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.
One quote from last night stuck with me (though I can’t remember who said it): “Republicans have been trying to grow their party for 4 years. Democrats have only been trying to grow their party for 4 months.”
Hey, I’ll probably delete my account soon because I shilled so hard for this campaign and it feels so gross. I knew day one enthusiasm was going to sink the dems and pushed back against the apathy as hard as I could. I was pretty devastated when kamala took the stage at the DNC and gave her support for, “a strong military” and talked about her gun or what ever. After that was just going through the motions and convincing myself I wasn’t crazy for not wanting trump to win this badly.
The way I see it now, and will remember as we go in the future the DNC offers nothing. That’s not fair, they do a lot of good for state and local governments but at a federal level, they will never be able to effect real change. Maybe it’s because the way the fed is setup or for what ever other reason. It’s not that the leadership has failed, it’s that they can’t win. I’ve hopped to lots of different possible solutions for Americans over the years and I guess there is one way out. Until we see liberals migrate away from the cities and take root in the land we will never have a government that represents them. That’s where the war will be fought. Until then, even if Trump doesn’t crown himself king asshole it’s the RNC’s game the DNC just resets the board.
I am sorry, but this is not going to happen. Liberals are found in cities because of class interests, not genetic opinions. People’s ideas are driven by their material conditions. But, hope is not lost. The Dems are, but they were never a path out, they represent their donors above all else.
Revolution is necessary. Voting can’t get us there. I recommend reading Reform or Revolution and The State and Revolution for why reform is pretty much impossible and revolution is necessary.
I can offer a good intro list to Marxism if you’d like, or answer any questions you may have.
I think the Democrats needed a solid message and populist policy. The “opportunity economy” sounded like a vague platitude, and her policies were weak tea like increasing the child tax credit and helping to fund down payments on houses.
It’s the populist policy that’s the hanging point. The DNC Services Corp will never let that happen. They’re all too happy to let fascists win and fundraise off the fallout.
This country is cooked. The empire is finally dying. My big concern is that this empire has nukes it will use on the way down.
We’re on track to becoming Russia, and Russia hasn’t used their nukes yet.
But Dick Cheney! Dick Cheney!
They gonna go hunting with him?
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???
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”.
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.
It’s not just about your vote being secret from others though? It’s about you not being able to make your vote known to others as well!
Yay oligarchy.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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:
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
Joe Biden suddenly turns into Joe Stalin…
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…
Treason?
Well yeah, but it was also a literal march on our Capital.
They didn’t even have to show up to the party or draw a direct line to the cannon fodder
This assumes the dems have any interest in actually improving the lives of Americans.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unchecked Pathological Greed. The entire reason The United States was founded.
Democratic Party : Republican Party :: Washington Generals : Harlem Globetrotters
If you didn’t vote, or voted third party, because the Democrat candidate wasn’t “Left enough” for you, then like it or not you got exactly what you voted for.
You have to vote like we have the system we have, not like we have the system you want.
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Stein got 0.6 million votes. Over a hundred million stayed at home. I sincerely doubt that each of those hundred million is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-electoralist, so why focus on the “Not left enough” people? They had no effect on the election one way or another, just like they kept telling you. Your problem is that the majority of people in this country are completely alienated from politics. If you continue to focus on the left to the exclusion of the Democrats’ very real shortcomings, if you continue to ignore DNC’s failure to offer a winning platform to everyday people, then you are damning us all to an eternity of the current moment.
I think centrism can win elections though. In my country, the UK, elections are usually won by whichever party captures the centre ground. Keir Starmer won in the UK this year by being centrist. Previously David Cameron and Tony Blair were pretty centrist, and both won multiple elections.
Centrism can win in places that aren’t America. Too many Republicans are being fed propaganda all day long by Fox “News”…an organization that has argued in court that no one should take them seriously. But that’s where they get their news. They’re also indoctrinated by their religious upbringing from Evangelicals. There is no such thing as a moderate Republican anymore. They have shown that they will vote every time for the Republican candidate regardless of how flawed they are. Trump is a convicted felon that tried to overthrow the government, has been found in a court to be a rapist, was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein, has had numerous failed businesses and bankruptcies, has denigrated our troops. NONE OF IT MATTERS. Stop trying to appeal to the right and actually get your voting base excited about the policies you want to push.
I think in any country you have to appeal to undecided voters in the centre in order to win an election. So yes maybe the Dems shouldn’t appeal to “the right” but they probably need to appeal to the centre.
Keir won because the UK, like the US, has First Pass The Post and the Even More Far Right Party - Reform - divided the votes on the Far Right hence the Tories came second in lots of electoral circles were they usually come first.
Also I’ve lived all over Europe including the UK and New Labour is plain Right, not Center-Right - they only seem center by comparison with the Tories who migrated to the Far-Right during the Leave Referendum and subsequent Johnson Government.
Similarly by comparison with most of Europe (not the UK) the US is a country with only a plain Right (maybe even hard) and a Far-Right.
Curiously, both New Labour and the Democrat Party support the ethno-Fascist regime in Israel, something which I feel neatly underlines my point as from what I see elsewhere in Europe (with the notable exception of Germany) no Leftwing party supports them.
Maybe left and right are relative terms and Labour are centre-left within the context of British politics… but maybe this is the wrong community for me to say things like that.
Labour are centre-left within the context of British politics
Nothing left about them, Keith made pretty damn sure of it. The fact that you (and sadly many others) think they are though, is simply a demonstration of how the Overton gets shifted to the right by the establishment protecting its own interests, since they are who parliament actually serve.
maybe this is the wrong community for me to say things like that.
Pro tip: the community you post in doesn’t change reality.
The reason I think Labour are centre-left is because I think most people would think of them that way. I’m not trying to defend them or anything like that, I didn’t even vote this year. I just think that’s how most people would refer to them.
Or maybe the words do have reasonably fixed global meaning and only British Exceptionalism and their very propaganda-heavy environment makes Britons think their political landscape redefines those words.
Besides, even in Britain you might want to consider the existence of the Corbyn phenomenon (who, if I remember it correctly, got more votes than Starmer did) as well as the Greenparty (whose 1 million vote count went up to 1.4 million in the latest electing) as proof that there is in fact a Left even in England which is not just “What’s in it for me?!” Neoliberals cosplaying as “lefties” by throwing some identity politics slogans and below inflation minimum wage raises once in a while, whilst de facto supporting an ethno-Fascist regime half way around the globe currently working on Holocaust v2.
I would say their support for the Neue Nazis and their pro-Finance politics (which I saw up close and personal having worked in that Industry before, during and after the 2008 Crash) by themselves are more than enough to place them firmly in the full-on Right field, possibly even Hard Right.
People whose guiding principle is “The greatest good for the greatest number” don’t do what the New Labour types have done and continue to do, even the “pragmatic”/“moderate”/“center” ones.
Starmer would probably like to introduce more left-wing policies, like when he said a couple of years ago that he wanted to abolish university tuition fees, but Corbyn’s election losses seemed to lead Starmer to believe that he needed to be more centrist in order to successfully replace the Tories.
Anyway I think most people in Britain and around the world would refer to Labour as a centre-left party even if they disagree with Labour’s policies.
What would I know, my references are only politics in 4 different countries including being a political party member in two of them, one of which was the UK …
Maybe in some countries they wouldn’t refer to Labour as centre-left, but I think the majority of Brits would agree with Labour being called centre-left.
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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
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Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer a good introductory reading list regarding Marxism if you’d like, but this is a good starting point.
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.
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Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must save each other.
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Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
https://www.optionsri.org/post/chattering-classes-activism-is-the-best-remedy-to-authoritarianism
Rest, recuperate, get into a sustainable rhythm. Only we will keep us safe.
If I had canvassed for Harris in Tennessee I’d have been shot.
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Block, block, upvote, scroll, upvote, block, upvote, upvote, block
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.
