They still put forth the mutually exclusive arguments, simultaneously. "Our protest couldn't have had an effect, so we totally didn't sacrifice American LGBT folk for a chance at saving Gaza" + "If the Dems had just given in to our protest, we would've voted for them and they would have won"
Both arguments are stupid on their own merits, but together, they paint a picture of intellectual and moral bankruptcy.
Based on news of Elon setting up fake pro-Trump liberal advocacy groups before the election do we know how much of these arguments are coming from legit leftists IRL vs manufactured consent? Just curious, when you say ‘they’ are these people you’ve talked to IRL or online?
If protest voters had voted for Harris, she still would have lost, because twenty million democrats stayed home. She didn’t lose because of protest votes, she lost because white middle class voters decided they didn’t want to bother, because the election won’t affect them anyway.
If 77 million people vote for Trump, and 75 million vote for Harris, that any single voter's vote is only one vote does not mean that if they vote for Trump, it's a morally neutral act. Not being the tipping point is not absolution for one's actions or inaction. And doing mental backflips to justify a vote for Trump because they were 'just one vote' instead of taking some time to fucking reflect if Trump winning was the outcome they wanted to support would make them an utter cretin.
The core issue is that many Americans don't seem to care if fascism comes to America. This includes protest voters, but yes, protest voters are only a small percentage of that much-larger category.
We're probably making the classic mistake of homogenizing a heterogeneous group.
I doubt any individual holds both opinions simultaneously.
Those aren't mutually exclusive, you're not that stupid so why pretend?
"There weren't enough of us to sway the election" and "had more people worked with us we would have one" are the same statement: both point out that not enough people did the thing you're so pissed about
“There weren’t enough of us to sway the election” and “had more people worked with us we would have one”
"Had more people agreed with us, we would have had more people who agreed with us" is not anything but a statement of obvious, if wishful, fact, and is not what is being said; not in my summary nor in the arguments of the people I'm referring to. Nor does it make any sense as an argument, explanation, or point of any kind. Utterly vacuous.
The argument being put forth, and I suspect you're well-aware of this, is that if the Dems had taken up whatever position these protest-voters wanted, that would have convinced enough people to vote Dem who otherwise would not have done so.
Your supposed to vote for the candidate that represents your views. Doing so should never be considered sacrificing anyone unless you candidate is the bad guy.
Decades of blaming third party voters is why we have two parties that don't represent the people today. There will be pain breaking that trend, but eventually it will pay off.
I've been loudly and proudly critical of the democrats while also voting for Harris and urging others to do so. The democratic presidential campaign in 16 and 24 amounted to: you should vote for us because the other guy sucks. We can get into a lot more details than that, particularly on the shortcomings of the policy plank and messaging, but that's the gist. It didn't work in '16, there was ZERO reason to think it would work in '24, but fuck it, we can always blame the voters.
Unrelated story time, after I got my driver's license, my alcoholic dad would get hammered and then demand that I drive him to the liquor store to buy more liquor, and if I didn't, then I would be responsible when he crashed into someone and killed them while trying to drive himself. It was just a strategy to get me somewhere where I had to listen to him tell me what a piece of shit I was for about an hour, of course, but before I knew any better, I would comply. Eventually I just told him that he was welcome to drive himself, but I'd be letting the state patrol know how to find him.
Dunno why I remembered that story just now. Huh.
The democratic presidential campaign in 16 and 24 amounted to: you should vote for us because the other guy sucks...It didn't work in '16, there was ZERO reason to think it would work in '24, but fuck it, we can always blame the voters.
It wasn't just the same strategy. It was a lot of the same people who worked on Hillary's campaign, as well a bunch of Obama flunkies pushing the, "demographics are destiny," narrative that keeps convincing the party they can safely ignore the working class and focus on, "moderate," Republicans. A bunch or them went on Pod Save America to explain what happened with the Harris Campaign, and (Spoiler Alert) turns out they did everything right, the campaign was great, and everything that went wrong was someone else's fault.
Anyway, I'm sure the OP is right, and the protest voters are why she lost. It's definitely not the fault of the Democratic Party elites who keep re-hiring the same strategist despite their catastrophic failures. I'm gonna get a head start on making memes blaming the left for Hillary's 2028 loss to Trump because no one learns anything and we live in hell.
there was ZERO reason to think it would work in '24
Aside from the fact that it worked in 2020, you mean?
They did do some of it in 20, but Biden actually brought some stuff to the table; two things that spring to mind are student loan forgiveness and national passenger rail revitalization, there's probably some others I can't think of ATM. Yeah, in hindsight, the loan forgiveness ended up not being much to write home about, and the rail revitalization might be getting derailed, but at least he had some actually useful and interesting policy planks besides "not Trump" and "look, it's [celebrity]!"
A "state patrol" would be nice about now. Know where to find one?
Great analogy.
Not really.
If you wanna compare, the Trump version would be the alcoholic father purposely running into people on the way to the liquor store. While blaming it on somebody else.
I am so tired of strategic voting
Unfortunately, that's the only kind of voting there is, so long as there are factions and negotiations (ie always, realistically speaking).
People think of voting at the polls like an opinion poll, but it's not, or shouldn't be treated as such. We are the equivalent of electors in a college or legislators in a parliament. What we wield is not our opinion, it is our political power, what little sliver of it we have in the great mass of the electorate. If Senator John Q. RealtivelyLeft abstained on a bill for universal healthcare tomorrow because the wording displeased him, we wouldn't say "Well, that's just his opinion", we'd lambast him for forsaking a chance to make this fucking country a little less miserable for his own petty partiality. Same with voting.
Look to your left and to your right. Your fellow voters are there, and it's only by majority vote that anything gets passed.
Be strategic. And also, be loud and unafraid of your own position; it's the only way the calculus on strategies changes.
Yes, and that is why you have to have a mechanism to trigger a national vote to cancel any new written law before it takes effect
It is called a referendum
As well as a way that anyone can issue a change of the constitution by triggering a so called initiative which than has to win vote to get through
And of course, make sure nothing disturbs separation of powers like a pardon law or president setting judges without a vote.
First pass the post suuuuucks. Literally anything else is at least slightly better.
Well apart from outright vanguard single party rule or dictatorship. Absolutely.
Alaska actually had ranked choice this last election. No green candidate in a state they could have done the most good in though
aren't you enjoying your pseudo-democracy?
Have a look at the swiss voting system 😇 hope you see the way for improvement 😁
But first kill this stupid pardon right of president making all courts a fucking joke and waste of money
Just one more time bro! Just vote for the Dems one more time bro, and they'll definitely stop being a lesser evil. I know they've never done anything to actually obstruct America's slide to fascism, but just vote blue no matter who one more time bro I'm sure this is the time!
and this is just week 1 of episode 2. it's gonna get a lot worse and they won't waste any time. they have to shovel all the shit they have planned before midterms while they still have congress.
if congress doesn't flip and flip hard--like impeachment-ready and veto-proof hard, it's 'game over'. instead of a few decades to fix episode 1, it will take generations, if it is even possible to recover completely at all.
It's cute you think there will be a real midterm election
I would say, prepare yourself to free your country from Nazis…
There is nearly 0 chance of flipping to veto proof. But flip it probably will.
As I said in another thread elsewhere on the same subject:
The Protest Vote Paradox™
As we’ve all read time after time in the months leading up to the election, the Protest Vote™ simply states states that:
“We refuse to vote against a Tyrant-Felon in order to send a clear and concise message that we will not stand for [roll D20 for random popular single issue], and alongside our refusal to vote against the Tyrant-Felon, is a collective hope that the aforementioned clear and concise message- if ignored, is received under unmitigated duress!”
-Cut to Tyrant-Felon’s win, and the aftermath:
Whether observed or not, the behavior of the Protest Voter will attempt to achieve the following:
• Obnoxiously tell everyone: “We told you all what would happen!”
• Onnoxiously claim there is: “No way protest voting could cause trump to win.”As both of these options cannot simultaneously be true in the same reality without breaking important time-space things that we would probably prefer not be broken- we are left with only a few logical conclusions:
- Protest voters have no idea what they’re talking about.
- Protest voters don’t understand the concept of hypocrisy.
- Protest voters have somehow learned to defy reality and become exempt from the concept of paradoxes, thus creating an entirely new study of theoretical science, known as Bulletproof Symbiotic Hypocrisy Theory, or BLsHt.
Something, something, something Ted Talk.
- Protest voters fell for a propaganda campaign (maybe by the republicans, maybe by Russia or China trying to destabilise the USA).
all of the above, plus perhaps iran, dprk...
Occam's razor that versus the campaign was SO POORLY RAN that it didn't inspire people to vote against a literal dictator.
As both of these options cannot simultaneously be true
They absolutely can. Protest voters not voting don't encompass every democrat vote lost, there are simply many unconvinced people who became apathetic and didn't vote despite having nothing to do with protest voters, with the latter being a minority. Stop your logical fallacies based on false premises.
Why are y'all so obsessed with third party voters lmao
If they can blame the voters then the DNC doesn't need to change.
Sounds true... but if you remove one excuse, they will find another. They would rather go down with the ship than change.
After all, changing means losing thier cash flow and influence. Letting the reps win means they can probably keep those things for the rest of their personal lives. They'll be dead before we become a true one party system.
Because it would be the solution to a better voting system
More parties are better, because there is never just black or wait (or better said just blue and red)
The world is more nuanced than that, but sadly this is already too complex for too many people.
I voted 3rd party in the last UK election, it probably helps that our system is 650 elections at once across the country. You are only voting for your local representative. But it is still FPTP which is pretty bad as a system, it's still less shit than the US system though.
My thinking is that sure they won't win this time but if support for them starts to increase (it is doing so) then the party may at some point put more focus on this area for a future election and win. This is how they have now got some influence and also if you look at the local level it takes even less. Most local council elections where I live are won with less than 1000 total votes because they cover pretty small areas. There are of course also cases where a party loses narrowly because of a 3rd party, a local one here had the minor parties fighting between each other and the incumbent national party came dead last with 5%.
OP has lost their shit over third party voters every day since the election.
It lets them ignore the responsibility of running a bad campaign with a failed strategy.
Still thinking the people to blame are the DNC elites that went on to run on a right platform, even inviting fucking war criminal mass murderer Dick Cheney to advocate for them.
Also Trump is not something that just happened. The US is an empire in decline and Trump is a symptom of that. The conditions of decline are maintained by the Republicans and Democrats and voting either won't be enough to turn things around.
Its been time to fundamentally reform the political system at the very least since 2016.
Its been time to fundamentally reform the political system at the very least since 2016.
Yea, it was happening, not very fast but RCV or other FPTP alternatives were spreading. Now it's probably going to take a back seat now that Trump and Co has returned to power. Yet another consequence of the short sighted bLuEmAGa folk
This comment section gave me acute radiation syndrome.
Yeah man
The best part ? They really think that, like 3 people on Lemmy swayed the election towards Trump lmao
Next thing they'll say, Trump actually lost and Kamala is the actual president of the United States of America.
They will just keep on blaming the voters.
I'm sure it will work wonders
Then they will keep asking themselves why they lost the election LMAO 🤣
🍿🍿Popcorn! Get ya popcorn here before it sells out and the thread is locked!
This is gonna be A DOOZY of a comment section folks!!
Only 1 protest vote for a small, and two for a large! Fascism Butter no extra charge!
Seeing how Democrats keep gnawing on this bone really lets me know the Democrats are never going to ever win another election. Anything in the world to avoid having to change their failed strategy. They ran the Hillary Clinton campaign and lost again, but God forbid they changed that no it's the voters who are wrong. Should we appeal to voters who care more about the working class than the business class? Nah fuck that. Should we appeal to people who don't like people like Henry Kissinger and Dick Cheney? Nah fuck that. Keep fucking that chicken.
I hope they at least got paid. Doing that level of BS for free would just be sad
I don't think its even paid shills. We have generative AI now, and can VPN with fake accounts pretty easily as regular consumers. If we can do it, they can do it on a larger scale and professionally, and not just 'their side', but global rivals.
If another country wants your country to do something stupid, all they have to do is get a bot army to upvote bad ideas and pump out memes and comments supporting whatever policy you think will negatively impact your rival.
If they're NOT doing this already, then they're terrible at their jobs, and I don't think they're honestly that incompetent.
That said, don't assume they're only trying to influence everyone other than you. All that social media data created a system to predict who you are and what buttons to push to get you to act.
That would also be nicer than an army of people sincerely believing they're doing the right thing by not voting
I see democrats are already doing their best to blame everyone but themselves. Can’t wait to see who you run against him for his third term. I’m sure whoever they are, they’ll be a carbon copy of Obama, like the last three elections you ran against Trump.
You guys just really fucking love losing.
THIRD-PARTY CAN WINNN!!
Show me the comments that said a third party could win the 2024 presidential election. Literally no one was saying that.
If I show you comments that say exactly that, will you eat your words, or deny it like you deny the Tiananmen Square massacre?
They might be wrong that no one was saying that, but there definitely wasn't a significant voting block who thought a third party candidate had a shot at winning.
Blaming third party voters is a loser mentality. 77 million voted trump, 75 million Harris, and 101 million didn't vote at all. How about blaming those people? Or blaming the party and candidate? If someone didn't win the majority of the blame lies with the person running.
I don't think it was said unironcly and i am willing to be proven wrong.
"Oh damn I lost the race I thought was easy again. Could I be a shit party with shit messaging and wet farts for fans? Nah its everyone else whos wrong"
I see the people who insisted that they had to keep doing the genocide for the election are still trying to blame everyone else
And allowing Trump to return to power is stopping the genocide how exactly?
Because at this point it's getting worse and there's soon to be a second genocide going on here in the US.
Soo much better!/s
And allowing Trump to return to power is stopping the genocide how exactly? Because at this point it's getting worse
Uh... Big news, fella, there was a ceasefire. Kamala openly said during campaigning that under her rule America would always have "the most lethal armed forces in the world".
Yea, maybe you should have pressured Kamala to flip on this like I was posting about for a fucking year before the election. Instead centrists told Arabs, Latinos, the poor, and other minorities to fuck off and this is the result. Now you're here pathetically posting stuff like this almost daily to make yourself feel better, but its really transparent and gross.
I see the people who obnoxiously shouted at everyone that bOtH SiDeS aRe tHe sAmE for months before the election are beginning to see that they’re not.
It’s too bad they have that commonality with MAGA in their shared lack of shame to admit it.
Now it’s OUR turn to tell you we told you so, only we’re far less smug about it.
These statements aren't contradictory
Why is this a controversial comment? They truly aren't.
We fucking told you so:
You can understand that Harris would have been undeniably less awful than trump but also still terrible and basically offered trump-lite policies. This means that people who actually want fascism are just going to vote for trump and many of the people who want progressive policies are going to be apathetic and stay home. This isn’t about all the tankies protest voting, it’s about all the normies who already don’t vote not caring because she ran a dogshit campaign.
but also still terrible and basically offered trump-lite policies.
Harris didn't say she was going to deport millions of working Americans for being the wrong colored skin.
Harris didn't say she was going to weaponize the entire political machine against people who passed some off-hand sleight that offended her.
Harris didn't say she was going to actively dehumanize and torture the entire LGBT community for existing.
Harris didn't say she was going to actively remove every protection from working class people.
She said none of this. The other guy said it multiple times, and now he's following through on it! Big fucking shocker!
Seriously. The "both sides" arugment has been so tired out for so long that you cannot legitimately believe that it means anything. Believing the silence said by one side and giving that more weight than what is being actively repeated by the other side is short sighted at best, and intentionally malicious at worst. We're on the worst side now, and I will treat people who repeat it as the worst side.
Protest voters bLuEmAgA screeching didn't happen in a vacuum
And those uncommitted/undecided voters change their minds easily. What if for every protest voter screecher posting their "bOtH SiDeS" BS there were 5 uncommitted voter lurkers saw it and just went "Eh fuck it, I'm busy with work anyways" they're not protest voting, those are just uncommitteds doing what uncommitteds do.
Scale that up to nationwide and on major social media platforms that totally would have promoted it thanks to those wonderful algorithms and you can see what it's a problem
It is never about winning the election. Or voting in a third party.
What the radical left are doing is sitting out in protest of a broken system. Over here in the UK we had the lowest voter any living generation would have witnessed. The reason why is we are disenfranchised and won't support the elites.
This is the kindling of a revolution.
Anyone who doesn't understand this should school themselves on historic materialism. No amount of wining will change how large swafts of people react to their material condition.
What the radical left are doing is sitting out in protest of a broken system.
There has never, ever been anything approaching a protest that starts with the words "sitting out".
That's not revolution, that's apathy and disinterest. That's what the people in power want.
Don't sit out. Stand up. Do something. Or don't. But don't lie to yourself and others and say that sitting out of the problem makes it any better.
There has never, ever been anything approaching a protest that starts with the words "sitting out".
In a sense you're right, but it seems like a lot of people participating in this discussion may have a misunderstanding of the history of disagreements about electoralism on the revolutionary left.
Historically, some members of the left don't want to waste time and resources participating in electoralism that could be spent doing other things that contribute to the revolution that will happen when the Bourgeois electoral system inevitably collapses.
Others want to participate to signal the point when that collapse has inevitably occurred because the corruption will have become blatantly obvious.
Personally, I don't think just going in and voting counts as the kind of participation that theory is describing (that is, running in elections, participating in campaigns, etc.)
On the other hand, it has also become blatantly obvious to me, personally, at this point that on a national level my vote just doesn't count. My vote is dictated by the capitalist class owned and controlled media telling everyone which states will vote which way. The puppet politicians aren't vying for popular support, they're vying for oligarch support and the media they control to sway that population. It's voter manipulation on an unbelievable scale that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but I can't ignore that it has become blatantly obvious to me that the system is rigged by the capitalist class, and participation in it (at higher levels) is pointless.
It is never about winning the election. Or voting in a third party.
Thank you for admitting it. Many of us poors and minorities will die, but that is a sacrifice you are oh-so-nobly willing to make.
By doing so they're allowing fascists to take over. Isn't it in your best interest, as a leftist, to prevent the fascist take over of your country?
And before you say "The country is already run by fascists," over here our immigration dept. is now starting to detain Native Americans. The president is deporting school children. Even other American citizens who aren't white are being detained. That simply was not happening under the previous president.Fascism is born from economic issues and tention usually created by rich people to move the blame. We have a labour party in place in the UK, Elon Musk has already involved himself in our politics. Reform uk is poling 25% and labour 26%. labour hasn't even been in for half a year.
Fascism is battled in the streets and unions, historically this is what has happened.
Fascism can be seen as the endpoint of capitalism, when a system predicated on infinite growth hits the ceiling. While yes vote in your interest I wouldn't depend on politicians to fix the systemic issue that is capitalism.
Edit for clarification: Reform UK are a nationalist party. Labour were a socialist party for workers, now they are liberals willing to sell whatever isn't strapped down.
