast op-ed by city liberals before every fucking election about how rural Republicans have Legitimate Grievances(tm).
So you think the 8-15 million potential voters so politically disengaged that they didn't vote...
Spend their time hanging out on political forums?
The people you see online talking about it are politically engaged, which is why almost all of us voted D like every other election since we've been 18.
The ones you're mad at will never see your insults.
And pointing out this years strategy was fucking stupid does still matter.
It mattered more years ago when we had plenty of time before the 2024 election, but it matters today for the 2028 election.too
Our country can't afford the only options to be fascists and halfway fascists, we can't keep moving to the right and expect anything to change
Nothing is changing. The voters won't change. The DNC must be held accountable now.
You just sound sad, to be honest. Take some time away from the internet, to heal, to organise, to prepare for the next fight. Don't give yourself up to hate as well, as it will only eat you from the inside.
Hate has motivated me.
This was a race between a B student and an orangutan throwing feces everywhere. We're spending all our time talking about the questions the B student got wrong, but in the meantime we voted the orangutan as valedictorian and all he did was smear shit on the test and try to hump the microphone stand.
No her mistakes aren't the problem. The problem is we're willing to elect a monkey to shit on everything and blame an average decent person for losing.
......
Fuck.....
A class of kids would TOTALLY elect a monkey..... We're just old high schoolers...... We're so fucked......
Well that's the problem, innit? The orange shit heap will get a good chunk of votes from the idiots no matter what. So the other candidate needs to be an A grade to attract the rest of the votes, otherwise the pile of feces will win. At this point it's obvious the diarrhea puddle can do whatever he wants and still get his share of votes, so asking why he can do and say whatever and get away with it is pointless.
I've been thinking about "don't hold primaries" since reading this
Maybe I’m not that smart, but shouldn’t we blame the fascists and the people who voted for the fascists for the impending fascism?
Sure, but what's your solution to that? What can Dems do differently next time that will stop the GOP cult from voting?
The answer is nothing, that's why they are a cult. Nobody can break through to the entire group, just trying to get through to individual members is difficult enough. The time to try and prevent the cult from rising was two decades ago. Now that it's here, our only option is to acknowledge its existence and fight it directly.
Blaming the GOP for running an effective campaign that motivated their cult to vote is how nobody learns anything. The Dems have to realize that they failed to run an effective campaign in opposition.
blame the whole fucking electorate. buncha fucking clowns pissed off because eggs cost $5 or some shit. the fuck is gonna happen when there's tariffs on everything and no one working the fucking vegetable fields? what happens when the republicunts generate 8 trillion in new debt?
the fuck is gonna happen to the price of eggs?
This election has a remarkable ability to make people forget about the magic of Multiple Causes ™️
But it's of course overwhelmingly the nazis' fault, yes.
Turnout didn't change for Trump. In fact it was less than 2020. What happened was a repeat of 2016, this is the third time they put up an establishment candidate, when it's been glaringly obvious Americans on the left and right are tired of that. The DNC is going to eat a lot of the blame this time--if not the majority, there are hardly any excuses this time.
They'd rather have Trump than a non establishment candidate they can't control.
You got 3.5 years to change that. Go.
3 groups of eligible voters. Trump voters. Harris voters, and 3rd party/abstainers.
Yes, the first group to be upset with are trump voters. But largely they arent here, so discussion and memes focus on the other group, the abstainers.
There's plenty of blame to go around. One thing a politician needs to do is effectively sell themselves to the people who will be voting. Harris spent a lot of time selling herself to Republicans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/24/us/politics/kamala-harris-progressives-democrats.html
The people who voted for the fascists were always going to vote for the fascists.
I have no need or desire to argue with you about it. There is no end to people smarter and more eloquent than I who are explaining the exact same thing in more detail than I could, from Bernie Sanders to Rolling Stone.
Blame them and the fake leftists trying to pretend democrats lost for not being left enough. Both are responsible for the impending fascism.
While it is true that voters absolutely should have turned out to vote for not-hitler over hitler, there are lessons that the dnc can learn from this. for example trump reaches normal, non-political people since conservatives go on talk shows like rogan and others and shows the "human" side of him. im not saying going on rogan would have saved the campaign, but democrats dont do any non-political talk shows until just before the election if they do any at all. As the surge in "did biden drop out" searches indicated, the electorate has no idea what the fuck is going on. if democrats want to reach the common person, they should go where the common person is. the undecided voters dont understand policy, so they vote for who they like more.
You forget the last part of the trick:
Double down, blame everyone else, go even further to the right. Then collect an even bigger check from billionaires
The DNC doesn't exist to get Dems in office, it's only purpose these days is to make sure when the billionaires lose, they just win a little less then they would have.
At this point there's no other explanation for why they're so fucking bad at getting a Dem elected.
So when we burning it down? It'd be better to start now, not 3 years from now.
If anyone wants to make an actual difference, the big time to do so would actually be midterms. I'm pretty sure we'll still have 2026 midterm elections, so working to replace pro-corporate Democrats in historically safe Dem districts would be the place to start. Checking in with any politically active leftist groups in your area is a good way to start finding candidates to rally around, and local protests are generally a great place to connect with leftist groups.
They'll demand we start burning the system down just before the next election, don't worry.
No argument here!
"Unpopular"? Wasn't everyone stoked when Harris took over? Genuine question.
People were stoked when she stepped in for Biden, but that was largely a result of Biden's unpopularity. Then she spent her campaign not building any distance between herself and him
She built some distance. She moved to the right of Biden.
Bullshit. Not least of which was the alternative is horror.
This isn’t anything close to what went “wrong”.
Harris had very little to do with it. The DNC, I mean, yeah it’s on them, but that’s still not all of it.
People are so goddamned stupid and confused, we’re gonna murder the planet because of it. That’s Harris’ fault? Fuck no.
People were happy she's at least coherent, but she didn't exactly impress when she ran in the 2020 primaries, in fact, there were some stories after the fact about how badly that campaign was run.
She would have won primaries this time around, though. While conservatives primarily believe in the "right people for the job" (where "right people" here is defined by the social hierarchy), liberals believe in the "right way to do things". And the "right way" here would have been to give the VP her free pass at the general election.
But it's so clear that this campaign was run badly, too. They had all of the momentum coming out of the summer, and it just evaporated in September. You could feel it just as surely as you could feel the seasons change. It's still blowing my mind how they managed to drown themselves.
Harris was an improvement over Biden, she wasn't Bernie or AOC, but miles ahead of Trump. I'd take Biden at this point, hell Biden with dementia would be better than what we got.
Lmao I voted Kamala Harris but she fucking did worse than Hillary. Hillary at least won the popular vote.
in the same way one is stoked to find out it's herpes and not full-blown aids, yes.
"Stoked" is definitely a word. "Mildly relieved but a little pissed" is a more accurate phrase.
Stoked, lol. Relieved is more like it. Biden and Kamala were a fucking embarrassment for Democrats. The DNC annointed a geriatric and a wildly unpopular VP for 2020. It's a fucking miracle they won.
Speaking only for myself - sure - until she abandoned all progressive stances and sprinted for the right, then allowed a Cheney (and other Republicans) to speak at the DNC while also refusing to give even a minute of podium time to anyone with a pro-Palestine viewpoint.
She turned right the moment she announced the candidacy and just kept moving further and further, as if somehow 1) All D votes were in the bag so it didn't matter if they were pissed and also 2) R was going to give any D candidate the time of day.
Didn't work out so well. It turns out that trying to become the watered down version of your opponent doesn't win a lot of good favor among the folks who put you in that position in the first place.
100% Neoliberalism will always move to the right and normalize fascist ideology over improving the livelyhood of the working class. Progressive policies are popular with Republican voters too, that's the correct way to fracture the Republican base into voting Democrat.
Conceding to right-wing policies and disinformation, like on immigration, only alienates more of the Democratic base while bolstering Republican voters support for the Republican party.
Polls on campaign messaging
How to Win a Swing Voter in Seven Days
“The View” Alternate Universe: Break From Biden in Interviews, Play the Hits in Ads
Polls on policy
How Trump and Harris Voters See America’s Role in the World
Majority of Americans support progressive policies such as higher minimum wage, free college
Democrats should run on the popular progressive ideas, but not the unpopular ones
Here Are 7 ‘Left Wing’ Ideas (Almost) All Americans Can Get Behind
Finding common ground: 109 national policy proposals with bipartisan support
Progressive Policies Are Popular Policies
Tim Walz's Progressive Policies Popular With Republicans in Swing States
Then she started up with the “drill, baby, drill!” and the “build the wall!” and the “genocide is fine”…
The fuck
People were searching the day before the election to see if Biden was still in the race. Some people were stoked, far more stupid.
She was deeply unpopular before she took over. Even her own staff hated her.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article289792134.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/30/kamala-harris-office-dissent-497290
I kept pointing this out before she was selected, but naturally nobody listened.
The people going absolutely ballistic over pointing out the flaws of the Harris campaign are wild. If seeing someone criticize a politician makes you that upset, in all sincerity, log off. If you can’t differentiate criticizing a politician, campaign, and party from supporting their opponent, you have been sucked into an anxiety/rage spiral and you’re helping nobody, especially yourself.
There is nothing useful in screaming at your allies because you don’t like seeing the post-mortem. And make no mistake, anyone who didn’t vote Trump is either your ally or someone you need to make your ally. Some Trump voters are even going to need to be your allies when they see and regret what they did.
Aye.
People are upset, I get that, that's perfectly fine to acknowledge one's emotions.
Now what?
The next step is reflecting on the failure.That's how you learn from errors, not just in elections, but literally anything. It's certainly more useful than pretending everything was perfect and there's nothing that could've went differently, that's just defeatism.
Criticizing and reflecting to be more self-aware of flaws and strengths, to grow.Then you can make new goals and strategies for the future and kick future's butt.
Right, right. We’re all terminally online and need to touch grass. In addition to being genociders, transphobes, colonialists, and corporate shills. I read that in the GRU manual too.
Anyone who isn't here to help can shut up and get out of the way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Every time a Democrat loses, blue voters turn on each other and say that a lack of X or a policy change to Y would have won over the fence sitters in state Z. It's exhausting folks.
The party is driven by an oligarchy too, with multimillionaires as candidates and even a D governor who is a billionaire. Now that voting is done, please see the underlying argument for "both sides" - it isn't their policy but the make up of the organization. D and R will never be progressive or interested in the issues affecting the broad majority of folks. Dems use the worst consultants and listen to "moderates" more than their dedicated but inactive voters. They are trying too hard to include Rs that don't want them and it's a bad look. The desperation undercuts any message about hope.
It means the money is being spent in many wrong places for voters who will never be helpful. it means that even though D campaigns raised more money, it was frivolously wasted.
The Democrats need Gen Z to take over the party and push for a culture shift, seeking optimistic policies that generate actual hope. Institutional inertia is killing any hope the left can find. Remember when Michael Bloomberg spent $500 million to derail Bernie's campaign trail momentum which allowed Biden to win New Hampshire and become the presumptive nominee even though he had far fewer wins than Bernie? There are bad actors running things for the Dems and they are steering the party into ineffective effort each election.
Last part is missing lose 3 state trifectas that went purple.
Cost PA a Senate seat too.
With a republican majority Supreme Court where Trump can appoint more younger justices who could keep their positions past 2060.
If you couldn't see that Harris would be near-infinitely better than Trump, you might be the problem
Sorry, I forgot I have to preface every criticism with "I voted for Harris, but"
So did everyone else. Since we can’t make that a requirement, I guess we’ll just have to give them the benefit of the- heyyyyyyyy waitaminit!
Hatred and racism didn't win because the other party had an non-perfect policy.
Hatred and racism won because not enough people cared to vote against it.
You're fucking complicit. And when you're complicit with fascism, you're also a fascist.
You’re fucking complicit.
No my dude, I voted for her. I don't agree with the decision from those who didn't vote or voted elsewhere.
But I understand. /ChrisRock
That sentiment might be the one that pisses me off the most.
I wanted her to win. I voted for her myself.
I also saw how her campaign was fucking up constantly. Neutering Walz, embracing early 00s Republicans from Cheney to Frum, ceding all argument on immigration to the fascists...
The list goes on and on.
The Democrats had a billion dollars and all the goodwill in JULY. I'm so mad at them. The party needs to burn and something else needs to be rebuilt in its place.
I am not interested in voting for the candidate of choice of Liz Cheney, Richard Spencer, and the Lincoln Project.
It's hard to admit the russians tricked you into enabling fascism by convincing you no choice is good enough.
Not me, Sir, I voted for her despite all my complaints.
None of those things mattered. Two of them are just conservative talking points. The first is a lie.
If this is what people are going to take away from the election we are doomed to endure many more Republican victories.
