“This Is a Collapse of the Democratic Party”: Ralph Nader on Roots of Trump’s Win Over Harris

Yes. Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks_Brothers_riot

There was a lot going on. The final count used had bush up by 537 votes out of 5.8 million cast. The close margin triggered a recount and Bush dropped to 327 vote lead.

Nadar probably cost the democrats more votes then republicans by greater then that 327. But there were other things that hurt Gore. Some intentional some random.

There were ballot design issues. In areas where the butterfly ballot was used Buchanan (who was also a 3rd party candidate) got way more votes than elsewhere. So if you wanted Gore saw him under Bush and selected the dot below you voted for Buchanan. See below.

Bush. O

/ O Buchanan

Gore. O

In another democratic area the ballot had the presidential race split on the front and back page. 21,000 votes were invalidated because they had multiple selections for president.

There was a large purge of mostly black felon voters. 15% weren't felons.

Then there were lawsuits trying to stop and start recounts in both state and federal court. The state supreme court ordered recounts while they decided if the recount should be used. Then they decided the recount should be used and set a date it was du. Then the US supreme court stopped the recount. Several days later they decided there wasn't time for a recount and ordered the Bush ahead by 537 count to be used.

So honestly it probably took all the above to swing the final count to Bush from Gore. I'm guessing if any one had not happened Gore would have been president.

A personal note I live in Florida and that was the first election I voted in. My vote for president has never be closer to making a difference in who was president. It's shaped my views on elections and voting.

Well yeah, you (and the other poster who referenced the Brooks Brothers Riot) are 100% correct in stating the count ended prematurely, but if Nader hadn't siphoned away those votes, Gore likely would have had yhe lead throughout the recount and Republicans wouldn't have been in a position to pick a favorable time to stop.

I blame it more on Gore and the Democrats for not fighting for democracy more. Hopefully it becomes more clear the Supreme Court is an legitimate institution and people point to increasingly inane decisions as a reason not to listen to it.

His family was forced out of Lebanon by radical Islam so I think he knows a thing or two about the value of democracy.

But when Obama won the nomination the DNC didn't support Obama in the general.

So Obama ignored the DNC for 8 years and let it fester until 2016 when Hillary's primary campaign took control of it they shady backroom financial deals that resulted in her campaign getting approval over what the DNC did during the primary.

There was a brief window Donna Brazille got in leadership and showed everyone the receipts, then Hillary's people got back in control and Biden kept them.

With Kamala losing the DNC votes for it's own leadership, and will likely retain like they always do.

Obama has the chance to appoint progressive leadership to the DNC and fix the party, but instead he ignored it as a relic.

And we're still paying the price.

I wonder why they are so afraid to prove it in a primary

Because challenging the party favorite is career suicide when the party is corrupt.

If Obama hadn't won in 08 none of us would remember his name, and the party did nothing to help him because they knew if he won he could change leadership.

They got lucky and he choose not to fix the party

Disagree, Harris would not have been close to winning at all if there was a primary. Even Tim Walz would have absolutely smoked her in a primary.

Obama, sadly was a failure. Better than any other president since FDR and Carter, but that's not saying much. America wanted change and all we got was the ACA from him and a few less terrible trade deals. Obama deported more people than Trump and never fixed the decline in the middle class. I turned 18 when Obama first ran and was so excited for all the "change" and nothing improved sustainably for the average American. He could have solidified himself as the best ever but road the middle too often and now the party is officially dead.

Their platform for a decade has been “what are you gonna do, vote trump?”

The people: Yes

But seriously, the Democrats need to get better candidates, and they need to take a long-hard look at their policy agenda. The people don't want it and will literally vote for Trump before what Democrats are offering.

So I really really think that today being the day after the election is the day we start talking about a third option in 2028.

Might I recommend supporting the Forward Party.
They're trying to build a whole New Kind of Party, genuinely from the bottom up. Focusing on local politics, where election rules can be changed to make representatives more responsive to their voters. They're quite unlike other 3rd Parties that just run pointless presidential candidates every 4 years.

Then there's RepresentUs. Not a Party, but a political organization trying to do the same. Fix our election system at the state and local level.

Fine. Then people need to do something about it. Because the people saying it this time didn't. Despite asking over and over, I found one person this year on Lemmy who said they actually worked for a third party's campaign.

And when you asked them which third party candidate to vote for, they generally wouldn't give me a name. If you can't rally around a single candidate, you will never win.

Also, I'm not sure why abandoning something is better than fixing it from the inside.

Fuckers will NEVER learn.

Yeah, courting far left people like Dick Cheney was the problem. Next time they will just run Ivanka Trump and if you're against her, you are a misogynist.

Just kidding, they won't run her until she's at least 60, everyone knows people who are younger than that can't politics.

I don't even need to fact check this. They do the same bullshit every time.

What's the definition of insanity again? The DNC doesn't appear to know.

Implying anyone in the party even knows how to open and read emails received from that form

Thanks for doing that, they'll probably be sorted out by 2026!

Why would they reject that email address? It’s a valid email?

“they can’t rely on the left to support them”

Worse, they do not want to. That would be bad for their billionaire buddies. The same buddies that funnel untold millions to both parties at the same time, to ensure they get what they want either way.

You've been subscribed to Hoover facts.

✨ Herbert Hoover was raised as a Quaker. ✨

Yeah, he seems committed to collapsing a strained economy. It’s going to hurt. With any luck he’s going to struggle with his social control problems and focus on doing things that hurt everyone.

Ooh is it his turn?

Kamala was the better candidate. But that doesn't mean she was a good candidate. If they want to win then making people choose between a pile of shit and a turd sandwich isn't the winning move.

Biden barely won. No one should take 2020 as evidence of expertise. That was an embarrassingly nail-biting result.

Kamala wasn't the better candidate. Biden would've done better. They forced the old man out in the middle of a campaign. Kamala never fared well on her own. Stupid Dems thought because Biden lost the debate he'd lose the election. Well Trump lost the freakin debate, but did it matter?! NO! THAT'S why they need to be gone. They got lucky with Biden. They ain't getting lucky again.

The Democratic Party will never change on its own. It is run by neoliberals. Neoliberals are moderate conservatives. They will always shift a little right before shifting a little left.

If the Party is not overtaken by progressives, we will repeat all this bullshit again and again until only far right people remain.

Unless the R's hold their constitutional convention and crown Trump Emperor

You sure about that?

Well I'd prefer more than one thing to replace it, but certainly this is one of the rare opportunities to do so.

I don't see much downside at this point. They can shamble along like a zombie inside a Republican dominated system at every level. That's their best case scenario.

There’s certainly a lot of blame to lay at the feet of “both sides bad” people who didn’t vote

No. Absolutely not.

The Democrats and Republicans have spent 40 years, but more importantly, the last six months making it very clear that losing a badly-needed day's pay for a worker isn't worth the time it takes to vote. (Unless you were in Missouri with the $15 minimum wage on the ballot.)

Democrats are the reason that Democrats lose.

It's not about right or wrong, it's about the person weighing in.

I don't want to hear what Jill Stein has to say about it either. Fuck both of them.

And you people downvoting: would you want to hear Newt Gingrich's take? Even if this is what he said?

I think that if you're looking at the Presidential race in particular, you probably want to look specifically at turnout in swing states, where the vote could have been realistically shifted.

Probably a lot of post-mortems happening. I want to see some material from Five Thirty Eight on what shifts happened from 2020. In the runup to the election, for example, I remember reading that young non-college-educated male blacks polled had swung dramatically more Republican between 2020 and 2024. That suggests that division around education is becoming more-important along party lines. A majority was still voting Democrat, but the shift was large, something crazy, like twenty percentage points. I remember reading another article in the runup that Trump had gained slightly among females, also kind of a surprise to me. Now that we've got voting data, though, we can look at county level stuff and try to get an idea of which demographics actually shifted their votes and how.