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“Voters voted for the choice furthest to the right because they wanted the choice on the left to be more left”
People didn't vote. Significantly less turnout this year than 2020. Further left is more exciting than an idiot chasing endorsement from Republicans.
It's stupid, but if people weren't stupid Trump wouldn't have been a candidate.
2020 had the highest voter turnout in the history of our country because of the pandemic. Without a major motivator like the pandemic, we are not going to hit those numbers again.
So naturally there will be less voter turnout this year.
Democrats and liberals will use any excuse not to consider progress
Then compare it to 2016 - it was practically the same campaign strategy, only this time it lost the popular vote on top of the electoral collage.
Trying to flip people at the margin is not a winning strategy. Obama won in '08 by campaigning to the left and promising meaningful change -- it got people who normally don't vote to engage. Why is that strategy so anathema now?
Trump won in 2016 because of Russian bot farms. That has long been common knowledge. The only part that hasn’t yet been verified is whether Trump was in on it.
Obama wasn’t any further left than Harris. To get anything done after election there needs to be compromise. You can’t get that without moderates.
It’s public knowledge that Russias strategy is to push the democrats further left and republicans further right so there is no middle ground or compromise and nothing gets done.
Oh, Obama governed as a Regan-era republican. The Affordable Healthcare Act was based on a Heratige Foundation proposal, and given the blessing of health insurance companies. But he campaigned on the left, that line of broken promises got him into office.
As for the rest... pay no attention to the declining lifespan, the increasing precarity, the rising cost of just scraping by. People aren't voting because of real grievances, it's all Russian Bots don'cha know?
Like, jeeze, you'd rather have a Sinister Villain to peg this on than actually examine the conditions in this country. That's some saturday morning cartoon nonsense you've spun.
Oh, Obama governed as a Regan-era republican. The Affordable Healthcare Act was based on a Heratige Foundation proposal, and given the blessing of health insurance companies. But he campaigned on the left, that line of broken promises got him into office.
Obama won office for two terms and republicans won this election. If what you’re saying is true then it disproves the claim that democrats didn’t go far enough left according to voters.
As for the rest... pay no attention to the declining lifespan, the increasing precarity, the rising cost of just scraping by. People aren't voting because of real grievances, it's all Russian Bots don'cha know?
So you’re pretending that foreign nations don’t try to influence the elections while adding in new topics to create a straw man argument. The polls show that voters were most motivated by inflation and immigration and that is what resulted in republicans winning.
Like, jeeze, you'd rather have a Sinister Villain to peg this on than actually examine the conditions in this country. That's some saturday morning cartoon nonsense you've spun.
I’m just stating the facts. I’m sorry if they don’t align with your feelings.
The polls show that voters were most motivated by inflation and immigration and that is what resulted in republicans winning
Just one comment ago, you claimed it was Russian bots. Now you're agreeing that it's people feeling economic pressure.
If what you’re saying is true then it disproves the claim that democrats didn’t go far enough left according to voters.
If you give people a choice between Republicans and diet-Republicans, they pick the real one. Would you have them try to outflank republicans more next election?
You’re either illiterate or intentionally misrepresenting what I said. Two comments ago I said Trump won in 2016 because of bots. I stated what the polls are saying for the 2024 elections d how it contracted your claims.
Political ads literally called Biden a radical leftist and that’s what the majority of voters believed as is proven with the election results.
Yes. People want a populous movement. In the absence of left-wing populism (like socialist reforms), they will take right win populism (fascism).
Democrats campaigned on making billionaires pay their fair share and addressing health care and student loans etc so socialist reforms. But the majority of voters were still convinced that that would make them worse off unfortunately.
And all of that populist talk came to a grinding halt once companies like Black Rock started drafting economic policy.
That might have been in the footnotes of the DNC platform, but Kamala said none of that.
Here's a quote from Stephen Semler's newsletter:
For example, in this video clip, Stephen Colbert asks Harris, "Under a Harris administration, what would the major changes be and what would stay the same?" Harris replies: "Sure. Well, I mean, I'm obviously not Joe Biden. So that would be one change. But also I think it's important to say with 28 days to go, I'm not Donald Trump."
First, that doesn’t answer the question. Second, that description applies to literally everyone except for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. This is the quality of candidate you get when the Democratic Party chooses one for you.
When it was being discussed who would replace Biden before he dropped out, many black abd female voters were pissed it was even up for discussion considering Kamala was the vice president. They saw it as her job to be next in line after Biden.
If someone else was chosen all those votes would’ve been lost and we would still have lost.
Since we lost anyways, I would have preferred to have an actual primary process, even if it was a very abbreviated one at the convention. Destroying democracy to save democracy never made sense to me.
It’s easy to say that in hindsight.
Many many many people were saying that the entire time. It has been clear to anyone not drinking the Biden kool aid that he hasn't been as lucid as he used to be, and many people said that if we had debates and Joe Biden won, at least we would have given others a voice. Anyone who supported Marianne Williamson, Dean Phillips, etc. especially was infuriated there were no debates, just a coronation. Many people were mad that certain states even canceled the democratic primaries. When Biden dropped out, it would have not been that strange for several prominent democrats to throw their hats in the ring - Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, etc. and at least have some sort of debate at the convention.
Many people were saying huh? Were they some of the best people? Why does that sound familiar?
If you don't do anything but glue yourself to CNN, then yes, you wouldn't have heard about any complaints.
How about many articles in The Nation - here's one quoting Ezra Klein calling for a contested convention. https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/biden-convention-ezra-klein/
How about a Newsweek article talking about how even MTG is laughing at the democratic party: https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-do-democrats-plan-cancel-presidential-primary-debates-1796585
How about a really pissed off Dean Phillips in Politico re Florida canceling the primary? https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/30/florida-democrats-dean-phillips-election-00129403
Breaking Points has also done many shows on Dem party failures in the primaries. Here's an interview with Marianne Williamson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AfS7xnz_M4
None of those people outnumber all of the black/female voters that wanted Kamala so their opinions result in a net loss of votes.
Did they? If they did, then they did a terrible job of it, since many people didn't hear that message. The message that everyone heard over and over again is "I'm not trump". Besides, promising to get rid of student loans as a campaign promise when you just spent 4 years proving that you can't really deliver on that promise seems unwise.
They did and it was loud and clear and everyone I know that voted republican did so because they thought democrats were bad for the economy and polls showed that.
You’re scapegoating democrats for not doing enough when really there just wasn’t enough voters that supported them because of right wing propaganda.
Key word being, "addressing." Medicare for All? Nope. They're going to address healthcare costs. Student loans insanely expensive for the majority of Americans? They already tried addressing it. What are they going to do? Eliminate the filibuster to pass legislation? Stack the Supreme Court?
They've been a little better on taxing the wealthy, but raising taxes doesn't mean much if you believe the revenue is going towards the military industrial complex or, "woke," agenda, based on your political leanings.
Liberal half measures aren't going to work anymore. They need a full-blown progressive agenda and the balls to ram it through whatever institution is in their way.
If democrats try to move left and they lose because of it and then people like yourself scapegoat them for not doing enough then they will move further right next time because that’s what the voters vote for.
Your response is an example of letting perfection become the enemy of progress.
WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? We're two days out from a centrist campaign leading to the largest fucking bloodbath in recent memory, and you're already trying to find excuses to not try appealing to the left? Rejoin reality, dude.
If we don't move further right now and instead move left then we might move further right later!!!!?
Their cognitive dissonance in these threads is just astounding
Astounding but not unexpected.
Democrats moved left and there was a “blood bath”. And your take is that we should ignore the polls saying it was because of inflation and move further left. You’re the one that needs to log off lemmy for a while and rejoin reality.
What part of it embracing war criminals like Dick Cheney, ignoring the needs of the working class, and mirroring much of Trump's policies is moving left?
The Democrats moved left? Fucking when? They've been moving to the right my entire life, and I'm not young. This election they campaigned with Liz Cheney on arming Isreal, a harsh border policy, and adding Republicans to their cabinet.
And yeah, it was the economy and the inflation; it's killing the working class. So why did she tailor her message entirely to the middle class? Their economic message was, "inflation is better, the status quo is good, your wrong if you think the economy needs to change." Then they lost, and your takeaway is, "well, changing to a left-wing economic message would obviously be bad." Get a grip, dude.
Ever since progressives started teaming up with democrats, democrats have been moving left.
Yes, they’ve been reaching across the aisle because Russia has stated it was their goal to drive the two parties in America to extreme opposites so we can’t get anything done.
Now China and Iran and North Korean bot farms are joining them and whether it’s intentional or not you are parroting their talking points.
She didn’t tailor her message entirely to the middle class, youre making that up. Inflation is getting better, the federal reserve is the only one that can control that and it takes higher interest rates and time to accomplish. But that is easy for bad actors like republicans and yourself to misrepresent to anyone that doesn’t understand macro economics.
Republicans won because democrats planned on taxing billionaires and billionaires countered by doing things like literally buying votes and you’re helping them out with you’re scapegoating.
Thank you, this was the most quintessential liberal answer I've ever seen. You display a complete ignorance on how the Democrats drifted from their New Deal roots in the 80s and the Third-Way's pivot to neoliberalism in the 90s, then attempt to frame my knowledge as foreign propaganda. You obviously never even listened to Harris stump speeches, but you feel confident in correcting me on how many times she brought up the working class vs. the middle-class. Then you follow it up by parroting the campaign's talking point on inflation with no understanding of why it didn't resonate with voters (inflation is down; that doesn't mean prices go down; so what do you tell people other than, "inflation is better now, you're fine"?) and trying to blame that failure on,, "bad actors," and people ignorant of macroeconomics (turns out people understand when their groceries cost more!). And then you top it off by blaming billionaires for buying the election, ignoring that Harris out-spent Trump 4 to 1. Seriously, thank you, I have the beginnings of a liberal-denial bingo card with this comment alone.
Biden campaigned on similar promises and ideals like resolving student debt and improving the economy. Even personally relevant promises like creating a public health jobs corps (relevant to my degree and field of study). The only thing he sufficiently accomplished were the initial vaccination efforts, but it's as if we stopped having an actual president into and after 2022: The filthy rich managed to get exponentially richer with this war-supply economy and stock market presidency. My student debt is still a burden in the back of my mind and all of my available graduate-entry jobs are either severely underpaid or shilled out to robots that also vet my applications. Until the war profiteer and stock market billionaires actually pay their fair share (which they should have been a few years ago) or provide citizens with jobs that can sustain a healthy living, any good socialist promises that are made are flat-out lies because senility and flacid mental acuity won't even be a valid excuse anymore.
Biden tried to do things like forgive student debt and was blocked by republicans and you scapegoat him for it? That’s a good way to make sure no one tries again. But maybe that’s your true intentions.
It was blocked by the courts because Biden was trying to use measures that were not within his authority. He was advised multiple times on the proper way to go about canceling student debt. And he never did. Pelosi instructed him that he does not have the authority to use the measures that he tried to do. He talked about student debt as a pr headline.
Biden was actually fairly committed to the student debt forgiveness, but his blind institutionalism meant he couldn't actually achieve much. He wouldn't push to remove the filibuster until late into his presidency and refused to discuss stacking the court. He was the wrong man to meet this moment in history, and we'll be living with his failures for decades.
Democrats never had near enough seats in Congress to actually expand the Supreme Court or remove the filibuster. He said he would support it but if he would’ve said more than that you would be blaming him for not accomplishing that also, even though it was never possible.
All it takes to eliminate the filibuster is 51 votes. They won't remove the filibuster because that's one of the rotating villains they love to utilized whenever they don't want to do something.
There were procedural methods they could have used to eliminate the filibuster, which he refused to even consider for half his term. They would have needed the House to expand the court, but if they had the balls to do it, then they could have run on it. Instead, they tried nothing and got nothing.
Less people voted Trump in 2024 than in 2020. It is not that Trump won, it is that Biden/Harris lost hard.
Trump: 74 Mio. in 2020, 73 Mio. in 2024
Biden/Harris: 81 Mio. in 2020, 69 Mio. in 2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election
Less people voted overall in 2024. That’s less for Trump and Harris. Because 2020 was the highest voter turnout ever. It was record breaking because of the pandemic. Without another motivator as big as the pandemic you’re going to see less voters for both Trump and Harris. You’re also going to see many different reasons claiming why. But it’s a fact that if you don’t have record breaking overall voter turnout in 2024 also, both sides will lose voters.
I know someone who didn't vote and gave this exact logic.
What logic specifically?
He wanted an actual progressive and refused to vote for a Democrat since the Democrats aren't embracing progressivism, despite the fact that not voting for a Democrat means there's a greater likelihood that we end up even further from progressivism.
In short: the exact logic in your comment.
I know many people that voted democrat in 2020 and switched republican this year because they thought inflation was caused by Bidens progressive policies. The polls support my experience:
More like out of 2 right wing options people went for the more right wing option.
Democrats have been moving further left ever since progressives joined them. This “democrats aren’t left enough” talking point is in line with the Russian strategy to polarize American politics more so that we dont get anything done.
Til their platform, messaging and strategy is just Russian
You’re not making any sense
Democrats have been moving further left ever since progressives joined them. This “democrats aren’t left enough” talking point is in line with the Russian strategy to polarize American politics more so that we dont get anything done.
Please tell me how I want republican immigration policy and to build the wall at the Mexican border are left-wing.
Again you’re not making sense. Why would I tell you that you want that?
What I can tell you is that you want the non facsist political party to win and then you want your government officials to get along long enough to actually accomplish something.
This requires voters, which requires compromise. According to the polls:
Wait I thought that disappointment was just Russian disinformation? /s
So they looked at what's unpopular and stayed with it. What an amazing strategy the dnc did
Wait I thought that disappointment was just Russian disinformation? /s
I don’t know what you’re trying to say with this. Pushing democrats further left and republicans further right and convincing both groups to not compromise is the Russian strategy and your statements are in line with that whether you have the same intentions or not.
So they looked at what's unpopular and stayed with it. What an amazing strategy the dnc did
No, they were voted into office after a period of high spending from the pandemic and low revenue from tax cuts for the rich. Along with the supply chain problems from the pandemic this caused inflation.
This means that interest rates had to be increased by the federal reserve to reduce the amount of borrowing and reduce inflation which is only controlled by the federal reserve and not any political party.
From the perspective of the average citizen prices were high and most didn’t know why. Republicans propaganda blamed democrats and the average citizen that didn’t understand why believed it and voted accordingly.
Now you are continuing that republican propaganda by blaming the DNC.
The DNC also compromised on immigration because voters from both parties felt strongly about it and that is the job of a politician to do what the voters want.