At least we kept bLuEmAGa from being in power! That would have been MUCH worse!/s
At least we kept bLuEmAGa from being in power! That would have been MUCH worse!/s
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If Trump is a conman, rapist, fascist, etc. & Democrats still lost to him, says a lot about how shitty & out of touch Democrats have been, maybe you should focus on that?
Or it shows that when you are truly awful, racist, homophobic, transphobic, idiots, your children move away from you to the cities where they don't have to talk or interact with you, which concentrates the intelligent and worthwhile portion of the population into blue centers that aren't evenly distributed across the electoral college?
Which is generally true, but he also won the popular vote. That's an indication that being awful is less important to most voters than being entertaining. The lesson I see here is Dems need to focus more on engaging rhetoric than silly trivialities like "competence" and "beneficial policy"
Trump's narrative, despite being just a makeover of the political establishment, is that he's anti-establishment. Democrats are just nakedly the political establishment with clown makeup pretending to be "progressive". Trump's message resonated with his audience, the Democrats' message didn't. Both of them are genocidal maniacs that are using nuclear weapons to hold the entire world hostage. Let's keep our eyes on the target here.
He isn't anti-establishment though, except that he's more concerned with self aggrandizement than practical policy. Democrats are establishment that occasionally align with voter needs, Trump is 100% aligned with his own needs, which occasionally defy the establishment when there's a conflict with his interests.
Again, this comes down to messaging, i.e. rhetoric. Not in content, but in vibes. The Democrats need to pay more attention to vibes, rhetoric, than content. You're just repeating what I said with different words.
He isn’t anti-establishment though
He's not, but that's his brand. And one of the few things he's good at is selling his brand.
What you've got is a bunch of people fed up with the system in some pretty fundamental ways, many of which don't even know how to voice their problems accurately. One side sells itself as anti-establishment (even though it's not) and the other side is nakedly as establishment as can be (to the point that they'll ratfuck primaries against anyone who rocks the boat even a little) but is very vocally progressive when they don't have to actually do anything about it or when doing so won't rock the boat even a little.
Correct, because, again, they are better at rhetoric/messaging/branding. Again, that's what we need to be doing.
So you're content with democrats just lying to get elected instead of making material changes in their policy that make people want to vote for them? You want them to be the better option than Republicans... by acting like Republicans, with the exact same policy, but it's a woman or a POC doing the policy??
with the exact same policy, but it's a woman or a POC doing the policy
That's just objectively false. No, their policy isn't good enough, but to pretend that it's exactly the same is disingenuous.
The Democrats are always going to be controlled opposition, I just care about them beating MAGA long enough to develop an alternative that can actually replace them. I don't vote for representation, the ones who represent me don't have enough support to win yet. I'm voting for the easier-to-defeat enemy.
I don't vote for representation, the ones who represent me don't have enough support to win yet.
This is so self defeating. If every person that said this just voted their beliefs instead of spreading this ideology like a cancer, if the Democrats even have a party left after that, you would be able to use your bloc to pressure them into being everything you say they are.
They said the same shit when Bernie ran in the primaries "oh, he's too old, he's not electable!!" until they realized that Bernie was too popular and just rat fucked the primary instead. He wasn't even running on the date of the primary and he still got half the votes that Biden did!!
You realize there are republicans that think this way too? It doesn't only benefit democrats. Not all Republicans are fully behind Trump, but they'll be damned if they vote for a democrat.
Parties win when people vote for them. That includes you. Stop spreading this self defeating, voter shaming ideology just to fucking lose elections because the democratic platform is hollow ineffective bullshit that the dems served up knowing you'll fucking vote for it anyways.
If every person that said this just voted their beliefs instead of spreading this ideology like a cancer
So if every person just spontaneously decided to ignore history, human nature, and the mechanics of a first past the post election system, and each of their beliefs aligned perfectly to rally behind the same candidate? That stresses even the wildest suspension of disbelief.
if the Democrats even have a party left after that, you would be able to use your bloc to pressure them into being everything you say they are.
What exactly do I say they are?
And when has that ever happened? You can't get a roomful of Leftists to agree on what the Left is, much less a national population of Leftists to agree on a specific course of action.
Not all Republicans are fully behind Trump, but they'll be damned if they vote for a democrat.
And that's why your course of action can't work. The right wing is authoritarian, they unify behind a figurehead. Every Leftist voting their beliefs leads to dozens of uncoordinated splinter groups, too busy in-fighting to unify behind anyone who could defeat the lockstep of right wing voters. They don't spend time fantasizing about impossible hypotheticals, they learn the mechanics of the game and play to win. They make concessions, choose a horse that can win, and unify.
Leftists are a minority. They don't have to be, if they could focus on winning rhetoric to pull voters instead of hoping everyone just spontaneously agrees with them, but they're too busy criticizing the ones who try to develop winning strategies because they fail all the Leftist purity tests. Republicans win because they vote for candidates they disagree with, because splitting the vote loses FPTP elections.
When the Left votes their beliefs, the right sweeps them every time. The Democrats don't cave to pressure to move their platform to the fractured left, they go hunting for "moderates". This is how we get Democrats catering to Cheney. Leftist appeal to ideological purity.
Parties win when enough people vote for them. You can't beat propaganda with purity. You beat propaganda with propaganda.
I am not repeating what you said, we have fundamentally different understandings of this system. Trump and Biden are both puppets of an imperial machine. You are trying to play strategist for the Democrats, my interest is in ending the machine. You are under the illusion that Trump emerged out of left field and is operating of his own accord, I am aware that he's just a slight rebranding of establishment policy made to look like some kind of wildcard.
Your understanding of my point is incorrect. I am under no such illusion. Your interest in "ending the machine" lacks praxis to accomplish that goal. My interest is in Democratic strategy only insofar that it is a stopgap solution to that very same goal. I have no interest in equivocating liberals and fascists. Certainly, the one begets the other, in the same way a tiger cub will become an adult tiger, but I am more confident in our ability to overcome a cub than an adult tiger.
I seek Democratic victory only insofar that I do not see a mature threat to the establishment, and I seek an establishment party which is easier to subvert in the meantime, while meaningful praxis matures. Slow descent into fascism is preferable to accelerated descent into fascism, because I do not believe that accelerationism is in the interest of the people. The risk of enduring fascism is too high.
Now kiss. We're all on the same side here. Left infighting is what has doomed us all. Yes Trump is a disgusting capitalist bigot piece of shit, but that's what the American people want. They may be too fucking dumb but they want the system to change and Trump is offering to flip the whole table.
Stop fucking fighting and let's figure out what to do.
let's figure out what to do
Once again, focus on rhetoric. The people want a compelling narrative. All the policy in the world means nothing if the people aren't buying. The people are dumb, they want entertaining stories. Give them what they want, instead of convincing them they should want something else.
Is a fucking fist in the air and the rifle in the other attractive enough yet?
No, not really. That carries an incredible amount of personal risk. As bad as things are, they're nowhere near get-shot-in-the-street-by-the-military-fighting-for-liberty bad yet.
We need to get one or both of the two major parties to move to the left from their current position.
Neither seems interested.
They won’t, capitalism itself needs to be overthrown. They’re both the party of capitalism.
The democrats and their stupid supporters suck all the air out of the room and frustrate real leftist change. They waste everyone’s time and energy on electoralism only to back stab their supporters. Fuck them. Let’s kill the democrat party once and for all they deserve to no longer be a political party after this election loss. They lost on purpose in service to capital. Liberals can’t get that through their thick fucking heads.
DEMOCRATS WOULD RATHER LOSE TO FASCISTS THAN APPEASE THE LEFT.
Repeat that a million times until it sinks through. They are a waste of time.
Let’s kill the democrat party once and for all they deserve to no longer be a political party
Maybe we should focus on killing the MAGA party first tho. What possible benefit is there in going from "bad party vs worse party" to "worse party vs countless splintered leftist factions"? Your order of operations is all wrong, if we're going to kill a party, let's focus on the actively fascist one first.
You don't topple electoralism overnight, we need a functional alternative first. Otherwise you're just handing control over to the fascists. Uncoordinated discontent isn't going to cut it. We need actual organization with an actual plan of action. The time and energy "wasted" on electoralism is miniscule, there's plenty available to back alternatives once a workable alternative is actually presented. Present it.
The fascist one is popular. You’re not going to kill it when the country was founded on the prototypes to fascism.
What’s needed is a real alternative that is the opposite of fascism and not just fascism lite. Why vote for the fascism lite party when you can just have the real thing?
Again, the fascism lite party would rather lose to the full blown fascists than cede any power to the left. the fascism lite party needs to be fully replaced by an anti fascist one if we’re gonna play electoralism.
The dems need to give us universal healthcare and education and stop the wars. They won’t do any of the above except admonish and shame voters for voting wrong. Fuck them and fuck their braindead supporters.
The last time Democrats held the House, Senate supermajority, and the Presidency for a total of 73 days in 2009 and we got Obamacare. Then the Republicans spent the next decade doing everything they could to tear it down.
In 2020 Trump won 74.2 million votes compared to 75 million in 2024. Meanwhile Democrats got around 7 million fewer votes. The lost to voter apathy, not to Trump. That apathy was fed by propaganda.
So this feels personal to you and I'm sorry you have issues with your family. It sucks but they are not everyone.
It's not. My family is anti-trump, and mostly harmless these days.
But blaming the democrats for the people who voted republican is a stupid online trick that both sidesers like to use.
The fact is, if the democrats were "more in touch with this country" they'd all act like Trump. That's what this country wants. That's what this country deserves.
Wow.
That's a heck of a response and I don't want to legitimize pretty much any of it so...
Okie dokie then.
Now you're roughly getting how I felt reading the comment from OP!
No. I am seeing a lot more anger about simple truths than I am feeling.
I don't feel what you feel and I am alright with that.
Nothing the Democrats did mattered because the truth didn't matter. Propaganda, lies, and foreign interference lost the election.
I'm pretty sure one major reason Trump won is that he wasn't in prison. Which is fucking weird since he tried to overthrow the country!
And Democrats lost because no one wanted to vote for them.
I have a big hunch that Trump never went to prison because the Democrats wanted to run against him again. Surely if we fucked around again, we wouldn't find out twice, right?
And why did no one want to vote for the Democrats? The lies and propaganda.
And here again jumping to conclusions that are undue. Lies are hard to keep and you over extend their effectiveness. People want to believe them if they offer no followup and the lies could be cleared by a level of direct action in the public eye.
There are ones that are malicious and meant to eat at the more readily willing broken people, but that's also a difference in who each party is searching for and cultivating.The centrists and liberals have absolutely stretched so far thin their generosity and miracles of modern society that people don't feel them anymore and yet the baggage is still felt.
No one wanted to vote for the Democrats cause people are tired of the weight and want to feel free of it even if it's falling to their doom from the floor dropping out. Now it's a game of chicken for which party actually starts pushing real change first. And if the people stuck in the middle will freak out before getting pancakes by both.
Also the facts.
It seems this one did matter:
Asked whether there is anything she would have done differently than Biden over the past four years, Harris demurred.
“There is not a thing that comes to mind in terms of — and I’ve been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact,” she said, going on to talk about the administration’s work capping the cost of insulin at $35 for Medicare recipients.
She appeared to backtrack on that answer later in the show.
“You asked me what is the difference between Joe Biden and me — that will be one of the differences. I’m going to have a Republican in my Cabinet,”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/08/harris-biden-the-view-00182883
And they still can’t figure out why they lost its incredible!
“You asked me what is the difference between Joe Biden and me — that will be one of the differences. I’m going to have a Republican in my Cabinet,”
JFC That's a real quote? She really steered full force into the ground on purpose.
Even if she said she was going to have all Republicans in her cabinet, she would still have been a better option than Trump and the lunatics he is hiring. Nothing the Democrats did mattered. They would have lost regardless.
Better option than this mess? Sure.
But beyond that, if you need to wallow in doomerism, suit yourself. But I roundly disagree with this fatalism. The Democrats could have actually campaigned on the left. A few years ago Joe Rogan was hosting and supporting Bernie. This cycle, he was lost to the fascists. It is very clear that the Democratic party tried a strategy based around enticing moderate Republicans. They have been doing this for years. You as a voter, need to face this reality: the Democratic party strategy ...failed. They need a different one. But suit yourself with self-defeating fatalism if you want.
They really are taking to this idea that if they beat themselves up as the idea of the voter it will somehow lessen the pain or something? It's weird cause it's just wallow without action to take. I'm saddened that people are still there when actions need to start happening.
It's easy to say that moving to the left would be more successful, but I doubt it would. 75 million Americans voted for blatant fascism and millions more didn't care enough to bother voting one way or another. People have lost hope that things will ever get better.
Maybe the wouldn't or maybe they would. The only think we know for sure is they didn't vote for the center-right version. That failed. Time to try the other one.
Nothing the Democrats did mattered
So what we saw was what Democrats did when nothing mattered? When there were no boundaries? They supported genocide. They adopted Republican border policy. They ran anti-trans hate in their own ads. They cozied up to Dick Cheney. They showed us what they really are.
They showed us who WE really are. They simply played to the middle to try to motivate swing voters and never-Trumpers.
No, they fucked up. Exit polling showed that democrat and left leaning voters stayed home, and less than 1% of registered Republicans went for Kamala. Trying to rely on the moderate Republican vote is almost as insane a strategy as relying on the Sasquatch vote.
They underestimated the degree to which the public had been impacted by propaganda and lies. They thought the public understood the threat Trump poses but they did not.
From a millennial perspective, it honestly reminds me of the terror threat level. After 9/11, the DHS would set a daily terror threat level in one of several threatening colors and the 24/7 news channels always had it just chilling in the bottom of their broadcast for years (of course it was always at nearly maximum leading up to invading Iraq, go figure). After a few years, nobody paid any attention to it anymore.
If the only thing you've got to offer is fear, eventually people get numb to that message, even if they should be scared. Imo, it's hardly surprising that the democrats lost whe coming to the table with conservatism lite, small business tax credits, and "OMG TRUMP IS SCARY WOW" while Merrick Garland slow walked the case against him. I had a feeling we were cooked when Kamala started doing appearances with A-listers; it reminded me a lot of the tone-deaf gilded campaign run by the Hillary team.
What does Trump offer but fear? The illegals are coming to steal your jobs! Muslim terrorists! Dems are DESTROYING the economy!
Yeah, but it's a new fear or a new spin on some old one every other week. Conservative media tries out a new panic pretty regularly to see what gets bites. The democrats have basically been on "Trump is our Hitler" for more or less eight years. At least, that's what they say with their mouths, though not with their actions. It might have had a little more sticking power of they'd showed that they took at serious as they want us to, but as it stands, that car is pretty much out of gas.
So the problem is that Democrats have had a consistent message? Right...
Joe Biden, is that you? The public didn't love genocide.
It's propaganda that Trump is the anti-genocide option. It's propaganda that not voting for the Democrats will somehow stop the war. It won't. It will make it worse.
Ah so self flagellation in hopes it shows you repentant enough to not get punished or to feel like you will accept it better when you are damned.
A bold strategy and one that normally didn't work for the weird hyper religious pious of the day either.Don't mistake the cries of flagellation for anything more than whimpers of pain. It does nothing to make it stop and people would say anything to make it stop if they thought it would work.
They played to the RIGHT. It's all they have always been and always will be.
The Democrats lost. And deserved to
More so than a convicted felon, rapist, and conman? Bullshit.
Because this election was about the need for change, as every one since 2008 has been. As the need has gone unaddressed, voters have grown increasingly willing to embrace more extreme platforms. That Trump is a huge piece of shit that definitely won't help anyone is beside the point- he promises dramatic, systems-level changes while Democrats are offering tweaks and adjustments and generally run like it's 1996. I would say they're asleep at the wheel, but that would suggest that they're not being willfully ignorant, which I think they are. That's why they deserve the L, and why they will continue to deserve the L as long as they think that just being the lesser of two evils is a good enough platform.
I don't know if there has ever been a US election that wasn't about change. It's an easy thing to promise because the voter can self-insert whatever they themselves think needs to be different. The candidate doesn't actually have to have a plan beyond that.
The problem with systems-level change is that it usually comes with unexpected consequences and that can cost lives. Small changes may be less satisfying but they can gradually get you the same changes in a slower but safer way.
I think maybe a more helpful descriptor than big or little, as it concerns change, would be 'meaningful'. People have been yearning for meaningful change. Meaningful changes can be big, but they don't have to be. Obamacare didn't bring about socialized medicine, but still brought some meaningful change. That said, it was just one step in the right direction, but failed to be followed with more meaningful changes to a system that we've been trying to fix since Eisenhower. The more meaningful change is put off, the more desperate people become and the more urgent the problem becomes, the more people are willing to accept dramatic and unconventional changes as meaningful changes. The Democrats, to their credit, are occasionally capable of small, meaningful changes, such as investment in rail infrastructure. There's also unfortunately a lot of parading of meaningless change as meaningful, or apologetics as to why meaningful change isn't convenient just now. Repeat that for twenty years and you've basically got the post-2000s DNC platform; a few scattered, meaningful steps on disparate items, couched with a whoooooooole lot of high-octane mediocrity.
Look at the Build Back Better act. It was to be the largest investment in infrastructure, social, and environmental programs since the 1930s. It was big and meaningful.
The first part, the American Rescue Plan was enacted putting $1.9 billion in public stimulus. Republicans chiseled down the rest to a fraction of what it was supposed to be. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is $1.2 trillion. The Inflation Reduction Act spent $891 billion on energy, climate change, and a few other things.
The problem isn't that it wasn't big or meaningful. It was. It was too big to easily understand and necessarily slow to implement. Real change takes time. More than a 4 year presidency. Real change doesn't fit in a campaign slogan. Trump lied about making change and that is easy to fit into a slogan.
They all deserved to lose
At least Trump had people wanting to vote for him whereas Biden/Harris was relying on people to vote against Trump instead of for them
A hard truth is always less popular than pleasant lies.
I'm truly baffled by the small but vocal set of people on Lemmy who seem unable to grasp that if the Ds lose a US election, the Rs win it. This has been going on for some time and I am no closer to understanding how they reconcile this internally
Maybe because we don’t see the Ds being any better overall. On a lot yeah, but definitely it everything
So you think the Republicans deserved to win. Got it.
They didn’t deserve to win; nobody deserved to win. They did for a myriad of reasons. The democrats did deserve to lose because they don’t run a candidate they support. They run a candidate that’s the lesser of two evils
Are you familiar with the rule of excluded middle?
DNC is stuffed by imbeciles who sold out. They are not here to win elections, they are here to make sure that democrats never shill anything pro pedon class.