They refuse to actually campaign and address people’s concerns. They gaslight, minimize, denigrate, guilt trip, and verbally abuse people and then are surprised Pikachu when no one is happy or motivated to vote for them.
“You owe it to your country to vote.” “You are a bad person/stupid/russian shill etc if you vote for anyone but Kamala.”
These things just stroke your ego and are otherwise thought terminating. They do not get votes. Like holy fuck, if you just listen to people’s concerns and talk with them, it tends to work.
But with Citizens united, campaigns focus around a capitalist spending strategy like it’s Election Christmas. Bernie Sanders, Stacey Abrams, and AOC all had what I’d call “authentic” campaigns, where they requested help with canvassing and phone calls before they requested donations. Like donations were fine, but most emails and texts were asking for workers, volunteers, and physical help. Those requests were completely absent from Kamala’s campaign.
The status quo just doesn’t want the common person to have political literacy. If they teach us how to canvas, then we’ll do it for someone who isn’t status quo. If they show us how to run for office, then we will just run ourselves like AOC did. They are in direct conflict with themselves because they are trying to suppress anything except status quo Dems.
Block, block, upvote, scroll, upvote, block, upvote, upvote, block
What % of total voters is a “registered republican”?
Roughly a third
Why is this third considered to be representative of the “moderate republican”?
Look, I just got my coffee, it’s four am, and you are asking me to effectively explain the previous 40 years of American politics to you.
I want to trust that you are asking in good faith, and that you deserve an explanation here, but I’m burnt out in the equivocation right now. So just give me a small signal that my time isn’t wasted here and I can explain this to you .
I’m sorry. To me it seemed like something the more politically involved voter would do.
I don’t think that’s the response they were after.
You could have tried something like:
I can appreciate you’re tired and I think we’re all a little exhausted after this election cycle. I am definitely interested in learning your perspective on this and opening myself up to other viewpoints.
See I acknowledged OPs comment and tried to explain my motivations for the question. You, on the other hand, you called them out for rightfully wanting to value their time.
That’s alright. Simply trying to understand the relationship between that graph, and the conclusion the author took from that.
But I see now that this might not be the appropriate crowd to help me understand.
Sure, everyone is downvoting you but you can’t be the constant here and it must be this entire community.
Perhaps someone more eloquent than me can come along and explain why your approach fell on deaf ears.
There’s no way to know exactly. Some states don’t disclose the voter registration statistics. North Dakota doesn’t even require party registration to vote.
WAIT YOU HAVE TO BE REGISTERED TO A PARTY TO VOTE?!?
what the actual fuck. how does that not subvert the secret ballot???
You’re not required to vote in alignment with your registration. It simply allows you to vote in the primary for your party.
I switch my registration to Republican when there’s a Democratic incumbent so I can vote in the primary.
You have to register as x or y to be allowed to vote though?? Like I knew all the other fucked up parts of the whole US system, but this just fundamentally breaks the secret ballot. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have to align your actual vote.
It’s like y’all saw us (Australia) doing the secret vote thing and thought “how could we fuck up implementing that?”…
You can register without party affiliation, or under under any party, not just Republican or Democrat.
Many Americans such as myself are registered as Independents.
Or not registered with any party and are little “I” independent. Some states have Independent candidates or parties. I wrote a “ySK” about it early this year around primary time and was accused of misinformation by people who don’t understand different states have different party registrations and laws. I wrote the post as someone smart I knew thought they had to register as an Independent party voter to “not be a Republican or Democrat”.
If the Republicans are going to call the Democrats communists and socialist regardless of how moderate a campaign Democrats run, Democrats might as well lean further left on economic policy. Appealing to the right does nothing because the right can appeal to the right better than the center-left can
This assumes the dems have any interest in actually improving the lives of Americans.
Oh, you mean Social Security? Medicare? Medicaid? Forgiveness from predatory student loan financial slavery? Overtime pay? Reasonably safe work conditions? The option to have a dead fetus removed from a woman before it literally rots in her and kills her? A basic education for every child, regardless of wealth? Healthcare for all Americans without death panel insurance companies who care more about shareholders than the policy owner?
You mean those things?
“But… but… muh property taxes and gas prices… damn blacks, queers, and loudmouth women ruin everything!”
Fuck Putin, by the way.
Just because they implement good policy from time to time doesn’t mean they give a shit about Americans.
You know who really doesn’t give a shit about Americans, or anyone else but their "Tribe?’ Nazis. Well, now you’ve got it. Hope you enjoy it when anyone you know who isn’t white and straight is persecuted.
We’re done. Buh bye.
Congrats on not even attempting to understand the point I’m making.
Jangling keys of “maybe if I get the senate I’ll raise minimum wage? Do you want… Legal weed sometime?” sure works well. Just look at that electoral map!
None of that will work anymore. The far right owns the house, the senate, the government enforcement agencies, and the Supreme Court. We’re nearing the end of the monopoly game and you don’t get anything extra for landing on free parking. The restraints for any of the rich and powerful just got taken off.
Pretty much this. The Business Plot succeeded, it just took another 100 years. Now they have their Mussolini-like strongman, and a fully captured legislative and judicial system, all without a March on Rome.
What do you think January 6th was?
A beerhall putsch, a failed one, but still, it was a sign of what was yet to come…
They didn’t even have to show up to the party or draw a direct line to the cannon fodder
Treason?
Well yeah, but it was also a literal march on our Capital.
Which is precisely why they don’t. They don’t exist to threaten the establishment, they are part of it, and are there to provide the illusion of choice so that the public feel like we’re helping while those in power do whatever they need to at our expense to keep that power. Playing by the rules and within the systems they have set out for us can and will only ever maintain the status quo.
This makes sense if one has never been in any sort of leadership role or public-facing organization before.
It’s true in very narrow senses which are stretched to breaking because really it isn’t true.
Joe Biden suddenly turns into Joe Stalin…
Yay oligarchy.
I can’t believe the Dick Cheney fans forgot to vote
Tens, literally tens of voters Liz Cheney brought to the table.
But it’s cool! She’s the friend of bigots! That makes brown and queer people feel welcomed, right?
I was downvoted to oblivion for questioning this move as a campaign strategy. I wonder if I should look and see how that turned out.
As was I on here and reddit. It’s crazy.
Hey I was downvoted again for saying “I got downvoted for being right.” Again, I was right.
Yup. Democratic leadership would rather trump win than run a left-facing campaign and candidate. What’s the definition of insanity?
Yeah no. I hate the democrats, I’m a registered libertarian. The popular vote said they’re fine with project 2025.
I don’t really care what issues anyone had. It was exesetential. We failed. That’s not a party issue, it’s an American issue. I don’t care about turnout, if you didn’t turn out you don’t care. Thats not on the party that’s on you. I don’t care about policy, it’s all about to get worse, we’ve seen it. Parties cease to matter when there’s dead bodies in the halls of government. We all saw the worst fucking coup attempt in history… And it worked. There is no party to blame for that. 2016 came down to poor leadership, this is just… deserved.
We’ll see what’s left to re-build with.
It is a party issue. The reason Democrats couldn’t effectively run on the issue of democracy is that they THEMSELVES did not treat Trump as a threat to democracy. Actions speak louder than words. Democrats called Trump a fascist and a threat to democracy. But they didn’t even start an investigation of him til two years into the Biden term. That man should have been arrested day one, hauled in front of a military tribunal, charged with treason, and dealt with accordingly. Any SCOTUS justices that tried to prevent this should have been charged as accessories after the fact and similarly tried as enemies of the republic.
THAT is the rational response to a former president that tried to overthrow the government. Trump should have been six feet under before Biden finished his first 100 days. That is the kind of urgency that is needed when a true existential threat is present. Look what happens when a random citizen tries to walk into the White House carrying a rifle. Do you think they weigh the political calculus of dealing with the person and how to respond to them without angering voters? No, they do what is necessary, then and there. That is what you do in an emergency.
What kind of existential threat do you just ignore for two years and then slow-walk? If China were invading Hawaii, would we move with that kind of sloth? No, an existential threat requires immediate action. By giving so much deference to Trump, Biden made extremely clear that he didn’t believe Trump to be an existential threat to democracy. Entirely because of his actions, any later campaign pleas about the threat of Trump fell of deaf ears. If the president of the United States won’t take something seriously as a threat to democracy, why would anyone expect voters to?
I don’t disagree they did a bad job. Clearly. Again, I don’t even like them in the first place for similar reasons. What I’m saying is there was exactly one way to avoid all of this this week, and we all signed off on it. The democrats didn’t make anyone stay home. The democrats didn’t make anyone vote for Trump. Individuals can’t take the action you described above, but they had an option to stop it from getting worse, and chose not to.
If you think the party is busted fine, I freaking agree. It’s not picking evil from the lesser of the two, it’s picking who you want to fight.
Again I’ll say, the dems didn’t do this, we all did. The dysfunction of a party doesn’t excuse individuals had a choice, and chose this.
Democratic leadership has to call corporate donors before they can make any decisions
Same with Republicans. They follow the Koch funded Heritage Foundation script to the letter.
The Democratic Party is basically dead now. Time to sit back and watch the MAGAs eat themselves. Clock ticking.
Well that’s one way to look at this positively.
How do you see this going down? Internal power struggles and tantrum hissy fits?
Magas will eat a lot of good people first, unfortunately. And the show will be extended over many years. Another enemy or bad group will always be found.
The “and then they came for” moment won’t hit critical mass for aomg time if ever. It’s terrifying to think how long an authoritarian group could maintain power with the technology and military power available today.
The Democratic Party is basically dead now. Time to sit back and watch the MAGAs eat themselves. Clock ticking.
You won’t live long enough to see the end of MAGA. You will live to see the end of American Democracy.
100%
Here in deep-red Missouri the $15 minimum wage passed in a landslide, but for some reason, all Democrats wanted to talk about was tax cuts that no one thinks they’ll actually pass anyway.
Democratic consultants. The problem.
Democratic Party : Republican Party :: Washington Generals : Harlem Globetrotters
Democratic leadership is those of us who do the thankless work of playing politics to help others.
Find something different. You won’t. Sure Progressive Party Whatever - they’ll run into the exact same thing. You’re re-inventing the wheel because you don’t know that.
That’s…
I’m not sure we’re all talking about the same thing. The Democratic Party has been playing to the “center” longer than any of us have been alive, while shunning, excommunicating, and often literally arresting anyone to the left. And all that accomplishes and has ever accomplished is the Overton window shifting further and further right. Kamala was running on bragging about hiring “the good” republicans while sidestepping the massive issues anyone even slightly progressive wanted to talk about (and what almost surely turned off a huge portion of voters), which is the ongoing genocide in Gaza. She finally said the day before the election that she would do “everything in her power to end the war,” which is still not nearly enough when discussing a fuckin genocide.
So many of the people I know are leftists. None of them voted for her because of it. Sure, the democrats and liberals I know did—my parents, for example. But they have voted democrat the entire time I’ve been alive. They are solid, reliable Dem voters. They’re not the people she needed to appeal to either—but keeping them was certainly more important than any mythical “centrist/swing” voter.
Everyone that was arrested for sitting in school buildings protesting the genocide, everyone who is sickened by what we’re seeing. Who couldn’t stomach voting for someone who didn’t feel the need to say it was a genocide that sickens them. THOSE are the people the dems gain when, like in 2020, things are so bad they hold their noses and increase turnout, and they’re the votes they lose when they hold office and maintain the genocidal status quo.
Who has been arrested for not being Dem enough? Oh, that’s right. Nobody. And the Republicans have never, will never, and absolutely will never stop Gaza genocide.
Fuck Putin.
Yeah, that’s definitely not what that meant.
Unchecked Pathological Greed. The entire reason The United States was founded.
I mean, there’s a whole lot that went wrong, but the big one was subverting the democratic process with primaries that didn’t really pick a popular candidate (2016 and 2024).
The primaries are the time for the candidate to energize a base of support. Harris has never energized anybody, and it was silly to think that affection for Biden would carry her.
Conservatives vote in force to signal their loyalty to their chosen community.
Progressives stay home when they perceive that their community doesn’t chose them. Harris’ vote totals at the end of this will sit somewhere below Biden 2020, for that reason.
I wouldn’t leave 2020 out. Having politicians ahead of Joe Biden pull out to endorse him ahead of super Tuesday was really irregular and didn’t result in a good candidate either
There werent primaries. None of the challengers had sufficient ballot access.
But Dick Cheney! Dick Cheney!
They gonna go hunting with him?
I’m sure them supporting and paying to kill women and children didn’t help either, and that their online cult acted almost as fascist as the person they claimed they were trying to stop.
You can stop now. Putin isnt paying overtime.
and that their online cult acted almost as fascist as the person they claimed they were trying to stop.
Yeah, like how Harris fans were talking about people poisoning the blood of the country and their plans about deporting millions of people, which would require concentration camps. And then there’s the Democratic party’s genocidal persecution of queer people.
Basically no difference at all.
I don’t want to leave this country, but I’m so fucking glad I’ll get away from these sort of stupid lies.
I’m not in your country, but already have Timewarp tagged as “Trump talking point maniac” for some time. Just so you know the lies are available abroad too.
I know they are, but less so. Or at least hopefully less so about America. I’ll have to deal with all new lies in Britain.
Well Keir Starmer was one of the first to congratulate Trump on his victory before it was official, and talk about the “special relationship” between the two countries, so I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Trump also owns a golf club is Scotland, so is sure to visit and the Tories are pushing for him to be allowed to address parliament when he does, which is nice.
When Keir Starmer starts planning the queer genocide Trump’s people are planning, I’ll give more of a shit. Right now, I am laser-focused on protecting my child. That is my only job right now.
To drop all the snark: I do worry about the UK, but for sure it would be a better place to be than the US right now.
They were talking about their plans to deport more people, build more immigrant holding facilities, and shutting the border down. When republicans started fear mongering about the “immigrant caravan”, democrats hopped right on board.
Not even close to the same.
No one is saying they were good. That’s the mistake so many people make about people who voted for Harris. Plenty of us didn’t do it because we liked Harris. We did it because we hated Trump.
Over and over again, I said to people telling me not to vote for Harris, “which candidate should I vote for that has a legitimate chance of beating Donald Trump?” And I didn’t get an answer.
Then, when Indiana finalized it’s ballot, there were four names on it and write-ins were not allowed: Harris, Trump, Kennedy and Oliver. Again, I asked who I should vote for multiple times. No answer. The closest I got was a very confused person who told me I shouldn’t vote for any of them as I did a process of elimination while simultaneously saying I shouldn’t abstain.
Good lord you’re prolific on here. Im pretty sure youve argued with me against progressive parties before and all of this is extreme revisionism. But its too far buried.
I’m not sure how that changes the fact that I asked and asked and I never got an answer for who I should vote for.
Even now, you’re not saying who I should have voted for.
That is not how anyone wins elections.
I think you are completely lying. I was on here a lot promoting Stein, and getting extremely opposed by you and everyone else. Fuck off with this “i just wanted an answer” innocent BS
I’m not lying at all.
I literally could not vote for Stein. Did you not read what I wrote? Do I need to show you the Indiana ballot and prove it to you?
It doesn’t matter what country you go as long as it is a two party corporatocracy and the “left” is parading around with war-mongering neocons, supporting genocide, censoring and astroturfing social media for people point it out, etc… then you’ll get the same result.
Oh that’s fine. It’s a three party corporatocracy in England. Plus the corporatocracies in other parts of Britain.
But they know what fascism is and they know that what Harris’ supporters wanted wasn’t fascism. So I’m happy to be going there.
I’m a progressive that is against fascism and genocide, but the number of Democrats that censored me and called me a fascist has me convinced that many of them are perfectly content with fascism as long as it is their fascism.
What, exactly, is “their fascism?”
“Censoring” you on a non-government website has nothing to do with fascism.
Censoring people, especially when they’re telling the truth, so you can control the narrative through gaslighting and lies is pretty fascist in my book.
Then you need to learn what fascism is. And from someone who lived through a brutal fascist regime:
Nobody is under the illusion that Trump is better for the situation in Gaza than Harris.
But, too many left-leaning voters feel they have to “take a stand” by staying home or voting third party. I have several friends who did exactly that, even though it’s abundantly clear that staying home is effectively a vote for Trump.
Meanwhile, NOBODY on the conservative side is doing that shit. It’s been true since the Reagan era, the conservatives put aside any personal distaste they have, and they get behind their candidate.
But, too many left-leaning voters feel they have to “take a stand” by staying home or voting third party. I have several friends who did exactly that, even though it’s abundantly clear that staying home is effectively a vote for Trump.
That is the big problem here that people just don’t want to admit.
Just look at the numbers. Harris will probably finish 15 million votes behind Biden 2020. Those are people who could have voted, but didn’t.
Could it be the dogshit right wing Hillary-repeating campaign the Harris folks ran?
The same campaign leftists have been tearing apart and pointing out the objective failures of, predicting exactly this result?
No, it must be the nonexistent leftists who are wrong.
You people are hilarious lmao. You seriously think the average American even knows one shred of leftist theory?
I guess if you people knew why you lost, you wouldn’t have lost so I can’t blame you too much. The curse of a weak mind must be hard to bear.
“We’ve been actively trying to tear you down, it’s not our fault.”
Correct its the fault of the person advocating a genocide.
‘dont commit a genocide, toss in some prolabor policies.’
‘Stop tearing me down!’
Do you even fucking hear yourself. Lol
“Do you hear yourself” from you is rich.
Indeed my speech is high in protein. It does the soul good. You should try not supporting a genocide sometime yourself. Once you can do that all the other little groups im sure you’ve tried to brow beat people with would suddenly also be protected.
That’s a lot of words that mean fuck all.
But I guess you’ve got to score your nonexistent points somehow.
Almost like Kamala could have changed her stance on the situation and got those people out to vote for her. But sure, let’s blame people not willing to hold their nose and vote for more genocide.
And by doing so the voted for more genocide. What a bunch of dumb cunts.
I agree. The Democrat party has become nothing more than a bunch of dumb corporate bureaucrats. Will they ever learn?
Aww dude. Good job completely missing the point. But hey if it helps you sleep at night.
Good job getting Trump elected.
Pretty impressive since I’m in Ireland. And you’re the one trying to justify not voting.
Hmm yes let us instead enable the guy who wants to give Israel a blank check with no leash, very smart
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No, you ignorant fool… they needed more scorned establishment Republican figures to support her. Liz Cheney wasn’t powerful enough, that much is clear now. The absolute genius of having our vehemently pro-choice candidate on stage accepting the endorsement of rabidly anti-abortion figures almost payed off. It’s the voters who were wrong!
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The problem with that strategy is that moderate Republicans don’t watch the news. They believe that all other Republicans are just like them and hold all the same beliefs, because all their friends are in the same echo chamber. So then they believe all Republican politicians are the same way. They intentionally don’t pay attention to the news because it is full of sensationalism and depressing things they can’t personally control like terrorism and mass shootings. They still believe it’s important to vote, because that’s the patriotic thing to do, and they can just fill the bubbles next to every name marked REP and not have to worry about doing research and learning facts. It’s just the easy way and they’ve lived their whole lives doing things the easy way because of white privilege and generational wealth, but any low points in their lives they will consider to be “hardship” so they “know” that anyone living in poverty is just not trying hard enough, because they personally made it through that “struggle” with barely more than the average effort they usually contribute to anything.
How do I know this? I was raised in a family that is exactly how I described here. The only reason I’m not just like them is that I went to public school and made friends with kids who did not come from the same background. It took about 17 years to finally see all the flawed logic and head-in-sandness before finally breaking free and forging my own path based on my own beliefs.
Democrats just aren’t going to be the progressive party. How many times are you going to fail to learn this lesson?
The DNC actively kneecapped Bernie Sanders twice. And the SCOTUS said it was their perogative.
Without a Sanders platform from which to pilfer popular talking points, the Dems had zip. That doesn’t get John Q out of his Lazyboy. As the results showed.
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Looked at the dem votes for the last few elections and it looked consistent except for biden. Who somehow got way more than normal.
2008 69 mil 2012 65 mil 2016 65 mil 2020 81 mil 2024 66 mil
Also the only white male in those years…
I had the same thought…
votes for Biden were “anything oh god anything but this.”
Yeah but it didn’t carry. Guess everyone forgot Trump.
So I guess we do this again in four years? Assuming elections are still a thing.
If elections still exist, and the Democratic Party still hasn’t been deposed, yes. We’ll likely have a mass of people voting to get rid of Trump’s chaos for anyone else, and the Dems will receive a boost. Then, when they run the same milquetoast candidate 4 years later with nothing to offer but “better than the alternative,” they’ll fail again.
It’s basically the same back and forth pendulum as before, but accelerated. Now incumbents can’t even expect to receive all 8 years before the pendulum shifts.
You’re probably right, but I hate that you’re probably right. No fault of yours.
It’s okay, I hate that I’m probably right too. Today has been a really shitty day for being right. I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life thinking about how this last decade went, and if there was anything more I could have done.
I think I’m just done. as many Democrats as Ive voted for and the best they can do is “Not as actively evil?” tired of it. Starting to think if we’re going to hell on a bucket maybe I should be the one holding the handle.
The dems are not our party. I don’t they ever will be in the foreseeable future. The issue is not making the dems win but stopping the GOP.
The Biden campaign offered something, notably student loan forgiveness, but both Clinton and Harris’s campaigns relied on the dumbfuck Pied Piper strategy that they would offer nothing to the voters other than being not-Trump.
That’s a dumb fucking strategy because there are fewer people that will vote Democrat as the lesser evil than will vote Republican just because Republican. They have to court people with policies they actually want.
And the absolute crazy thing is they tried this in 2016 and it failed, yet somehow had the balls to try again when it mattered more.
And the absolute crazy thing is they tried this in 2016 and it failed, yet somehow had the balls to try again when it mattered more.
They could blame 2016 on Hillary, not on the “I’m not him” strategy. Go figure that a 20+ year campaign to paint a woman as the literal devil would in fact cause problems for her at the ballot box, right? Who would have guessed except for anyone with a functional frontal cortex?
The Harris campaign sent BOTH Clintons out to “rally” voters. So Hillary went to Florida.
And Bill went to Michigan and spent his time browbeating the Muslim community there about the war in Gaza.
Who OK’d this? Were they born in the heart of a dying star, cause they must be the densest mofuckas on Earth.
The Harris campaign put out an 80 page policy guidebook explaining what they were offering. Stop denying responsibility from the voters. A bunch of people wanted this and a bunch of others figured this was better than rallying around the one viable alternative, be it a form a protest or laziness. Voters are ultimately responsible for who we collectively elect.
Vanishingly few voters read white papers. If that stuff isn’t messaged then it doesn’t matter. And a convention of “joy” wasn’t it.
The average US citizen is not going to sit down and parse through 80 pages of policy. Why the fuck didn’t she promote it in interviews? Every speech and interview I have seen she just skirts around questions and gives vague answers, very frequently repeating herself almost verbatim. It really didn’t inspire confidence. And I say this as someone who voted for her.
If she had a playbook, she ignored it and didn’t talk about it. Despite people begging for policies.
Trump has one, played dumb and wants to do it. Despite it being evil.
I wonder who won?
Tbf, you would have to hate yourself a lot to look at trump and say “eh… i dont agree with him and he’s likely to completely fuck the country and endanger millions of innocent lives… but look! The democrats are only saying that they arent trump. I better not do a damn thing and hope for the best!”
I guess democrats are just are idiotic and short visioned as republicans. Perhaps they are in fact the same.
