Or maybe, like they normally do, the Democrats failed to rally their base to vote, or didn’t give them enough incentive to get out and vote.
Biden had 4 years to make meaningful progress for the American people, and whether or not he did is irrelevant because Americans don’t feel better off than 4 years ago. Democrats spent the last year screaming about the economy doing amazing, while ignoring all of the polls showing Americans don’t feel that way.
Democrats spent the last year sending weapons shipment after weapons shipment to Israel to bomb Palestinian children, despite polls showing the majority of Americans wanted contingencies on the shipments. And the Democrats instead lectured their constituents about how what they’re seeing and hearing isn’t actually what it is, and it’ll be worse with the other guy!
Democrats spent the last 4 years doing nothing but try to return to the same status quo that isn’t working for the average American anymore. Biden’s hubris took the decision out of the people’s hands, and we were given a candidate we didn’t choose and told to shut up and like it because “fAsCiSm.”
Well, congratulations Democrat Party, we fell to fascism because that’s obviously a better alternative than actually putting forward progressive policies. And whether you like to hear it or not, the Republican voter supporting this fascist movement is doing so because they want change in this country too.
Only difference being, the Republicans are actually “progressing” their party along like their constituents want. Maybe the Democrats should try listening to their constituents for once and, idk, see if that maybe works in their favor for once?
No, the base let themselves very much get rallied.
They had a candidate that said “I’m not going to stop the genocide in Gaza” and one that went “I am fully pro-genocide in Gaza, and I want to burn it all down”. And they all rallied behind the second one. This does tell me, as someone not from the US, one thing: A lot of voters in the US really dislike people from Gaza and want them to die. Fuck you people. Yes, I blame you voters. Fuck you.
No, the Democrats let their base get rallied by the Republicans, I don’t blame the voters at all.
And you’re acting like people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, when it seems more like a lot of people who would have voted Kamala stayed home. And that’s thanks to the Democrats running a centrist platform that didn’t inspire anyone, Biden being a centrist Status-Quo democrat for four years, ignoring the Palestinian Protest Votes during the primaries, refusing to let any Palestinians speak at the DNC but allowing numerous Republicans to, while their best piece of policy to the average American was, “Hey, we’re not Trump.”
I voted Harris, btw, but not because I liked her particularly much, and I think that’s a big part of it. Democrats don’t listen to their constituents, so their constituents stay home due to apathy. That’s on the DNC, not the voters.
And you’re acting like people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, when it seems more like a lot of people who would have voted Kamala stayed home
That’s the exact same thing in a first-past-the-post voting system, sorry. I mean granted, if you wanted to support Trump anyways, you saved yourself the walk. Congrats. But that’s the only difference, you supported Trump either way.
And that’s thanks to the Democrats running a centrist platform that didn’t inspire anyone, Biden being a centrist Status-Quo democrat for four years, ignoring the Palestinian Protest Votes during the primaries, refusing to let any Palestinians speak at the DNC but allowing numerous Republicans to, while their best piece of policy to the average American was, “Hey, we’re not Trump.”
And again it comes down to a singular issue? Again, that’s why I blame the voters: If people so readily toss their intellect aside and become single-issue voters, feeding directly into this us-vs-them polemic that is so prevalent in the far right and the US in general, then they really ought to at least not blame anybody but themselves. It’s easy to ignore a lot of good news if you hyperfocus on a single bad thing and just put your fingers into your ears.
More so if you actually vote to make that single issue you care about worse. But hey, I’m not an american, apparently the majority wants to Genocide Turbo Edition in Gaza.
Democrats don’t listen to their constituents, so their constituents stay home due to apathy. That’s on the DNC, not the voters.
And again, this makes no sense. Hence me blaming voters for their own failings. It’s like with the Brexit, although there at least there was the added thing that nobody expected the vote could ever come out as yes, so most just did not bother to go vote, felt unnecessary. Here, they very much knew that if they don’t go to vote they’re effectively voting for the orange potato fascist. And they still did it. So they’re trump voters now. Stamped and classified. And I blame trump voters.
(edit)
I’ll go a step further: You are a voter ought to actively not want elections to be about marketing. Rather, you should be tracking whether the past electorate has actually improved things.
So, under Biden:
Single families have more money than before.
Cost of living has gone down (despite the high inflation, which came out of Trump’s administration after all, who had a huge bump to cost of living right at the tail end of his administration and yes, we’re still not back to where we were before but c’mon, it got stricly bad under Trump and massively better again under Biden, what magical miracle did people expect after the potato ruined things so much?!)
Violent crime, in particular homicides, are far down.
Green spending is up by a ton. Still less than ideal, but damn did they fund a lot of new green tech, and it shows. Wasn’t it something like 96% of new energy installed last year was green?
Social inequality decreased. (yeah I know this is surprising, which just goes to show how little we care about actual data and what sheep we all are)
Health care went up significantly (after it went down again under Trump)
I mean, how many positive news do people really need? At what point is it okay if I blame the idiotic voters who actively choose to ignore it and listen to the right-wing media feeding them rage bait?
It’s almost as if, and I know this is wild to americans, neither choice would have fixed that you’re a country in north america, either. Maybe some things should not be used as a decisionmaker between these two candidates.
What I will say is that I can very much understand the urge to then not go vote (seems the democrates are missing ~20 mil votes that did not go to the republicans), and it takes actual knowledge of the voting system to know that this is not a useful thing to do in a first-past-the-post system, though it can be in other types. Hence the need to restrain oneself and still vote, just for the least bad option if no good one is available.
Yeah and due to it being FPTP, you officially now like Trump, since that’s how your voting system works. You don’t get to pick “neither”, your name is automatically under the winning candidate as the winner takes all. I understand the reasoning, but it doesn’t work for this system, you have to actively vote for the less-bad option to avoid the more-bad going into office.
Even if you very much do not like less-bad in office, either. That would take an actual system reform to fix though. But hey don’t worry, you’re getting that soon. Just in a very monkey-paw-curls way.
This is the point I’m trying to make too. I don’t even think Americans care about Gaza enough to make such a large difference in votes as we’ve seen last night. I guess the scapegoating must start as soon as possible to avoid enacting any meaningful change in the status quo.
I see the Palestinian issue as a great proxy for inspecting the Democrat mindset even though it’s not itself an election winner. And as they say, they failed the vibe check horribly. It’s not a “single issue” if the mindset applies to every decision they make.
What exactly is wrong with what they said? At the end of the day, democrats support the genocide too. You can’t say “republicans will do it harder hurr durr” and expect people to vote for the one that still is for genocide, but is a little bit shy about it. The end result is the same - the Palestinian state will never exist and the people will be killed. There is no difference if it happens over a year or over three. So that issue is brushed aside, or is the cause of not voting at all.
Then you have the absolutely idiotic move to the right. Saying “the border wall is a good idea” as a democrat? Come the F on.
Want me to add a few more, and you give your takes on those?
Let’s start with a few easy ones:
Bodily autonomy of women.
Gerrymandering
Climate change
Land grabbing
Corporate tax evasion
You make the exact same mistake, too. You let people direct you towards a singular, specific, feels-driven point instead of trying to give an informed vote. Any large-scale politics is always going to be a hybrid vote. You won’t have any even city-wide, nevermind state-wide candidate of any party (over here, I know it’s only two for you folks :P ) where you agree with all of their stances.
But if you let someone train you to ignore the vast majority of stances in favor of just 1-2, I hopefully don’t need to explain to you how you have effectively turned yourself into a voting-drone. You can be trivially led by anger and feeling, not by rational thought and informed vote. And especially on large-scale politics, the problem is not with immediate feels, in particular if people start putting those in power that want ot actively dismantle their own checks and balances. Because then even if they later decide differently, they cannot remove them any more. It’s now too late for that.
It says a lot that everybody commenting is so hyperfocused on Gaza. This is exactly what the right wing wanted. And I blame voters for so readily - and greedily - walking into this “trap” (for lack of a better word, not my primary language).
The same bodily autonomy Democrats failed to enshrine in law at any point in the decades following the initial Roe v. Wade decision? Or the bodily autonomy that Harris and the dems wouldn’t have had the votes to pass anyway even had they won? Or do you mean the bodily autonomy that Biden has done nothing meaningful with since he took office four years ago?
Gerrymandering
What specific policy platform did Harris put forward and advertise to the American people regarding gerrymandering? I don’t recall anything specific beyond “we need to stop it.” Ok, how? How do you plan to do that when, once again, you won’t have majorities in both houses, and SCOTUS is corrupt and you/Biden refuse to do anything about that, either, like pack the court?
Climate change
She reversed her policy on fracking a couple weeks into her campaign, might make voters think you can’t trust her and her commitment to the climate crisis, which Biden has shown to also not be doing great on.
Land grabbing
I’m assuming this is related to housing? Yeah, Harris said she wanted to build 3 million new homes and offer first time homebuyers down payment assistance. This doesn’t address all of the corporate consolidation of housing, and it doesn’t prevent these corporate entities from gobbling up huge amounts of these new homes.
Corporate tax evasion
What has Biden done in regards to this? Have the tax breaks put in place by Trump been reversed? No? Because they have to be undone by Congress? Cool, so what’s Harris’s plan if she doesn’t control both houses of Congress, send me 8 emails a day for the next 4 years begging me for money while not raising the minimum wage in any meaningful way?
I voted Harris, to be clear, but her policies were centrist at best, and that’s why she lost. Regardless of what the stats and polls show, Americans don’t feel better off than four years ago. Americans want change, and if it’s not going to be progress, then I guess it’ll be regress. And the Dems have no one to blame but themselves.
“feels driven point” as if I don’t have coworkers and friends in Gaza who are living through the hell that Israel, and by extension the US put them through. That’s why “she’s not Trump” isn’t a good strategy. Fuck “other stances” - I care about them right now. Saying I should stop and “deal with it” is like walking up to a grieving family and telling them they should “deal with it” that their child is dead. You call it “a trap” you call it “stupid” when in reality it is an important issue to some people, just not you. So keep going on about how people are idiots, when it is 100% on the candidate to say “we need to stop what’s happening there”. And when the polls came back and it turns out “oh hey that gets us votes, lemme say that!” she immediately flipped 180, two days before the election.
People like you like to quote the “First they came…” poem like the first line isn’t “First they came for the Palestinians”.
No, I just feel it’s ridiculous to try make an issue out of Gaza while you’re actively electing a fascist at home.
You know, if my neighbor is gasping for air, I sure would like to help them. Turns out, there’s a good reason they tell you on planes to first put your own air mask on, because otherwise you’re unconscious and can’t help anyways.
Which is what’ll happen now. Because apparently in a choice between 1-worse-99-better and 100-worse-0-better, the latter felt more natural to the majority.
Again, the reason I blame voters is because they let themselves get controlled into caring about such a singular issue, to the point where they have now fucked themselves over because they forgot to look at their own country even for just a second. Which is even more annoying because unlike last time, they had a lot of preparatory time in which to see just how exactly electing Trump will fuck them all up.
That’s he’s also going to make Gaza worse is a given, he has explictly said so. But that’s not what I blame the voters for. I blame them for putting him in power by letting themselves get controlled to only see a single issue.
There is no “control”, there is important things to people. Hell, some things are more important than others. And genocide of your friends is one of those things.
Explain to me - why didn’t they stop the genocide (or at least the arms shipments) to Israel when they are in charge for the last four years. If you are able to do that and not sound like an absolute cynical monster, then we can talk about politics. But you can’t.
Again, you wouldn’t walk up to a gay person and try to convince them to vote for Trump because the border wall was “a good idea” (as Harris put it). They’d call you insane. They’d tell you fuck Trump because he is anti LGBT. That would still be “a single issue” for them. So why are you trying to come in here and be holier than thou, to a different group of people who have a similar dealbreaker about Harris?
You are saying that as if I didn’t have to sit in stunned silence for an entire day already, when one of them lost an entire extended family (uncles and their family) who literally lived nextdoor to them. The bombing took out the wall in their bedroom and hurt their 3 months old child.
If you ever think “I’m an empathetic person”, think about this post, how you used tribal politics to basically say “that thing that happened earlier to them already? It will happen to them again, and it would still happen if ‘my candidate’ won the election”.
Okay… And what did you do here to move the needle on the Gaza issue? Holding your breath and turning blue feels like a moral high ground sure. But what did you actually do?
Wow you’re a straight up asshole. Im sorry but there it is. Not a ‘how can I help’ but a fuck you. Gloriously on full display. And you wanted this person’s support for harris? Bless your heart. Jesus i need a drink.
@Maalus@lemmy.world heres a hug for you and the shit you and your circle have been going through this last year. I’m really sorry for everything that has happened.
Appreciate it. My coworkers are incredible people, you could write a movie about the shit they’ve done. I know that in their place, I most likely wouldn’t be able to give as much as they have to the people around them. They inspire me every day to continue doing what I’m doing, even when it’s hard and often thankless.
I work with people in need and I send humanitarian aid. I’m doing what I am able to do, exhausting my savings and putting my future on the line for them. What did you actually do?
And that’s great on a personal level, but what did it do in terms of this choice where Gaza was not featured but the possibility of a second genocide on your doorstep or the death of the democratic process that protects your right to protest and send that aid at all was being happily speculated on?
Look, you can check my older comments to understand where I’m coming from. I’m open to listening and perhaps we both can learn something from all of this.
The belief that everyone decrying Harris’ stance on Gaza was knowingly or unknowingly participating in enabling a worse stance on Gaza than the still-not-great one we would have gotten with her.
Look back now with hindsight and tell me what would be better for Palestinians in Gaza. What we’re getting with trump in charge? Or what we might have gotten if every single person who said negative things about Harris’ stance had instead focused solely on how Trump’s stance was objectively worse per his own words.
By not putting the focus on the absolutely 100% guaranteed WORSE stance of the two, people enabled talking points that led, in part, to where we are now.
THAT is why so many of us screaming about harm reduction and the lesser of two evils is SO pissed off about single-issue Gaza voters not putting in for Harris.
Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good. It leads to this.
Elections are about holding your nose and making the best of a bunch of imperfect choices.
Trying to make it anything else from the top down is folly. You have to start from the bottom up. Until that happens, we will never see our way out of a two party system.
You’re still blind you’ve learned nothing. Enjoy your fascism. Its not your fault people didnt vote for harris. Its their fault for not understanding how the system works. 😂 You’re hopeless. Harris lost not because of the genocide, its just an example, she lost because she didn’t give voters a reason to show up for her.
Arabs? Israel has a right to murder your family.
Young people? Sit down im speaking.
Labors? Heres 50k for you to start a business. Wat? I need to afford eggs.
Abortion? Oh wait thats protected already is most of the states in play.
Yup and? When will you learn people need support and not shame if you want them to chill in your backyard? Please go self reflect and that what people who are informing you here to your favored party.
Apparently people who sat out didnt get your memo that they then supported trump by not showing up. Funny how that happens.
Look back now with hindsight and tell me what would be better for Palestinians in Gaza. What we’re getting with trump in charge? Or what we might have gotten if every single person who said negative things about Harris’ stance had instead focused solely on how Trump’s stance was objectively worse per his own words.
Can you try to put that into words? Like, give me concrete examples of how Trump is worse for Gaza.
A weapon doesn’t kill or hurt less people just because the dealer who sold/gave it away said, “Genocide is bad, okay?”
Those bombs are gonna kill and hurt people no matter if it’s the Dems or the Reps sending them to Israel. There are lots of reasons why Trump is worse, but if you’re a Palestinian it really doesn’t make a difference if the weapon that kills you came from a racist man or a woman who condemns genocide.
Edit:
So many downvotes, so many disagreeing comments, but not a single fucking person has managed to give one concrete example that explains why weapons coming from Trump is so much worse than weapons coming from Kamala, for Palestinians.
Palestinian nº1: Watchout, a bomb!
Palestinian nº2: Don’t worry, the person who send it said that genocide is bad!
Palestinian nº1: Oh, thank God! And thank you, for putting my mind at ease. For a moment I though that bomb had come from a racist, but I’m glad to hear American democracy has been saved by the democratic party! Now I can be blown to pieces with a smile on my face 🙂
Edit 2:
Here’s an article detailing the destruction in Gaza in December 2023, 11 months ago. I feel like some of you need reminding of the current reality, when you can’t even come up with concrete hypotheticals.
Can you try to put that into words? Like, give me concrete examples of how Trump is worse for Gaza.
Because there’s no effing way Netanyahu would have posted anything like this in response to a Kamala win.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback! Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory! In true friendship,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted on social media platform X.
I asked for something concrete that Trump would do that is worse for Palestine. You still haven’t explained how a bomb from the Republicans hurts more than a bomb from the Democrats.
Again, there’s lots of reasons Trump is worse than Kamala, but weapons will kill people no matter who uses them.
And one more comment where you give me nothing concrete. Every reply I get like this and which fails to give concrete examples just reinforce my point.
Do you want me to list how things can and will get much worse? Will you finally shut the fuck up?
Israel decides to “annex” the West Bank. The settlers who are forcing Palestinians out of their family homes will have the backing of the IDF/US military. The people who are displaced will be executed.
US troops sent to Israel to aid the IDF in their genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and then onward as Israel pushes their invasion force further into Lebanon and other Middle Eastern nations, provoking a much larger global conflict.
US gives Israel approval to use tactical nukes in that conflict. US continues to provide arms for this extended campaign.
Israel decides to use chemical weapons to clear out populated areas, because at this point there’s no point in pretending to care about civilian casualties.
Netanyahu has the IDF go door to door executing Palestinian women and children, and then run over their corpses with bulldozers (again).
Stateside: Trump administration rounds up every Palestinian and deports them to Israel. Most of them will never be seen again.
Trump administration rounds up any person who might be a supporter of Palestine and imprisons and/or executes them.
Trump administration rounds up all Arabs (including the ones who were born here), and deports them to an active battlefield.
I’m going to stop here because I’d rather not ruin my day more than it’s already been ruined.
If you’re gonna crow on and on about genocide, at least have a basic historic understanding of how these things always escalate. It’s not just an on or off thing.
He’s already working towards doing that. What I have asked, repeatedly, and which neither you nor anyone else has even tried to answer, is how, concretely, is Trump going to make it worse than it already is? I’ll repeat myself for the millionth time: a bomb will kill regardless of whether it was supplied by Bide, Kamala, or Trump. A bomb will turn things to rubble no matter if it was supplied by Biden, Kamala, or Trump.
So once again, repeating myself like a mad person, tell me concretely - stop giving vague as fuck answers - concretely, what can Trump do to materially make Palestinian’s life’s worse?
He literally said they should “finish the job” but we all know you’re lying and know he said that. I’m thankful for the user tagging feature in boost. I never have to give you benefit of doubt again, wasting my time reading the words of a liar.
I wonder why people are calling you a liar and a troll.
If the “you” here is singular, then you are the first one to do so, just FYI. But if you wanna use the “popularity makes right” argument, then I suppose you must be okay with Trump being president, given the majority voted for him, right? Or does it not work when the popular voices disagree with you?
And you’ve still given me nothing concrete.
I realize this is an emotional time, especially if you’re American, but you sound completely ridiculous. Take a break from the internet, go hug your friends and family, and (if you’re someone who needs to know this) remember that politics isn’t a reality just once every 4 years and starts from the ground up.
Because you fall into the same “but what about?!”-thing modern far right excels at.
You myopically focus on a single issue, trying desperately to use it as a crowbar to dislodge an otherwise sensible point, ignoring that everything is inherently a compromise, in particular in a 2-party system. Hence any voter who is not as easily blinded - and it’s not like Harris wasn’t very open during speeches about how much the right deals in fearmongering and disinformation, going as far as openly mocking people for made-up bullshit stats they’re yelling - would be able to inform themselves and realize that:
Even if they’d like their candidate of choice to act differently about a specific issue in a specific country on the other side of the globe, there are a million other also-important issues that are strictly going to work out better under this candidate.
The candidate that now won has in fact very openly declared that he wants said genocide to accelerate and wants the IDF to “finish the job”.
So, even if we were to just focus on this particular issue, the voters very much vote pro-genocide when they vote for Trump. I love how he’s technically correct though when he says he wants to end the war in Gaza, people are just too stupid to realize how he means it.
But more importantly, and the central point I’m making, you’re under the belief that reaction to a single issue should matter. Any voter who lets this argument slide has inherently lost themselves to the populist and fascist movements as they excel at exploiting this, and in fact stoke this belief whenever they can. Politics on a large scale cannot be judged based on single issues. Because if you try to, you exactly fall into this trap. You automatically end up being barraged by appeals to emotion, constantly, and you’ll let those decide things for you.
Hence, blaming the voters. For not actually engaging with the democratic process, just with hate- and fearmongering and then wondering why that that ended up controlling them when they sought it out themselves.
As I said in another comment, I don’t even think the Palestinian genocide is something the American people cares enough about. I can’t see how this single issue in isolation could have cost Harris the election, especially by such a margin. BUT, it informs how they think. And it shows. The Dems apparently thought that they could win the election by being as far right as they could get away with. It’s their failure for campaigning cowardly and saying always the safe thing that does well in focus groups. Every election they lose is a chance for the Overton Window to move to the right. They tried to capture votes from people from the right of them MUCH harder than from the left of them on almost every issue.
If a voter is already right leaning, especially in the USA, they won’t vote for Fascism Light, they will vote for Fascism Plus.
you’re under the belief that reaction to a single issue should matter
This is certainly not true. I understand the need for compromise but I also understand that there’s stuff one should not compromise about. Otherwise, what makes us different from the fascists if we’re willing to help kill an entire nation “on the other side of the globe” (as if distance makes their lives less valuable) if it serves us here?
I agree with you that voters have not engaged in the process and many failed to do the most basic of civil duties. But when it happens at such a scale something else is afoot. It was Harris’ election to lose and she did.
You seem to have made many false assumptions about me but still, genuinely, thanks for the reply.
You seem to have made many false assumptions about me but still, genuinely, thanks for the reply.
Oh yeah sorry, I should have been clear about this: I wasn’t talking specifically about you, english is not my primary language and it sometimes becomes easier to write that way and I do it automatically. Thank you for not being offended by it. >.<
It’s funny how common this sentiment is though. My dad started voting for the AfD citing similar words. The very same people do not even notice how this trains them in 3-4 steps to be a voter for a fascist party themselves, it’s why it is so genius/scary. They still think they’re doing the right thing, even when actively supporting what breaks their own ability of doing anything to begin with.
Really goes to show how strong a strictly-controlled corporate mass media with an inherent corporate agenda can be. Billionaires enjoy fascist or ultra-right control as it keeps them out of any external checks and balances. And with their influence on media by owning said media, they get to highlight individual issues and hype them up to be as dealbreaking as they want them to be, while burying a long list of individual good things that happens so that people never get into a positive attitude.
There was this fascinating summary a while ago how much the german SPD did to improve the situations specifically for those groups of people who the AfD bemoaned as being “forgotten about” in one of their polemics. And it was curious to see how little you hear about this simply because being a lot of individually small improvements over a certain number of years, there’s nothing big that has to be reported, and giant right-wing media conglomerates can hence easily bury the good news and focus on individual aggro issues instead.
People are also different nowadays because back a few generations ago when things went to shit, people pulled together and dropped their differences. Nowadays when things globally turn bad and hard times come up, everyone segregates and starts blaming everybody else instantly, which again just makes them very vulnerable to fascism.
This post is a really good example of how the disinformation campaign actually worked on people and created this believe. Fascinating. And terrifying.
Or maybe, like they normally do, the Democrats failed to rally their base to vote, or didn’t give them enough incentive to get out and vote.
Biden had 4 years to make meaningful progress for the American people, and whether or not he did is irrelevant because Americans don’t feel better off than 4 years ago. Democrats spent the last year screaming about the economy doing amazing, while ignoring all of the polls showing Americans don’t feel that way.
Democrats spent the last year sending weapons shipment after weapons shipment to Israel to bomb Palestinian children, despite polls showing the majority of Americans wanted contingencies on the shipments. And the Democrats instead lectured their constituents about how what they’re seeing and hearing isn’t actually what it is, and it’ll be worse with the other guy!
Democrats spent the last 4 years doing nothing but try to return to the same status quo that isn’t working for the average American anymore. Biden’s hubris took the decision out of the people’s hands, and we were given a candidate we didn’t choose and told to shut up and like it because “fAsCiSm.”
Well, congratulations Democrat Party, we fell to fascism because that’s obviously a better alternative than actually putting forward progressive policies. And whether you like to hear it or not, the Republican voter supporting this fascist movement is doing so because they want change in this country too.
Only difference being, the Republicans are actually “progressing” their party along like their constituents want. Maybe the Democrats should try listening to their constituents for once and, idk, see if that maybe works in their favor for once?
No, the base let themselves very much get rallied.
They had a candidate that said “I’m not going to stop the genocide in Gaza” and one that went “I am fully pro-genocide in Gaza, and I want to burn it all down”. And they all rallied behind the second one. This does tell me, as someone not from the US, one thing: A lot of voters in the US really dislike people from Gaza and want them to die. Fuck you people. Yes, I blame you voters. Fuck you.
No, the Democrats let their base get rallied by the Republicans, I don’t blame the voters at all.
And you’re acting like people voted for Trump instead of Kamala, when it seems more like a lot of people who would have voted Kamala stayed home. And that’s thanks to the Democrats running a centrist platform that didn’t inspire anyone, Biden being a centrist Status-Quo democrat for four years, ignoring the Palestinian Protest Votes during the primaries, refusing to let any Palestinians speak at the DNC but allowing numerous Republicans to, while their best piece of policy to the average American was, “Hey, we’re not Trump.”
I voted Harris, btw, but not because I liked her particularly much, and I think that’s a big part of it. Democrats don’t listen to their constituents, so their constituents stay home due to apathy. That’s on the DNC, not the voters.
That’s the exact same thing in a first-past-the-post voting system, sorry. I mean granted, if you wanted to support Trump anyways, you saved yourself the walk. Congrats. But that’s the only difference, you supported Trump either way.
And again it comes down to a singular issue? Again, that’s why I blame the voters: If people so readily toss their intellect aside and become single-issue voters, feeding directly into this us-vs-them polemic that is so prevalent in the far right and the US in general, then they really ought to at least not blame anybody but themselves. It’s easy to ignore a lot of good news if you hyperfocus on a single bad thing and just put your fingers into your ears.
More so if you actually vote to make that single issue you care about worse. But hey, I’m not an american, apparently the majority wants to Genocide Turbo Edition in Gaza.
And again, this makes no sense. Hence me blaming voters for their own failings. It’s like with the Brexit, although there at least there was the added thing that nobody expected the vote could ever come out as yes, so most just did not bother to go vote, felt unnecessary. Here, they very much knew that if they don’t go to vote they’re effectively voting for the orange potato fascist. And they still did it. So they’re trump voters now. Stamped and classified. And I blame trump voters.
(edit)
I’ll go a step further: You are a voter ought to actively not want elections to be about marketing. Rather, you should be tracking whether the past electorate has actually improved things.
So, under Biden:
I mean, how many positive news do people really need? At what point is it okay if I blame the idiotic voters who actively choose to ignore it and listen to the right-wing media feeding them rage bait?
i like how depending on what day it is if i am voting harris i support genocide but if i dont support harris i also support genocide.
It’s almost as if, and I know this is wild to americans, neither choice would have fixed that you’re a country in north america, either. Maybe some things should not be used as a decisionmaker between these two candidates.
What I will say is that I can very much understand the urge to then not go vote (seems the democrates are missing ~20 mil votes that did not go to the republicans), and it takes actual knowledge of the voting system to know that this is not a useful thing to do in a first-past-the-post system, though it can be in other types. Hence the need to restrain oneself and still vote, just for the least bad option if no good one is available.
deleted by creator
Hey friend, guess what didn’t win you the election? Your voting strategy under fptp voting.
It only works if people like you. We don’t like you. Cheers. You brought this onto yourself just like the DNC.
Yeah and due to it being FPTP, you officially now like Trump, since that’s how your voting system works. You don’t get to pick “neither”, your name is automatically under the winning candidate as the winner takes all. I understand the reasoning, but it doesn’t work for this system, you have to actively vote for the less-bad option to avoid the more-bad going into office.
Even if you very much do not like less-bad in office, either. That would take an actual system reform to fix though. But hey don’t worry, you’re getting that soon. Just in a very monkey-paw-curls way.
This is the point I’m trying to make too. I don’t even think Americans care about Gaza enough to make such a large difference in votes as we’ve seen last night. I guess the scapegoating must start as soon as possible to avoid enacting any meaningful change in the status quo.
I see the Palestinian issue as a great proxy for inspecting the Democrat mindset even though it’s not itself an election winner. And as they say, they failed the vibe check horribly. It’s not a “single issue” if the mindset applies to every decision they make.
Indeed, this one gets it for all the folks championing lesser evil fptp nonsense.
What exactly is wrong with what they said? At the end of the day, democrats support the genocide too. You can’t say “republicans will do it harder hurr durr” and expect people to vote for the one that still is for genocide, but is a little bit shy about it. The end result is the same - the Palestinian state will never exist and the people will be killed. There is no difference if it happens over a year or over three. So that issue is brushed aside, or is the cause of not voting at all.
Then you have the absolutely idiotic move to the right. Saying “the border wall is a good idea” as a democrat? Come the F on.
Yes, now you mentioned two issues.
Want me to add a few more, and you give your takes on those?
Let’s start with a few easy ones:
You make the exact same mistake, too. You let people direct you towards a singular, specific, feels-driven point instead of trying to give an informed vote. Any large-scale politics is always going to be a hybrid vote. You won’t have any even city-wide, nevermind state-wide candidate of any party (over here, I know it’s only two for you folks :P ) where you agree with all of their stances.
But if you let someone train you to ignore the vast majority of stances in favor of just 1-2, I hopefully don’t need to explain to you how you have effectively turned yourself into a voting-drone. You can be trivially led by anger and feeling, not by rational thought and informed vote. And especially on large-scale politics, the problem is not with immediate feels, in particular if people start putting those in power that want ot actively dismantle their own checks and balances. Because then even if they later decide differently, they cannot remove them any more. It’s now too late for that.
It says a lot that everybody commenting is so hyperfocused on Gaza. This is exactly what the right wing wanted. And I blame voters for so readily - and greedily - walking into this “trap” (for lack of a better word, not my primary language).
The same bodily autonomy Democrats failed to enshrine in law at any point in the decades following the initial Roe v. Wade decision? Or the bodily autonomy that Harris and the dems wouldn’t have had the votes to pass anyway even had they won? Or do you mean the bodily autonomy that Biden has done nothing meaningful with since he took office four years ago?
What specific policy platform did Harris put forward and advertise to the American people regarding gerrymandering? I don’t recall anything specific beyond “we need to stop it.” Ok, how? How do you plan to do that when, once again, you won’t have majorities in both houses, and SCOTUS is corrupt and you/Biden refuse to do anything about that, either, like pack the court?
She reversed her policy on fracking a couple weeks into her campaign, might make voters think you can’t trust her and her commitment to the climate crisis, which Biden has shown to also not be doing great on.
I’m assuming this is related to housing? Yeah, Harris said she wanted to build 3 million new homes and offer first time homebuyers down payment assistance. This doesn’t address all of the corporate consolidation of housing, and it doesn’t prevent these corporate entities from gobbling up huge amounts of these new homes.
What has Biden done in regards to this? Have the tax breaks put in place by Trump been reversed? No? Because they have to be undone by Congress? Cool, so what’s Harris’s plan if she doesn’t control both houses of Congress, send me 8 emails a day for the next 4 years begging me for money while not raising the minimum wage in any meaningful way?
I voted Harris, to be clear, but her policies were centrist at best, and that’s why she lost. Regardless of what the stats and polls show, Americans don’t feel better off than four years ago. Americans want change, and if it’s not going to be progress, then I guess it’ll be regress. And the Dems have no one to blame but themselves.
“feels driven point” as if I don’t have coworkers and friends in Gaza who are living through the hell that Israel, and by extension the US put them through. That’s why “she’s not Trump” isn’t a good strategy. Fuck “other stances” - I care about them right now. Saying I should stop and “deal with it” is like walking up to a grieving family and telling them they should “deal with it” that their child is dead. You call it “a trap” you call it “stupid” when in reality it is an important issue to some people, just not you. So keep going on about how people are idiots, when it is 100% on the candidate to say “we need to stop what’s happening there”. And when the polls came back and it turns out “oh hey that gets us votes, lemme say that!” she immediately flipped 180, two days before the election.
People like you like to quote the “First they came…” poem like the first line isn’t “First they came for the Palestinians”.
No, I just feel it’s ridiculous to try make an issue out of Gaza while you’re actively electing a fascist at home.
You know, if my neighbor is gasping for air, I sure would like to help them. Turns out, there’s a good reason they tell you on planes to first put your own air mask on, because otherwise you’re unconscious and can’t help anyways.
Which is what’ll happen now. Because apparently in a choice between 1-worse-99-better and 100-worse-0-better, the latter felt more natural to the majority.
Again, the reason I blame voters is because they let themselves get controlled into caring about such a singular issue, to the point where they have now fucked themselves over because they forgot to look at their own country even for just a second. Which is even more annoying because unlike last time, they had a lot of preparatory time in which to see just how exactly electing Trump will fuck them all up.
That’s he’s also going to make Gaza worse is a given, he has explictly said so. But that’s not what I blame the voters for. I blame them for putting him in power by letting themselves get controlled to only see a single issue.
There is no “control”, there is important things to people. Hell, some things are more important than others. And genocide of your friends is one of those things.
Explain to me - why didn’t they stop the genocide (or at least the arms shipments) to Israel when they are in charge for the last four years. If you are able to do that and not sound like an absolute cynical monster, then we can talk about politics. But you can’t.
Again, you wouldn’t walk up to a gay person and try to convince them to vote for Trump because the border wall was “a good idea” (as Harris put it). They’d call you insane. They’d tell you fuck Trump because he is anti LGBT. That would still be “a single issue” for them. So why are you trying to come in here and be holier than thou, to a different group of people who have a similar dealbreaker about Harris?
Well you better hug those coworkers in preparation for what’s coming under Trump.
You are saying that as if I didn’t have to sit in stunned silence for an entire day already, when one of them lost an entire extended family (uncles and their family) who literally lived nextdoor to them. The bombing took out the wall in their bedroom and hurt their 3 months old child.
If you ever think “I’m an empathetic person”, think about this post, how you used tribal politics to basically say “that thing that happened earlier to them already? It will happen to them again, and it would still happen if ‘my candidate’ won the election”.
Okay… And what did you do here to move the needle on the Gaza issue? Holding your breath and turning blue feels like a moral high ground sure. But what did you actually do?
Wow you’re a straight up asshole. Im sorry but there it is. Not a ‘how can I help’ but a fuck you. Gloriously on full display. And you wanted this person’s support for harris? Bless your heart. Jesus i need a drink.
@Maalus@lemmy.world heres a hug for you and the shit you and your circle have been going through this last year. I’m really sorry for everything that has happened.
Appreciate it. My coworkers are incredible people, you could write a movie about the shit they’ve done. I know that in their place, I most likely wouldn’t be able to give as much as they have to the people around them. They inspire me every day to continue doing what I’m doing, even when it’s hard and often thankless.
I work with people in need and I send humanitarian aid. I’m doing what I am able to do, exhausting my savings and putting my future on the line for them. What did you actually do?
And that’s great on a personal level, but what did it do in terms of this choice where Gaza was not featured but the possibility of a second genocide on your doorstep or the death of the democratic process that protects your right to protest and send that aid at all was being happily speculated on?
It didn’t give a vote to a candidate that supports a genocide.
Uh huh. I hope that continues to feel worth it.
What belief, may I ask?
Look, you can check my older comments to understand where I’m coming from. I’m open to listening and perhaps we both can learn something from all of this.
The belief that everyone decrying Harris’ stance on Gaza was knowingly or unknowingly participating in enabling a worse stance on Gaza than the still-not-great one we would have gotten with her.
Look back now with hindsight and tell me what would be better for Palestinians in Gaza. What we’re getting with trump in charge? Or what we might have gotten if every single person who said negative things about Harris’ stance had instead focused solely on how Trump’s stance was objectively worse per his own words.
By not putting the focus on the absolutely 100% guaranteed WORSE stance of the two, people enabled talking points that led, in part, to where we are now.
THAT is why so many of us screaming about harm reduction and the lesser of two evils is SO pissed off about single-issue Gaza voters not putting in for Harris.
Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good. It leads to this.
Elections are about holding your nose and making the best of a bunch of imperfect choices.
Trying to make it anything else from the top down is folly. You have to start from the bottom up. Until that happens, we will never see our way out of a two party system.
You’re still blind you’ve learned nothing. Enjoy your fascism. Its not your fault people didnt vote for harris. Its their fault for not understanding how the system works. 😂 You’re hopeless. Harris lost not because of the genocide, its just an example, she lost because she didn’t give voters a reason to show up for her.
Arabs? Israel has a right to murder your family. Young people? Sit down im speaking. Labors? Heres 50k for you to start a business. Wat? I need to afford eggs. Abortion? Oh wait thats protected already is most of the states in play.
It’s like you literally cannot read. Just leave.
Yup and? When will you learn people need support and not shame if you want them to chill in your backyard? Please go self reflect and that what people who are informing you here to your favored party.
Apparently people who sat out didnt get your memo that they then supported trump by not showing up. Funny how that happens.
Can you try to put that into words? Like, give me concrete examples of how Trump is worse for Gaza.
A weapon doesn’t kill or hurt less people just because the dealer who sold/gave it away said, “Genocide is bad, okay?”
Those bombs are gonna kill and hurt people no matter if it’s the Dems or the Reps sending them to Israel. There are lots of reasons why Trump is worse, but if you’re a Palestinian it really doesn’t make a difference if the weapon that kills you came from a racist man or a woman who condemns genocide.
Edit:
So many downvotes, so many disagreeing comments, but not a single fucking person has managed to give one concrete example that explains why weapons coming from Trump is so much worse than weapons coming from Kamala, for Palestinians.
Edit 2:
Here’s an article detailing the destruction in Gaza in December 2023, 11 months ago. I feel like some of you need reminding of the current reality, when you can’t even come up with concrete hypotheticals.
Because there’s no effing way Netanyahu would have posted anything like this in response to a Kamala win.
I asked for something concrete that Trump would do that is worse for Palestine. You still haven’t explained how a bomb from the Republicans hurts more than a bomb from the Democrats.
Again, there’s lots of reasons Trump is worse than Kamala, but weapons will kill people no matter who uses them.
Are you seriously unable to imagine anything worse than whats happening there right now? Read a fucking history book.
I can’t even believe an adult person is trying to make this argument. Please tell me that you’re a child.
And one more comment where you give me nothing concrete. Every reply I get like this and which fails to give concrete examples just reinforce my point.
Do you want me to list how things can and will get much worse? Will you finally shut the fuck up?
Israel decides to “annex” the West Bank. The settlers who are forcing Palestinians out of their family homes will have the backing of the IDF/US military. The people who are displaced will be executed.
US troops sent to Israel to aid the IDF in their genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and then onward as Israel pushes their invasion force further into Lebanon and other Middle Eastern nations, provoking a much larger global conflict.
US gives Israel approval to use tactical nukes in that conflict. US continues to provide arms for this extended campaign.
Israel decides to use chemical weapons to clear out populated areas, because at this point there’s no point in pretending to care about civilian casualties.
Netanyahu has the IDF go door to door executing Palestinian women and children, and then run over their corpses with bulldozers (again).
Stateside: Trump administration rounds up every Palestinian and deports them to Israel. Most of them will never be seen again.
Trump administration rounds up any person who might be a supporter of Palestine and imprisons and/or executes them.
Trump administration rounds up all Arabs (including the ones who were born here), and deports them to an active battlefield.
I’m going to stop here because I’d rather not ruin my day more than it’s already been ruined.
If you’re gonna crow on and on about genocide, at least have a basic historic understanding of how these things always escalate. It’s not just an on or off thing.
ThAts NoT cOncReTe
This asshole is nothing but a fucking piece of shit sealion
Trick go home, drink yourself silly, have some shrooms. You’re not helping yourself here. 🤷 Honestly its painful to watch you.
My friend, he wasn’t become president yet. Come back in 6 months when Gaza is nothing but a steaming pile of debris and revisit this conversation.
I have news for you.
That was 11 months ago.
Here we go again with the “it can’t get worse” bullshit. Netanyahu will eliminate the Palestinian people completely.
He’s already working towards doing that. What I have asked, repeatedly, and which neither you nor anyone else has even tried to answer, is how, concretely, is Trump going to make it worse than it already is? I’ll repeat myself for the millionth time: a bomb will kill regardless of whether it was supplied by Bide, Kamala, or Trump. A bomb will turn things to rubble no matter if it was supplied by Biden, Kamala, or Trump.
So once again, repeating myself like a mad person, tell me concretely - stop giving vague as fuck answers - concretely, what can Trump do to materially make Palestinian’s life’s worse?
He literally said they should “finish the job” but we all know you’re lying and know he said that. I’m thankful for the user tagging feature in boost. I never have to give you benefit of doubt again, wasting my time reading the words of a liar.
I said to give me something concrete, you have given me nothing concrete. Israel is not that far from “finishing the job” by themselves.
But what else is to be expected, all you people can say is “you’re a liar/troll”. Keep burying your head in the sand then.
I wonder why people are calling you a liar and a troll. Yeah they’re all wrong. /s
If the “you” here is singular, then you are the first one to do so, just FYI. But if you wanna use the “popularity makes right” argument, then I suppose you must be okay with Trump being president, given the majority voted for him, right? Or does it not work when the popular voices disagree with you?
And you’ve still given me nothing concrete.
I realize this is an emotional time, especially if you’re American, but you sound completely ridiculous. Take a break from the internet, go hug your friends and family, and (if you’re someone who needs to know this) remember that politics isn’t a reality just once every 4 years and starts from the ground up.
You got a great example but you think sealioning will make people mad. I won’t respond to any more horseshit from you
Because you fall into the same “but what about?!”-thing modern far right excels at.
You myopically focus on a single issue, trying desperately to use it as a crowbar to dislodge an otherwise sensible point, ignoring that everything is inherently a compromise, in particular in a 2-party system. Hence any voter who is not as easily blinded - and it’s not like Harris wasn’t very open during speeches about how much the right deals in fearmongering and disinformation, going as far as openly mocking people for made-up bullshit stats they’re yelling - would be able to inform themselves and realize that:
So, even if we were to just focus on this particular issue, the voters very much vote pro-genocide when they vote for Trump. I love how he’s technically correct though when he says he wants to end the war in Gaza, people are just too stupid to realize how he means it.
But more importantly, and the central point I’m making, you’re under the belief that reaction to a single issue should matter. Any voter who lets this argument slide has inherently lost themselves to the populist and fascist movements as they excel at exploiting this, and in fact stoke this belief whenever they can. Politics on a large scale cannot be judged based on single issues. Because if you try to, you exactly fall into this trap. You automatically end up being barraged by appeals to emotion, constantly, and you’ll let those decide things for you.
Hence, blaming the voters. For not actually engaging with the democratic process, just with hate- and fearmongering and then wondering why that that ended up controlling them when they sought it out themselves.
As I said in another comment, I don’t even think the Palestinian genocide is something the American people cares enough about. I can’t see how this single issue in isolation could have cost Harris the election, especially by such a margin. BUT, it informs how they think. And it shows. The Dems apparently thought that they could win the election by being as far right as they could get away with. It’s their failure for campaigning cowardly and saying always the safe thing that does well in focus groups. Every election they lose is a chance for the Overton Window to move to the right. They tried to capture votes from people from the right of them MUCH harder than from the left of them on almost every issue.
If a voter is already right leaning, especially in the USA, they won’t vote for Fascism Light, they will vote for Fascism Plus.
This is certainly not true. I understand the need for compromise but I also understand that there’s stuff one should not compromise about. Otherwise, what makes us different from the fascists if we’re willing to help kill an entire nation “on the other side of the globe” (as if distance makes their lives less valuable) if it serves us here?
I agree with you that voters have not engaged in the process and many failed to do the most basic of civil duties. But when it happens at such a scale something else is afoot. It was Harris’ election to lose and she did.
You seem to have made many false assumptions about me but still, genuinely, thanks for the reply.
Oh yeah sorry, I should have been clear about this: I wasn’t talking specifically about you, english is not my primary language and it sometimes becomes easier to write that way and I do it automatically. Thank you for not being offended by it. >.<
Learn something from this…?
To what end? For what point? There isn’t an “undo” button on fascism.
It’s funny how common this sentiment is though. My dad started voting for the AfD citing similar words. The very same people do not even notice how this trains them in 3-4 steps to be a voter for a fascist party themselves, it’s why it is so genius/scary. They still think they’re doing the right thing, even when actively supporting what breaks their own ability of doing anything to begin with.
Really goes to show how strong a strictly-controlled corporate mass media with an inherent corporate agenda can be. Billionaires enjoy fascist or ultra-right control as it keeps them out of any external checks and balances. And with their influence on media by owning said media, they get to highlight individual issues and hype them up to be as dealbreaking as they want them to be, while burying a long list of individual good things that happens so that people never get into a positive attitude.
There was this fascinating summary a while ago how much the german SPD did to improve the situations specifically for those groups of people who the AfD bemoaned as being “forgotten about” in one of their polemics. And it was curious to see how little you hear about this simply because being a lot of individually small improvements over a certain number of years, there’s nothing big that has to be reported, and giant right-wing media conglomerates can hence easily bury the good news and focus on individual aggro issues instead.
People are also different nowadays because back a few generations ago when things went to shit, people pulled together and dropped their differences. Nowadays when things globally turn bad and hard times come up, everyone segregates and starts blaming everybody else instantly, which again just makes them very vulnerable to fascism.