Don’t blame the people staying home. Blame the Democrats for doing nothing to earn those votes but say “Orange Man Bad”. They did the exact same thing in 2016. Democrats ran on maintaining the status quo at a time when no one is happy with the status quo.
The Harris campaign should have campaigned on issues that would attract progressives and others on the left. Instead they tried to get conservatives to leave their cult by touting the endorsement of Dick fucking Cheney and his incredibly unpopular daughter and saying they’ll close the borders and continue funding Netanyahu’s genocide. It’s like Harris didn’t want to win.
If Democrats want to win they need to stop being Republicans.
Edit but in the spirit of conversation: Biden AND Harris are lame candidates that absolutely only maintain the status quo. As you say, voters are unhappy with that.
Edit restructure
I disagree with the conclusion that OMB isn’t valid reasoning. But it’s just one dudes opinion that I’ve laid out in the thread.
Orange man bad was more then enough to pick a rock with a smiley face on it as alternative
People will learn the consequences, regardless of what brought them in our kept them home.
If folks fundamentally can’t play out the math on 2 choices in a FPTP where one is a serial rapist, anti abortion candidate, who is on record for wanting to accelerate Gaza, then I dunno what to say on that. “Status quo” starts looking pretty shiny, which is terrible, but the world we live in.
But now we have trump, and a lot of folks get to say “they didn’t attract me”
Orange man bad was more then enough to pick a rock with a smiley face on it as alternative
It’s a logical argument and it’s a correct argument. Unfortunately it’s demonstrably not an effective argument, especially when it’s all you’re doing. The same thing happened in 2016 with Clinton thinking she was owed votes because Trump would be (and was, and will be again) a disaster for the US. Yet they still went with the same strategy anyway.
I say this as someone who did make the “correct” choice of voting blue despite my moral objections to a lot of what she was saying. We will now all see the consequences of only barely trying to win an election against fascists.
I can see how you’d arrive at that conclusion (mostly by ignoring everything else I said), but my point was really that Harris needed a better argument than just that. She never gave people a reason to vote for her rather than just against Trump. That caused 14 million people who previously voted Democrat to stay home.
To a lot of apathetic people we were presented with 2 very similar choices neither of whom gives a shit about the working class. So a lot of people figured “why bother?” and I don’t blame them for that. I blame Democrats for abandoning the working class and catering to corporate donors and conservatives. That’s not even mentioning doing nothing to stem the flow of genocide supplies to Israel (which caused a lot of Muslim voters to stay home).
So sure, you can blame voters, but it makes more sense to blame the campaign that wasn’t even trying to win.
To be clear, I have no love for the dnc or their strategies. I am not championing them as a model. Other commenters seem to think I’m simping for “blue maga” or some other shit.
I’ve consistently argued for harm reduction in a limited outcome system.
I agree with the harm reduction strategy, but I also understand people being apathetic with the choices they’re presented.
Of course this means people should be more active and now is the time to start really pushing for ranked choice voting so we can maybe do something about the dominance of the two-party system.
Screw trying to convince Democrats they need to start looking left. Force them to with the threat of new, actually progressive, parties.
Bro you do words real good. Your closing statement is gold.
Edit to be clear: I strongly agree with their comment I just wrote it silly.
Imo that work to build candidates start right now, and to circle back my issue with third party voices, they are crickets until right before he election
Don’t blame the people staying home. Blame the Democrats for doing nothing to earn those votes but say “Orange Man Bad”. They did the exact same thing in 2016. Democrats ran on maintaining the status quo at a time when no one is happy with the status quo.
The Harris campaign should have campaigned on issues that would attract progressives and others on the left. Instead they tried to get conservatives to leave their cult by touting the endorsement of Dick fucking Cheney and his incredibly unpopular daughter and saying they’ll close the borders and continue funding Netanyahu’s genocide. It’s like Harris didn’t want to win.
If Democrats want to win they need to stop being Republicans.
Edit but in the spirit of conversation: Biden AND Harris are lame candidates that absolutely only maintain the status quo. As you say, voters are unhappy with that.
Edit restructure
I disagree with the conclusion that OMB isn’t valid reasoning. But it’s just one dudes opinion that I’ve laid out in the thread.
Orange man bad was more then enough to pick a rock with a smiley face on it as alternative
People will learn the consequences, regardless of what brought them in our kept them home.
If folks fundamentally can’t play out the math on 2 choices in a FPTP where one is a serial rapist, anti abortion candidate, who is on record for wanting to accelerate Gaza, then I dunno what to say on that. “Status quo” starts looking pretty shiny, which is terrible, but the world we live in.
But now we have trump, and a lot of folks get to say “they didn’t attract me”
You’re working from a flawed premise. Turnout for this election was high, even among Democrats. Not as high as 2020, but very high.
Not as high as 2020. The nearest election. With trump in it.
It’s a logical argument and it’s a correct argument. Unfortunately it’s demonstrably not an effective argument, especially when it’s all you’re doing. The same thing happened in 2016 with Clinton thinking she was owed votes because Trump would be (and was, and will be again) a disaster for the US. Yet they still went with the same strategy anyway.
I say this as someone who did make the “correct” choice of voting blue despite my moral objections to a lot of what she was saying. We will now all see the consequences of only barely trying to win an election against fascists.
The logical summation I derive from this statement is: Blame the voters, as they committed a stupid and illogical act.
The only reasonable explanation for 2016 is that most people assumed Trump had no chance. There is no reasonable explanation for 2024.
I can see how you’d arrive at that conclusion (mostly by ignoring everything else I said), but my point was really that Harris needed a better argument than just that. She never gave people a reason to vote for her rather than just against Trump. That caused 14 million people who previously voted Democrat to stay home.
To a lot of apathetic people we were presented with 2 very similar choices neither of whom gives a shit about the working class. So a lot of people figured “why bother?” and I don’t blame them for that. I blame Democrats for abandoning the working class and catering to corporate donors and conservatives. That’s not even mentioning doing nothing to stem the flow of genocide supplies to Israel (which caused a lot of Muslim voters to stay home).
So sure, you can blame voters, but it makes more sense to blame the campaign that wasn’t even trying to win.
I am aligned with you here. Well put.
To be clear, I have no love for the dnc or their strategies. I am not championing them as a model. Other commenters seem to think I’m simping for “blue maga” or some other shit.
I’ve consistently argued for harm reduction in a limited outcome system.
I agree with the harm reduction strategy, but I also understand people being apathetic with the choices they’re presented.
Of course this means people should be more active and now is the time to start really pushing for ranked choice voting so we can maybe do something about the dominance of the two-party system.
Screw trying to convince Democrats they need to start looking left. Force them to with the threat of new, actually progressive, parties.
Bro you do words real good. Your closing statement is gold.
Edit to be clear: I strongly agree with their comment I just wrote it silly.
Imo that work to build candidates start right now, and to circle back my issue with third party voices, they are crickets until right before he election