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I'm just gonna be blunt and accept the downvotes here:
All this "the Democrats failed because [blank]" arguments are just blame shifting. We all saw what Trump was about, what he did while in office, and especially what he did after he lost that office the first time. We all know what kind of threat Trump represents to the future of this country.
The fact that (up to) 15 million Democratic voters stayed home and/or voted 3rd party is a failure on our part to take that threat seriously.
But WHY?? This is the one thing I just can't wrap my head around. How were all those warnings and the fact Trump would run again not enough?? Understand that I am trying to make sense of this election from an outsiders perspective. But it feels like I'm trying to uncover a magic trick.
In a nutshell:
Bullshit.
I voted for Harris, but I understand why people gave up.
I have cancer, under Harris, I would have still had a struggle to afford my medications AND work at the same time. As it was, I was condemned to a life of poverty to afford my medications, choosing to not have a job so I could get the ACA to cover my $18k a month medications. Debating on whether I should be condemned to the poverty of disability or continue trying to find a way to work.
I will die under Trump, but for a lot of people, the prospect of just waiting and waiting for help that will never come? They got tired and were willing to watch it all burn because what's the fucking point if no one is coming to save you either way?
In a way, at least my death here will be swift instead of stressful-to-the-end-of-my-life-in-poverty. I can see why some people chose that. I'm 43 and I'm exhausted, I'm sure there's more who are even more exhausted than me, because cancer didn't hit me until I was 42 (I guess cancer is the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything), and many many many people were suffering under similar issues far younger. So they just chose to abandon the Dems because the Dems abandoned them.
The Dems were busy trying to get WAR CRIMINAL Dick Cheney on their side like that matters to people who are struggling. They spent the election crowing about how good the economy was when it was realistically only good for the already obscenely wealthy. They told railroad unions to go fuck themselves, they don't get to strike (and then followed up with trains chemical bombing whole cities in derailments). They were willing to hand the Republicans literally everything they wanted in a border bill because FUCK them DREAMers, I guess.
They abandoned us and continue to abandon us, and I understand why people who have been abandoned don't show up to vote.
Honestly so few people actually gave a fuck about Palestine its a joke to bring up. It's not like anyone even knows who the fuck Rachel Corrie is, and if they cared about Palestine, they would be chanting her fucking name to this god damned day. American citizen murdered with a bulldozer so Israel could steal Palestinian land, over 20 years later and still no one gives a shit. Americans were never going to give a fuck about Gaza, they're all too god damned selfish.
I was excited when Harris first announced and started calling out Trump on his bullshit. Then she was non-committal in actually withholding arms from Israel due to their constantly violating the conditions of being sent those weapons. Then she said that burning a flag was unAmerican or something close enough. Then it went to the step of trying to appeal to Republican voters instead of trying to motivate undecided and apathetic voters, who are the people that helped Obama win with his campaign of hope and change.
I can completely understand someone who has given up because the Dems are just slow walking the decline, not actually improving anything. It is so fucking demoralizing that the Dems can't learn anything.
They became the establishment that helped Hillary lose to Trump.
Obama had a winning message and he failed to follow through on a lot of it. It was about hope and more importantly CHANGE.
The change never came, and the candidates that came after never promised hope OR change. People stopped believing Democrats were offering either hope or change. Because they weren't, they were offering "don't rock the boat, it might upset the rich."
I mean, even Obama offered up RomneyCare instead of something more progressive. People got wise to that over time. It made them feel defeated.
Trump offered change, it's that simple. Most in this country are sadly too uneducated to really realize what his type of change means.
Democrats were too busy worrying about whether they could actually implement policy, so they tried to only make promises they could keep, and with Republicans obstructing everything they did, they stopped making real, useful promises to the electorate.
People loved Sanders whether he could make his agenda happen or not, case in point. Nobody likes a policy wonk telling them "no, wait longer."
Dems failed spectacularly by not getting rid of the filibuster when their supermajority had a couple dissenters. If they had actually followed through instead of letting Republicans obstruct when they had two houses and the oval office they could have shown that change and kept the momentum going. Well, if they actually sold their success, which they are also terrible at.
Instead they held onto their safety blanket that the Republicans neutered to stack the courts, and will absolutely throw out if they get the House too so they can pass all the terrible laws they want.
Dems screwed themselves.
Obama in his book says similar things about the filibuster. It's his major regret, not ending it when he had the chance so that he could've done more.
By that same logic...
People could ask why Kamala insisted on doubling down on support of a genocide knowing it was seriously hurting her chances to stop trump.
If voters always have to compromise and politicians can do what they want with no consequences...
That's how Republicans got stuck with trump.
Not having standards is not an effective way to fight fascism, especially when the alternative you're holding your nose for won't actually try to get rid of fascists because the only other option being fascist is the only reason they can win (sometimes).
Because as much as Palestine is supported on lemmy there's a lot of support for Israel within the party as well.
Part of what the Trump campaign did successfully was make both of those caucuses believe that Democrats can offer them nothing while Trump might offer them a solution.
In practice, I would be surprised if Palestine isn't leveled under the Trump administration with prejudice. Trump hasn't been particularly kind to Muslims from what I've seen.
Because a bunch of whiny little bitches decided to become single issue voters.
"WAAAAAH, PALESTINE!!!"
Refuses to vote or votes 3rd party, guaranteeing the guy that will allow Palestine to turn to dust becomes president.
"WAAAAAH, STOP GIVING MONEY TO UKRAINE!!!"
Fails to understand that we're doing that to keep our adversary from expanding their borders and threatening Europe/NATO.
"WAAAAAH, DEMOCRATS DIDN'T ENSHRINE ROE INTO LAW!!!"
Refuses to vote or votes 3rd party, guaranteeing the party that literally repealed Roe controls all aspects of our government.
The real answer to your question is that Americans are STUUUUUUUUPID. Clinically stupid. Uneducated. Uninstersted in informing themselves responsibly. STUUUUUUUUUPID.
Which is why we'll suffer and are likely to be locked in to a long period of serious decline. Sucks to be us.
I think all three of those groups are in for a pretty bad wake up call regarding what their protest vote bought them...
Oh they are. But realistically, based on all the evidence at hand, they won't learn anything from it. They'll be back to voting like fools in a few years. We Americans clearly don't learn from our mistakes.
Consider this. A few weeks before the election Donald Trump and Elon Musk had a little circle jerk podcast interview with each other. They spent time talking about how anti-union they are and how much they hate worker's rights. Then working class Americans went out in droves and voted for those two rich assholes who openly talked about wishing workers had less rights.
Americans. Are. Stupid.
Our situation isn't going to get better any time soon.
Yes, thank you. Every generation "discovers" the Palestinian issue and then some act like its a new problem. And then some dumb-asses in America choose that as their hill to die on. To the point where they helped Trump get elected this time.
The Palestinians have been locked in a death embrace with Israel for 80 years and no amount of whining by privileged American protesters is going to change that. Do they really think that more river-to-the-sea terrorism is going to make the Israelis just give up and die? No, a two-state solution where all the Palestinians move to the West Bank and all the Israeli settlers move back to Israel is the only viable solution. Every generation eventually figures that out, too. Also, Gaza is finished this time. It was always a dumb idea to have two separate Palestinian enclaves.
It is down to the practical matter of separating the two sides and imposing a peace since apparently they can't do it for themselves. If that sounds harsh, it is almost certainly better for the Palestinians than letting the Israelis settle it the Roman way. And that is on the table now, since I'm sure we can all agree that Trump doesn't give a single shit on his golden toilet about the Palestinians.
Yup.
I don't want bad things to happen anywhere in the world, but the bottom line is we have our own shit to deal with and jeopardizing our own country by becoming a single issue voter over two countries in a neverending religious conflict on the other side of the planet is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen.
We're literally going to be in a state of decline for an unknown period of years now partially because we chose to place another country over our own by voting for the guy that made it clear he would allow that country to turn to dust.
It sounds stupid because it is, in fact, unbelievably stupid.
Because Dem voters have always needed something to vote for, voting against works for Republicans.
But there's significant brain differences between the two groups, what's effective for one isn't for the other
The problem is the "moderates" running the DNC think like Republicans, and part of that is a reduction in empathy that prevents them from understanding others think differently. They legitimately have no idea what went wrong right now, their brains can't comprehend another person's point of view.
So we've got two political parties ran by conservatives, it's just only one actually understands how their voters think. So they keep winning even with trump.
Technically Republicans are voting for something when when they are voting to destroy the government. Their goal just happens to be destructive.
I kinda thought they would learn from Obama's success in promoting hope and change, but no, they are right back to trying to peel off Republican voters instead of motivating the unengaged voters like he did.
That wasn't success for them, it was almost their deathknell.
If Obama had appointed progressive leadership in 2008 shit would be a lot different and Bernie would likely be leaving his second term right now.
The people running the DNC retain power when a moderate Dem wins because they'll stay the course and appoint the same DNC leadership.
They retain power when a republican wins because they vote for their own leadership then.
The literal only way they can lose is if a progressive becomes president and doesn't decide to ignore the DNC like Obama did.
That's why they'd rather have trump than someone that wants to ban fracking.
The DNC isn't fighting fascism, it's just the left boot.
This is a very popular thought in the "leftist" and/or "progressive" space. However, what's your explanation for West Virginia?
I can't tell you how many people I've argued with that said "get rid of Manchin, run a real progressive."
https://web.archive.org/web/20240930203241/https://www.elliottforwv.com/issues/
Democrats are going to lose their Senate majority in no part because people decided it was better to harass Manchin into not running. Elliott is definitely much more progressive than Manchin ever was.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-elections/west-virginia-senate-results
Elliott lost by a LANDSLIDE. How do you rationalize that? Shouldn't it have at least been close? Was he just not "progressive enough"?
Nice way to say it