PROTIP: Dems being spineless, brainless cretins does NOT absolve anyone who said that sitting by and letting fascists take over the country was preferable! And yes, you CAN blame the voters for that!
The voters did not magically come to the ‘correct’ decision to sit this out by the spirit of democracy whispering in their ear; they did so because they believed that fascism won’t be ‘that bad’ to them, personally! And no amount of blaming Dems for being gutless corporate weasels can change that being an accomplice to deliberately driving fascists deeper into power is not a forgivable offense!
As a Brit I’m not immersed in American politics day to day. My (unqualified) take from a million miles away went:
“Oh, Joe Biden got elected thank god”
“Oh, he’s promising to only serve one term, good that’s completely sensible”
“Joe’s running again? What? Could they not find anyone better? This isn’t going to go well at all…”
“(during that debate) Oh well, looks like Trump’s going to win…”
“Hey, Kamala looks like she would have won if this had been the plan from the beginning, not a sudden fumble when Biden’s brain melted beyond repair on live TV…”
Seems like - from my point of view- the main culprit was hubris on Biden’s part ever attempting a second term. And the inexplicable failure of the whole party to not force him out of that self destructive choice. Other candidates besides Kamala likely could have won, just seemed like any Dem candidate would be fatally undermined by starting a late campaign.
You’re not wrong. Biden never formally promised to serve one term, but heavily implied it. Many of us were disappointed when he announced he was running again, but conventional political wisdom that the incumbent has a massive advantage was still a compelling argument. For an incumbent to be forced out is nearly unheard of in presidential politics.
Even after the debate, I was willing to lend Biden the benefit of the doubt insofar as I considered him to be doing what HE believed to be the best chance of winning. When I learned that he had internal polling showing a total massacre long before the debate, my opinion soured from “Idiot, but I get it” to “Narcissistic moron who lost the country to fascism”.
Harris started with strong support she could have, potentially, won with, but in the process of ‘defining’ herself to the electorate, chose what she saw to be the ‘safest’ choices in a attempt to not lose that lead. Unfortunately, that lead was largely built on possibility, and in the process of defining herself, especially defining herself in the ‘safest’ possible way, obliterated the ability of all people to see her as all things, and cratered her chances of success. She would have probably had more success with at least a vague argument of change rather than “I can’t think of anything I’d do differently [than Biden]”, even if it created bad blood between her and the president. Whether that would have been enough to win, God only knows, but I think we can all look back and say, at this point, that the ‘safe’ choices were not, in any way, safe.
Tbh honest I was surprised Biden was even a consideration back in 2020, he was too old even then and it made the criticisms of Trump’s age and mental health not land so well. The moment it was a close call in 2020 the plan should have been ‘popular dem by any means necessary’. Not, double down on aging incumbent when they rarely do better on re-election. I can’t tell it if was hubris or a complete failure of the party apparatus to believe it could come up with someone more appealing than Trump…
It seems like your take on the Harris campaign, boiled down, is basically that they tried to optimize for center too hard? And should have gone farther left? I hope I’m not putting words in your mouth, that’s how it reads to me.
I agree. Like you said it’s impossible to know how that would’ve turned out, but after seeing this last election, hard not to conclude that Dems need to start spitting some fire and getting spicy. This milquetoast party of reasonable takes really isn’t getting anything done.
Sure they’d lose some (many) moderates, and I bet they’ve polled and “determined” that they’d lose more votes than they’d gain, but polls can’t capture the momentum generated by a movement for change, the potential support is de facto unobservable under current conditions.
Regardless, even when Dems “win”, it seems little changes. Really wish they’d start swinging for the fences and see what sticks.
Edit to add - I agree with your post as well, don’t want to (yet again) hyper focus on Dems-the-party
It seems like your take on the Harris campaign, boiled down, is basically that they tried to optimize for center too hard? And should have gone farther left? I hope I’m not putting words in your mouth, that’s how it reads to me.
I would love if they had went further left, but ultimately it’s that they ran on a platform of ‘everything is okay’ when the mood of the country was not ‘okay’.
She would have probably had more success with at least a vague argument of change rather than “I can’t think of anything I’d do differently [than Biden]”, even if it created bad blood between her and the president.
Exactly! She should have thrown Biden under the bus! He’s done with politics, his polling no longer matters and fuck his feelings. She should have used it as an opporitunity to highlight all the shit people dislike about him and promise to do differently. She should have used trashing him as a springboard to promise to be better. Instead, she just promised to be Biden 2.0 when nobody even liked Biden to begin with.
Well you see the Democrats are a gerontocracy and if they pushed him out then they could do the same to someone like Pelosi. Don’t you know it’s their god given right to die in office after years of going senile on live TV?
Pug its only been a month
Go back to sleep and enjoy the last month of Biden doing fuck all about any of the core problems that Trump is about to expand a thousand times.
This meme even contradicts itself. If its already known there’s a limit to reason, why didn’t the Democrats utilize this like the Republicans did? Obama lied about a ton of crap to get votes and everyone was still happy. All of a sudden the DNC has moral compass that prevents them from properly pandering to voters but full send genocide is worth losing all three branches of the federal government over.
This meme even contradicts itself. If its already known there’s a limit to reason, why didn’t the Democrats utilize this like the Republicans did?
Because the Dems are fucking morons. This isn’t an excuse for the Dems. This is a reminder that voters are at fault too, and that allowing fascism is not magically okay just because the Dems are spineless gutless weasels.
Do people not realize that without legislative backing the President’s powers to make long term and lasting change are extremely limited and nil? Like how he pursued student loan relief and got blocked by the Supreme Court?
Biden has never had a true majority in Congress, the senate was always 50/50 at best and even then two of those were DINOs with one of them fully switching to GOP in the last year. Scream all you want about Biden not doing anything but there really isn’t anything else he can’t legally do without Congress or Supreme Court just stopping his plan before it can even be publicly known. You want to see change with an actual leftist government in the US? Then fucking vote. Not just every 4 years in Presidential elections. but in midterms and special elections too. Find out who your state representatives are and vote in those elections too. If you don’t know who represents you from the local level of city council all the way up to US House and Senate then you’ve really got no room to criticize the DNC for being paralyzed in not wanting to upset the voters they actually can get to turn out to the polls.
The Democrats used to promise real change and progress, but they’ve only proven themselves to be the party of stagnation in recent memory. Nowadays they don’t even try to inspire their base, but rather scare them into submission with the threat of Trumpism.
Sure it’s better than the rapid decline into chaos that the order party is trending towards but this pattern of “a couple careful steps forward then a dozen strides sprinting backwards” isn’t working for Americans. Many of us have lost faith in the system because the system doesn’t work for us. What’s worse is that when we get a candidate who speaks to us, the Democratic establishment shuts them down with more efficacy than they ever seem to direct towards any of the Right’s regressive politics.
While I still fall in line and vote for somebody who I am not excited or inspired by in a seemingly futile effort to hold the line, many others have given up because their struggles aren’t being addressed or even acknowledged. You can yell at them and criticize them until you’re blue in the face but I can guarantee you they’re either so tuned out that they’ll never hear it or so dug into their own political ideals that they won’t receive it.
If you want their vote, you’re going to have to earn it.
If you want their vote, you’re going to have to earn it.
“The Dems need to change” and “Allowing fascism is not okay” are not mutually exclusive positions, and I hold to both.
I think you’re right and that’s ultimately why I voted for Harris but as your original point says either apathy or ignorance amongst many other Americans has grown to the extent that they are willing to risk declining into fascism.
Are we going to change that by telling them to stop being apathetic/ignorant and that fascism is bad? Because that seems to have been the primary strategy the Dems have run over the last decade and the only time it’s worked for them was when the effects of Trump’s incompetence was unavoidably present in the minds of Americans. I’d rather we not depend on another catastrophe to win the next election, assuming we will have one.
Are we going to change that by telling them to stop being apathetic/ignorant and that fascism is bad? Because that seems to have been the primary strategy the Dems have run over the last decade and the only time it’s worked for them was when the effects of Trump’s incompetence was unavoidably present in the minds of Americans. I’d rather we not depend on another catastrophe to win the next election, assuming we will have one.
No, the solution is much deeper and more multifaceted. The Dems have the approximate strategic competence of a walnut.
At the same time, the toxic positivity of ‘agree to disagree’ that has become increasingly present even through the radicalization of the right since the 1990s has allowed many people to entirely detach their increasingly fascist political choices from their social lives, and this must be reversed. The fact that many here on Lemmy seem hell-bent on playing apologist for allowing fascism makes the message particularly important to be said here - we are all responsible for our choices, our choices have moral implications, and we live with those choices forever. There is no washing your hands of your deeds, there is no sitting out and playing innocent. This is not (yet) a despotism; in a republic, citizens have political power, and with that political power, responsibility for what they do or do not do with it.
And yet, Everytime I see someone talking about the Dems needing to change I see you playing goalkeeper. What’s up with that I wonder aloud for no reason?
And yet, Everytime I see someone talking about the Dems needing to change I see you playing goalkeeper. What’s up with that I wonder aloud for no reason?
I suppose because your sense of pattern recognition is damaged.
Both can be true
A over third of eligible voters did not vote.
The couch was a more viable competitor than either candidate.
There was more than could have been done to represent voters’ interests.
However fault is not binary. There’s plenty of people and even events that take some portion of the blame.
(TLDR the first two paragraphs this turned to a novel of a rant)
this is stupid as fuck. no. it’s on the dems. the reason they lost is because they don’t mind losing. they’re corporate cunts anyway, if they’re not in power they’ll still be comfortable so why even pretend to challenge the status quo and possibly scare away your bribers?
fuck no. the american people are stupid, yes, but it’s not like that’s genetic. they’ve been undereducated, overworked, constantly distracted and endlessly bombarded with propaganda for decades at this point.
politicians are allowed to work for companies they regulate and regulate companies they used to work for. they’re allowed to be bribed legally as long as you call it lobbying and don’t have “I will pass this law in exchange for this money” in writing. they’re allowed to lie to the public without consequence.
the media is allowed to lie without consequence even when it’s provable that they know they’re lying. every day for years. lie. lie. lie.
the dumbest fucks alive are allowed to homeschooled their children and make sure their kids are at least as dumb.
not that schools are perfect. they are allowed to push religion and politics over science. meanwhile churches are allowed to give political sermons and still keep tax exempt status (technically not but in practice they are).
even with all this brainwashing it’s not like people are allowed to think for themselves for a minute let alone research shit and stay on top of political issues. wages are ass and lots of people have to work multiple jobs. even if they don’t companies aren’t mandated to have PTO, not even for federal holidays. they’re not mandated to raise wages either, even though rent always keeps rising.
just in case some people still might feel a bit too comfortable most are also blessed with crushing debt for the garbage education they got and the healthcare industry is just waiting for the chance to fuck them over if they ever dare get sick, let alone have an accident. you’re not allowed to think, you’re not allowed to breathe. work. crash. consume to feel barely good enough to keep working.
and on top of all of that, even if you manage to get through all that hurdle… voting is a privilege, not a right. especially if you’re likely to vote blue, the system is in place to make your chances to vote as low as possible.
and even then, you have the electoral college and the senate to make sure a bunch of rock and dirt has as much say as millions of people on one side. which leaves tons of people to think why even bother?
so with all that, when everything is bad, and everyone is lying, as one of only two eligible parties you can’t just throw your hands up and say “why aren’t people more educated?” IT’S YOUR FUCKING JOB! people are hurting and one side is saying “hey I know everything sucks and you don’t know how anything works so here’s an easy answer: it’s black and brown people” and the other side instead of correcting THAT, they’re trying to correct THE PEOPLE and their justified feelings about how everything sucks and say “nah things are good actually”… fuck the democratic party.
No.
If you must vote and vote for the “correct” party then you don’t have a democracy. Either we exercised our democratic responsibilities this year or we lost our democracy a decade ago and we’re just now finding out about it.
Either way, lesser evil voting is not a democratic ideal.
lesser evil voting is not a democratic ideal.
Neither is staying home and not voting at all.
If you can’t abstain then you don’t have a democracy. (Yes Australia i’m looking at you) You have a system of coerced consent where the political parties wouldn’t even know how to change, but that’s okay because there’s no incentive to change in such a system either.
It’s literally the fastest way to get Party AB instead of Party A and Party B.
Great you started with the conclusion that not voting is fine and then tried to find a way to justify it. You failed.
I’m not going to write a 20 page paper for you. This is what it is. If people have to vote then the sitting parties have no reason to respond to voters.
What the hell are you talking about? Your solution to making democracy work seems to be telling people to stay home on election day. Fucking brilliant
No. The people can certainly go vote if they want. They can also stay home if they want.
You prefer the latter, or I wouldn’t see you defending that shit in every fucking thread.
Then people could abstain by writing in someone else. Not voting is a serious problem.
Write ins aren’t actually a free for all in most states. You have to qualify with signatures for the state to bother counting them. So no, not really.
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If you must vote and vote for the “correct” party then you don’t have a democracy.
“Democracy is when I like the choices my fellow citizens make, and if I don’t like it, it’s not democracy”
Holy fucking shit. This is “Democracy is when GOOD, and non-democracy is when BAD” level reasoning.
You beat that strawman, go on. I heard it talk shit.
“If my practical choices are reduced by the preferences of my fellow citizens, it’s not real democracy”
Go on, tell me about how it’s only democracy if your preferred candidate is within striking distance of victory.
Nope that’s not what I said either.
Nope that’s not what I said either.
If you must vote and vote for the “correct” party then you don’t have a democracy.
Considering that the discussion was not in the context of Aussie-style forced voting, nor legally restricted election choices, but in that voting for anyone other than the Dems in this election was the action of a total cretin, there’s no other realistic interpretation of your words unless we’re presuming that you spoke without any connection to the matter at hand, and were just spewing out random thoughts with no relevance to any context in this post or comment thread.
The statement stands on it’s own. If you must vote for a party then you don’t have a democracy. Even if the ruling class is benevolent and lets you believe you have a choice, it’s still not a democracy.
The statement stands on it’s own. If you must vote for a party then you don’t have a democracy.
I’m sorry, were we rounding up people with our Dem paramilitaries and forcing them into the Voting Fields™?
“The statement stands on its own”; no, it’s dribble that you refuse to assign any meaning to, because that would mean having a position that could be addressed instead of vagueposting.
This is great. Needs a dash of misogyny though.
1 ) public ignorance is a widespread social force not a personal character fault that happens to individually affect the majority of the population.
2 ) This attitude of moral contempt is actively repellent to the people we need to reach out to, who do not subscribe to your premise. A lot of people don’t think they are fascists - they are wrong, but they’ll still look at you funny unless you can do a damn good job of making the argument. The Dems couldn’t, the media couldn’t, and nobody is watching it anyway. WE have to do it. Make better arguments and reach out to people instead of circlejerking and making our opponents arguments for them.
Is this an anti-democracy post? Is OP saying people shouldn’t be allowed to vote…?
No, it’s mocking the idea that voters aren’t responsible for their own choices, and that the Dems running a dogshit campaign means that voting for fascism or sitting it out and letting fascism take the reins of the country is somehow okay.
The Dems ran a shite campaign. The Dems are absolutely guilty in this shitshow of fascism we find ourselves in. But the people who deny all moral agency to the voters who sat by and said “Yeah, voting against fascism just isn’t that exciting” is absurd. They’re fucking guilty too.
No he’s saying we must vote for one of the two parties, thereby manufacturing consent for whatever they decide to shovel down our throats.
I do not blame people who voted for third parties or write ins. At worst, they make a compelling point to campaigns - that there are many voters that are active, but want another option.
And you’re here trying to tell people to either not vote or vote third party and any time someone points out that just was the death of America you have to deflect. You’re reliable to do it in every thread. It is gross.
Hahaha no. First of all, politicians have used that bit of PR in every election I’ve ever seen. So that might be a clue as to why you ran around shouting about it and people were like, “yeah, and?” Secondly, I actually shut up about it before the election.
Oh so you’re one of the non voters who helped Trump win?
Oh so you’re the guy who makes assumptions that make you feel more comfortable.
I didn’t vote. That’s the democrats fault. They didn’t run anyone I would vote for in ‘16, 20, or 24
It’s the Democrats’ fault that you prefer fascism to spineless liberals?
This is a very convincing argument to vote democrat, you must have changed so many minds before the election by shitting on anyone who questioned the status quo.
This is how we got Trump. Good for us.
Trump won. Deal with it and eat shit. Your political scene is a fucking joke and a plutocracy for sale regardless of who is at fault here. Any outcome other then setting the congress on fire is not a good outcome.
You don’t want to set it on fire? Then shut the fuck up already.
Still mad, huh?
It’s not even inauguration and we’re going to have to deal with 4 more years of Mr. Trump’s wild ride. Why wouldn’t I “still” be upset?
No, OP and I got into an insanely long argument about this exact thing yesterday that I’m honestly kinda embarrassed I engaged with for so long. Then i woke up to this meme, so…I guess he’s still mad.
And yet, here you are still engaging in other places I guess 🤷♂️
Removed by mod
Posted this long before the conversation had run its course, but it’s cute that you’re still thinking of me. :)
Alright, since you asked so nice, I won’t put it in the newspaper.
Resoonds within 1 minutes “I’m not mad, you’re mad! Look how mad you are!”
Alright, bro, I’m clearly mad. Ya got me. Oh no.
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
Uh, sorry for being online at the same time as you? lmao
What a nice fellow
Yeah no. Fuck the democrats sponsoring a genocide.
Yeah, fuck the Dems. Still doesn’t absolve any voter who thought that “More funds for the genocide + start a few others” was a good alternative.
I will never get these people struggling to understand the lesser evil rationale. Maybe it’s just on a scale and timeline that is for some too difficult to really internalize.
I don’t think they’re struggling to understand it. They become quite excellent at understanding it once it turns to anything they support. China, Russia, Hamas, the Houthis, all the lesser evil. But for ‘some reason’ any time non-authoritarian regimes are involved, they become determined to ensure that the world knows that they’re willing to kill every last minority for their ‘principles’.
Yeah maybe you’re right. The thing that gets me is if they really understood how bad it could get under someone like Trump, like really understood how hard things can get and how fast it can happen - no way they’d hand him the keys to the country. There’s just a real disconnect there that I will never understand.
No, I think they still would. I really, legitimately think that they’re the secular equivalent of the Rapture lunatics I grew up with in an evangelical upbringing. They view the current state of affairs as a sinful world which must be destroyed by any means.
Some are young and don’t really remember much of his last presidency, so it couldn’t be that bad.
Some are staunch idealists who think voting lesser evil is the same as enthusiastic support.
Some are secret accelerationists who want things to get worse because they think the proletariat will spontaneously rise up if they’re desperate enough.
Some are bad faith actors trying to divide the left.
Some unironically think that both are equally bad.
That’s a lot of ways to say “stupid assholes”
Maybe voting for lesser evil now would create even greater evil in the future.
MaYbE
I have zero shame voting third party but do continue to attempt to shame voters for voting wrong and see how that works for you.
“I don’t understand why minorities who are going to get the jackboot are so mad at me for welcoming the jackboot :((((((”
It’s truly inexplicable.
I am a minority.
In which case it should be readily apparent why voting for the jackboot gets other minorities pissed at you.
Lol keep supporting a genocider as the “lesser evil”
Fucking blue MAGA bullshit right there
Lol keep supporting a genocider as the “lesser evil”
You literally voted for as many genocides as you could, lmao.
Agree to disagree. Everyone has their priorities. Trump isn’t going to help Gaza either but will hurt Ukraine and immigrants and other of his enemies. I’m not shaming you, just trying to make you understand that the world is not a black and white place. Choices have consequences and we all live with compromise. Those who refuse to compromise are not helpful either magats or pure idealists like you. Both have a warped sense of the world. I’m not shaming you, just telling how it is. If that shames you then look more inside
Maybe dems will learn from their mistakes (they won’t)
So then why try to send the message?
Because they are lying about their motives and about being a minority. That or they’re fucking stupid
Because hurting the libs is fun. Y’all been fucking over the left for decades it’s time you fuck around and find out that you can’t win elections without us.
Go back to brunch.
LMAO dude it’s starting to feel like this brunch hangup is personal for you. Never get invited? Me personally, I don’t like brunch. It’s just an excuse for restaurants to raise prices.
Comrade, I’m a leftist frustratedly watching other people who call themselves leftists repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot with their purity nonsense. You’re the one sabotaging the left. We’re never going to get socialism, much less communism, with this stupidity.
Even here, on a website composed predominantly of leftists, you’re purity testing everyone and splintering the people. How the hell are you going to accomplish anything if you refuse to acknowledge or work with anyone except for the like 2 dozen people in the entire world who happen to have the exact same beliefs as you?
I want the end of capitalism: no more private property, no more oppressive hierarchies, real democracy, the works. I’m probably to the left of easily 99% of the country. If I’m a lib, comrade, who is this “us” you speak of? If no one to the right of me is pure enough, you’re not left with enough people to fill a school auditorium, much less lead a revolution. You’re not winning anything with those numbers, you’re a rounding error.
Or is it not a coincidence that your “hurt the libs” narrative is exactly the same goal of the far-right authoritarian party?
No, fuck assholes who just killed America and Palestinians while using Palestinians as a prop. But yeah great job pretending to care about Palestinians a single fucking iota, they are in such a great spot due to your completely non-bullshit concern.
How those kids in cages doing under biden? All that asshole did was continue trumps policies but go offfffff fucking liberal
If you cared about Palestinians even a tiny amount you would have never ever been advocating against the only option that would’ve limited their suffering. So let’s admit to your fraudulency, lIbErTaRiAn
You know, fuck off, you’re blocked. I got better things to do than argue with electoralist liberals who push the status quo and by doing that push the country straight into fascism. Keep voting blue no matter who I bet next elections gonna work! I bet next time you’ll be able to reason with the fascists in both parties!
How those kids in cages doing? You know that was happening under biden right? Or because msnbc didn’t throw a shit fit over it once biden got elected it never happened right? Fucking sheep.
Go back to brunch liberal. You lost and you’re too stupid to figure out why.
Took me seriously about the brunch quip I see. I was being sarcastic. That shit was lame and stale years ago
Glad to be blocked by a fraud though. Now when I oppose your pathetically disingenuous bullshit my inbox won’t explode.
Yeah, anybody who decided to set aside the genocide and vote for Kamala anyway should already have a very clear understanding of how Trump voters can dislike him in many ways but still vote for him.
Significantly less comprehensible and more relevant to this conversation is the idea that Harris was bad on Gaza; therefore, Trump, who was even worse on Gaza, should be elected.
Also true
This is the most deranged thing I’ve ever read on this website.
