Harris Tried to Win Over Republicans. Democratic Support Collapsed Instead.
rollingstone.com
Harris only received five percent of Republican votes — less than the six percent Joe Biden won in 2020 when he beat Trump, as well as the seven percent won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she lost to him. While Harris won independents and moderates, she did so by smaller margins than Biden did in 2020.
Meanwhile, Harris lost households earning under $100,000, while Democratic turnout collapsed. Votes are still being counted, but Harris is on pace to underperform Biden’s 2020 totals by millions of votes.
If there’s one lesson the DNC should learn it’s this.
They won’t. But they should.
Why learn anything, the policies they want will be implemented anyway 🧠
Because they are selling peace with unicorn kisses and hope just to steal your money and you pay for it with hope.
Such a fucking stupid take.
They only learn what they want to hear.
the party can't fail it can only be failed
If there is one lesson we should learn, it's that they don't care to win. They are owned by the same corporate big wigs as Trump. They're on the same team, capitalism.
It literally doesn't matter if all you have to do is lie and promise everything.
Stupid article.
I mean that's basically what Obama did. It's what Trump does. If you promise 100% and only give 30% you'll be remembered as a good or good ish president. 60%+ and you're the greatest president of all time. But when you promise -10% you're just not gonna win.
Hell, just imagine if Democrats hadn't let the parliamentarian stand in their way on the minimum wage. Just that by itself would have made it a lot harder for Republicans to claim that Democrats don't give a shit if their voters can pay for food.
Sinema's thumbs down remains Democrats' last word on the subject. And it's not like she was the lone obstructionist in the party. She was one of EIGHT Democrats who voted against raising the minimum wage.
Talk about not learning anything.. 🤦
If we wanted to be Republicans we'd be Republicans for fucks sake...
We can't have 2 parties fighting to be the most hateful party of the billionaires. I mean I guess we can but only one gets to win.
The Democrats have been chasing the mythical moderate conservative at the expense of the progressive left forever and have learned nothing. I want a fire and brimstone progressive who is belligerent and aggressive
I'd even be happy to settle for someone in the middle of the party willing to fight for the party's supposed ideals. Remember when one of her slogans was "when we fight, we win"? Not "when we bipartisan, we win" or "when we coopt conservative issues, we win".
The Republicans had their little tea party a few years ago. The Democrats need a Guillotine Party to properly represent us.
The Tea Party forced the GOP to rebrand and restructure itself around the most extreme right wing ideas possible
Occupy Wallstreet tried to do the same thing, and... were savagely beaten by the police over it.
Because the Tea Party was useful to just make the Republicans more unapologetically anti-government (something rich people like) while Occupy was demanding that Democrats become unapologetically antagonistic to rich people.
The police choose who they will protect and who they will serve.
They had the billionaire Koch's to fund that. We're never getting a billionaire to fund the leopard party that will eat their faces.
:(
The guillotine party knows how to deal with the second estate.
Yeah, there should have been limits set on campaign costs, lobbying, media, etc. It's at a point where it doesn't seem like it's even possible to have a middle-class focused campaign that can openly say its basis is on taxing the fuck out of the top 1%.
But all I know is this: the second Trump term will make the standard of life in America far worse for most people. There will be hunger in 2028 for someone to simply say "We'll fix the middle class, and we'll make Musk, Bezos, etc pay for it". Hopefully by then what's left of twitter will not be as relevant as today, so that the message can at least have a hope of spreading through social media successfully.
I want to be hopeful but I can't find a logical progression to that stage knowing what the Republicans plan to do and their stranglehold on popular social media. The population will continue to be brainwashed into thinking Trump gives a shit and see him helping while also being told right wing Democrats are communists...
No one else stands a chance when we have corporate media or right wing social media as our options. I know there was a socialist candidate this cycle and Lemmy was literally the only place I saw her.
Yeah, the notion that she was going to put a Republican in her cabinet.....did anyone think that was a good idea? I mean, outside the beltway media?
I know every early on she was talking about possibly having a Republican Vice President before she wised up and went with Tim Walz and ran on his progressive ideas for about... three seconds till Nancy and the DNC told her to just do what Hillary did, as that worked for her and Kamela is obviously the second female president right now. /s
Seeing Walz as her VP pick was such a win and then everything started slipping away. If you listened to her speeches you'd start to notice she was slowly leaning more conservative, slowly backpedaling on a lot of Biden admin policies even. And for some reason she was absolutely obsessed with going on right wing media outlets.
I genuinely think she's rather well spoken but what a waste of potential.
I was kind of Lukewarm on Walz initially, but he was super endearing. He was cooking there for a minute and then the DNC muzzled him. I remember the moment he got shut up about the electoral college I thought to myself "annnnd now all of his appeal is gone and he's just another boring politician". It was really startling to see how little he actually had to do to get the leash tugged.
That was a media lie. She said that sarcastically and both her and the reporter were laughing. Media didn't report that fact, other than the original interview which aired like one time.
Here's a fun little tip if you're ever able to try this again.
MLK Jr. never appealed to the white man, he never tried to win over whitey nor tone down his message so that he didn't alienate his opressors, and he never tried to get the Klan on his side.
Notice how we don't have segregation anymore? It's because if Dr. King did these things, he'd have been luaghed at.
And instead he was shot at, not for the race stuff, but when he started talking about the class divide in general.
NO! Harris just needed to go further right. Forced goose-stepping marches at rallies. Pledges to eradicate all minorities. Promise global wars of conquest.
Outflank Trump on the right, and the republicans AND democrats will vote for you.
Don't tempt centrists.
Too late lmao
In a really morbid way that would've been funny to see, if only to witness the confusion of conservatives.
I mean, they would rather do that than move one Planck length to the left.
Usually somewhat ironic, but:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishhook_Theory
My take on this is that the DNC has never understood that to win the presidency in the last 20 years you need to be a fire brand.
I think this stared in 2008 with Obama who won I believe because he fired up the base with great speeches about hope and change. It didn't really happen, BUT the man knew how to give a speech. That got people inspired to do something and they voted.
Bernie was another fire brand - told it like it was and it appealed to a large population.
trump won using the same idea, but just the opposite of hope and change yet it worked. It tapped into a visceral and deep frustration that this country has left them behind.
The modern view of the American president to the population is less of a wonky politician and more of a cheerleader for big ideas, even if those ideas are abhorrent and exceedingly horrifying.
Harris just wasn't the person to pull this off, she was too wonky and it felt like the entire campaign was playing the old card of "we are not trump" Instead if they really wanted to win they would have found ( 2 years ago) a feisty out spoken progressive leaning firebrand that would have inspired people to vote for something better.
The only reason that (bland) Biden won was because of how badly trump fucked up the Covid response.
I think when she was announced as the candidate, she fired up the base just fine. She was different.
Then she spent the rest of the campaign reassuring people that nothing would change, pissing away that enthusiasm.
Exactly. "I'm not trump" barely got Biden in when trump was the incumbent with covid running rampant. It didn't work for Clinton in 2016 and unsurprisingly it didn't work for Harris in 2024. The level of incompetence at the DNC really makes me think the actual goal is to prevent our politics/country from shifting to the left at any cost.
My feeling is that once the DNC starts to acknowledge the progressive ideas then they open the flood gates to challengers to their (limited) power.
One of the frustrations I had was her solution to the housing problem was to just build more houses and give out some money. Sure great, but what I wanted to hear, and I think many other also wanted to hear, was her talking about corporate hording of housing and what she would do about that situation. But she just ignored it completely and so did Biden.
I think instead if she came out swinging against corporate greed, even if she actually did nothing about it, would have given her more votes.
My one hope out of this is that the massive swing to the right will be countered with more vocal progressives.
She didn't even really have a plan to build more houses, just some subsidies that wouldn't put a dent in the problem. She should have proposed something ambitious that people could get excited about. The crazy thing is Biden had some big ambitious policies that he actudlly enacted like the Inflation Reduction Act that dwarf anything Kamala campaigned on. It's the opposite of a winning approach that sells the stars and delivers the moon.
The Dems also need to get it through their skulls that it’s not just trump. The problem was present in McConnell and Gingrich. We need multiple parties willing to work together for the good of all Americans. Unfortunately the democrats are idiots with the policies of a quite reasonable right wing and the republicans are fascists who have spent 30 years rejecting their own ideas when said by democrats
Ding ding ding! Trump went further right and got more support. DNC should go further left. People want radical change in 2024
checks calendar
Kamalas campaign thought they could win without offending any megadonors, despite seeing what a bit of honesty did for them right after biden was replaced.
Ive never seen such obvious virtue signaling, I'm not sure kamala even believed her own words.
Yes. When you abandon the left, they don't vote for you. This is what Clinton did too
They have clearly internalized the pervasive trope that leftists will vote for them, because they have no other choice, so the only thing that matters to convince is the right. Looks like they calculated wrong.
Obama got people excited about healthcare reform. Biden got people excited about student debt relief. Clinton tried to get people excited about a female president and Harris centered her campaign around running against Trump.
Social programs get people excited.
This is not why Biden got elected. Trump so badly mishandled Covid that everyone left of center demanded change.
Every time
So left wing Democrats responded by sitting on their hands instead of voting, knowingly allowing the country to slide into whatever authoritarian hellhole that awaits us? Now that’s the definition of pettiness.
Yes, my friend was one of them. I was shocked when 2 weeks before election he told me he was planning on not voting.
I asked why and he cited holding the same position Isreal as Biden, and courting republicans like Cheney, saying that was not a good look for the party at all.
I told him it’s not ideal, but we need to vote to keep Trump out…. Sometimes we just have to be pragmatic.
He responded saying it’s the Dem establishment that keeps allowing a boogey man like Trump to rise so they can shove center right corporatists down our throats. He said he was abstaining from voting to send a message to the DNC, and followed it up with, “we survived a first Trump term, I’m sure we can survive a second.”
As long as you weren't one of the million Americans who died of COVID thanks to his misadministration.
Or the Capitol police who died as a result from his attempted insurrection.
I mean, he’s an ex-pat who was living in Hong Kong, S Korea, and Vietnam for most of Trumps first term… so I’m sure he didn’t feel it as hard as most of us who were here for it.
"Thousands of my countrymen will perish, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make."
It's a mistake reasoning as if you're taking of one guy. Maybe one third of your population voted, and most of those voted for Trump, it means that most of you guys are pretty ok with dying during the next COVID or whatever
And this is what you don't get. There's a huge fucking gap between "not ideal" and "supporting genocide to the point that Dick Cheney likes you." And you didn't acknowledge it. You just belittled it with "not ideal." Because you couldn't admit that what Democrats were doing was monstrous and unconscionable.
Anyone who pulls this "you didn't get 100% of everything you want, but..." shit? They got 100% of everything they wanted. Especially the genocide support. And especially Cheney.
I remember when I was 14.
Certainly hope we can
Yeah, I am definitely in the camp that Trump part 2 will be worse…. but we don’t know for sure yet
Keep in mind Trump is pushing 80 and has a steady diet of McDonalds and Diet Coke. Here’s to hoping nature takes its course.
Do you think Vance is going to be better?
Better isn’t the word I would use. I don’t think Vamce ilcould be the cult leader Trump is. I think when Trump dies it will at least take some time to build up another cult leader.
I honestly don't know. He's not as viscerally mean as Trump, but he's also a lot smarter. I think some part of him is a fancy boy who wants to be liked and to win by being clever and insightful rather than just brutal. He used to write about his nice life in San Francisco doing community gardening. If he could get the upper-crust to like him (not just use him) that seems like something he'd enjoy.
But then again, he sold out to the guy he thought was Hitler, so he might just be completely without shame or conscience.
"we survived"
Many didn't and even more won't this time, your friend is a genocide supporter
So not voting for genocidal candidates now make genocide support? stop projecting.
The Dems were hellbent on supporting gneocide. People chose to be fine with it, even attacking people who called it out.
The flak we got here for saying for months the Dems need to stop the genocide support to win the election now raises the question whether they were just tactically wrong, or whether they werent really into the genocide themselves. That would explain why now there is efforts to project it on the other people.
At every turn we were told that supporting genocide is better than supporting genocide and homophobia. Saying we should push for a non genocidal candidate, for which there was plenty of time at first, got immediately shut down.
The most consistent position of the Biden/Harris fans was to accept genocide, because that was the strongest criticism raised consistently against them. Now you end up not only having lost the election but having lost the election because you were in support of genocide.
It is no wonder that Trump managed to win, when the center is so morally bankrupt. It is no wonder that there was no way to inspire people to vote for Harris and Biden if the messaging constantly was "yeah we are morally bankrupt and we are also genociders and racists, but we are less than the other side. This is as good as we allow to happen".
This is on the Democrat elites and their supporters. Own up to it instead of projecting the blame.
Democrats: Support Israel, say they want the conflict to stop and a two States solution. Want to send weapons to Ukraine. Support minorities in the US.
Republicans: Support the genocide of Palestinians, of Ukrainians and of minorities inside the USA.
Voting for Republicans and not voting (so leaving the door open to them) is supporting genocide.
So every Israel aka genocide supporter had a safe vote with Trump. Everyone who opposes it had no choice with either party.
Funny thing is your friends opinions are popular on lemmy.ml which makes it seem like foreign actors are pushing these talking points. They definitely worked in Trumps favor.
Now the blue MAGA is talking about the election being stolen...
Seriosuly how did you expect to win against Trump by copying Trump? People always chose the original authoritarian nazi asshole over the knock-off copy.
You know what wouldnt have worked in Trumps favor? Stopping the genocide in Gaza. That would have led to a landslide victory for the Dems.
Honestly, probably not really. It'd have likely led to a closer election by winning them Michigan, but the Democrats had a more fundamental problem than very unpopular foreign policy.
What is this supposed to mean? Who is the blue maga?
Who is suggesting coping Trump?
The polls show voters were motivated by inflation. As much as I’d like the people of Palestine to not be safe and thrive, I literally don’t know anyone irl that considered that when voting. But the way it is pushed on lemmy you’d think it is Iran voting for Americas next president.
Keeps allowing Trump to rise? What does he expect the Dems to do?
I don't agree with him, but I think he's expecting them to support liberal progressive policies. Seems to be taking the stance of "if we can't improve things it's better to watch it all burn rather than slowly rot".
Tell him that not voting to convince them to run liberal progressive policies won't work. You can't play Mexican standoff because the Dems have an out: the center voters.
The article says otherwise.
So no one is ever allowed to think otherwise. Gotcha.
What exactly do you think should have been done differently for Harris to activate this "just win with centrists" option? Because it very much seems like that was just tried and failed miserably.
Was just in a very long thread with him, but he seems to think economic issues are exclusively centrist.
I'm not OP so I don't actually know him so I can't tell him anything, although I do know one person like that. As for your point I'm not sure that actually follows since those center voters didn't show up to save Harris this time. If the DNC keeps losing elections at some point, assuming we're all still here and we even still have elections, they will have to try something different. It's a very risky play but I also can't say it won't work.
Harris relied on the left showing up for their rights and for democracy. That was a ton of her campaign. And the left didn't show up. If they don't show up for that, they won't show up for anything. They will try something different and that's going all in on the center voter, who actually show up.
I replied to your other comment where you said basically the same thing, but the short version is there clearly isn't enough center voters for that to be a winning strategy. If they try that next election (If there even is a next election) it's going to be an even more lopsided victory for the Republicans.
See my other response. It's the other way around, there isn't enough left (or rather, if they can't show up for their own human fucking rights and mfing democracy, they will never never never show up for literally anything). The center is the big juicy middle that exists, that Trump appealed to, who actually show up, whose votes are worth double (because it's a vote for you and a vote taken away from the other party), and where elections are won.
There's left wing economic policies as well. Running on anti-monoploy and increased taxes on the rich, would be an excellent way to go further left and is exactly I think what a lot of people were looking for this election. Ignoring the economy is never a winning strategy unless the economy is already doing really well which it very much isn't.
Yes, but the left never shows up. If they can't show up for their own human rights, they will never never never show up. The Dems will never, ever put themselves into a situation where they rely on the left voters ever again, because they never show up. Harris said she'd tax the rich, and the left didn't show up.
I have no idea how you are missing what I'm saying. The economy is center policy. Yes yes yes. The Dems will go hard on the economy for the center voter. They will follow Bill Clinton's "it's the economy, stupid". That's how Bill Clinton won, by going to center. That's what the Dems will do in the future, focus on the economy to win the center voter. Again, that is center policy, not left.
You’re right. I don’t buy this narrative that the dems lost because they were left enough. The polls show voters were motivated by inflation and thought Biden’s progressive policies were to blame.
They tried that this time. They basically told the left to fuck off and die. Moving to the right has very publicly failed.
They literally told the left to come out for abortion rights and to save democracy. If the left doesn't come out for that then 1) they will literally never show up, or 2) they don't exist. Take your pick. Either the dems will never rely on the left showing up ever again. Kiss any left policy goodbye. They will go hard to the center. Clinton was right "it's the economy stupid".
They had you at Dick Cheney.
Yup there it is lol! Strawman central.
They could have appointed an AG that wasn't useless on purpose, for starters.
Well Biden for example could've done a much better job actually
persecutingprosecuting him for his crimes. He can do that as the head of the Executive branch.Prosecute is probably the word you're looking for, but I wouldn't mind a bit of persecution being mixed in. Better than just letting him walk.
Lmao good catch.
We kept trying to warn you.
And every time - every last fucking time - anyone told you that moving to the right was going to cause people to stay home, you lot shot the messenger. Every time someone screamed the writing on the wall out loud, centrists who were so happy that the party was finally embracing genocide and Cheney were like "Russian! Tankie! Trumpist!"
I voted for Harris. You'll blame me anyway. Democrats will always shoot the messenger and double down on their simping for fascists.
"I do not think that liberals understand the difference between influence and power, and the liberals get confused seeking influence rather than power. The conservatives on the right wing, or the fascists, understand power, though, and they move to consolidate power while the liberal pushes for influence."
Thanks for sharing that link. It unfortunately still shows to be true even today. :(
I said basically the same the article says a couple of days ago and was pelted with a gazillion negative votes. Centrists are averse to learning from mistakes, otherwise they wouldn't be centrists.
Edit: the downvotes prove my point hah
Of course, they also said that you would be gone as soon as the election was over, since they couldn't accept that anyone who deviated from their pro-genocide orthodoxy could be an actual person and not a Russian bot.
There will be no apologies from any of them for their disgusting near-constant libel that only stopped once there was a rule against calling people Russian bots. They just switched to calling anyone who saw what was going to happen a Trump supporter instead.
They're too busy trying to figure out how to justify how this loss means they need to move to the right.
I'm not nearly as much of a downvote magnet as either of you, and I still have some dude following me around claiming I'm a Stein shill despite every mention of her in my history being to shit on her. They've just got the one move.
Sorry dude, the problem is well beyond "leftists" and sooner or later you'll need to confront that.
I’m not one of them, I voted a month or so in advance by mail.
But I wonder if some people are tired of the lack of change with Democrats in charge and believe that things need to get worse before they can get better.
As "hardcore-left" as I am, I just cannot fathom, being so dumb to not vote "to show the dems". The policies of bad Republican presidents hurt us till today. Think about Reagan vastly accelerating the gap between rich and poor, or Nixon with his failed war drugs.
Agree. The "lesson-teaching" mindset has got to end.
They do, and they are fucking stupid for it.
The average voter mindset is "which president will get me cheaper food?"
My parents get fed propaganda from Wechat (yes that Chinese app) saying democrats are letting too much illegal immigrants in, taking up too much resources.
We are legal immigrants, but shes doesn't see "illegal immigrant" is a dogwhistle about all immigrants that they dont like like black or brown people, or anyone they deem inferior.
Doesnt help the fact that Eric Adams and NYC democrats are building homeless shelters near Chinese American population.
My parents told me some of our relatives in NYC voted Trump, Asian Americans voting trump.
They say some Asian American co-workers at their workplace are supporting Trump.
My parent say "Its fine, we survived one term under trump"
Everyone who's a US Citizen in our household voted Kamala Harris. We tried. Our state PA still went red.
My US Citizen mom once said, "maybe we shouldn't vote for democrats, look at what they did in NYC (refering to homeless shelters)", and I reminded her about the Chinese Exclusion Act. So she vote Harris because I told her to. Like she didnt have a mind of her own. If her children turned out to be conservatives, she'd vote trump. Some people just dont care about politics. Similarly, some people have apolitical children but political parents, those children then vote for who their parents vote for.
We need to fix this voter apathy. Democracy is just broken.
(oh wow didnt mean to type a paragraph, sorry for the wall of text, election results still enraging me...)
Don't be sorry, everything you said is correct.
Blue state examples are often particularly confusing for the politically uninvolved, as Eric Adams is pretty close to a Republican. Once a state gets blue enough, anyone with ambition will just say they're Democrats and then do center-right stuff. Often the state parties are not ideological enough to deny the brand when it's just easier to make a bigger and bigger tent of insiders.
Honestly unfortunately mostly unrealistic: a systemic chage towards deliberative democracy (not just USAs broken electoral democracy) would be the best according to most political science. It's (way to) slowly happening in some European states (so the right shift may reverse that trend again). This indirection vie simple voting tends to lean towards populism and manipulation. Which got unfortunately incredibly obvious in the presidential election...
Pretty much, although it's probably an exaggeration to call them Democrats. In reality most of them are likely unaffiliated with any party. But it was literally Harris's job to convince them to come out and vote for her and she failed at it. When a candidate loses an election, barring election interference, it's their fault. Harris fucked us all by running as a diet Republican. Odds are anyone in here reading this did everything we could to hand her the win, but she pissed it all away by trying to steal votes from the Republicans instead of convincing people that they needed to get off their asses and come vote for her.
Dude, she had like 100 days to put together a campaign. She had to make a gamble and trust that the 2020 Dem voters were already in her corner so she could go after some big fish with the little time she had.
Dude, lets be real. The only reason the DNC pushed Biden out of the way was because polling numbers said the incumbent advantage (and his policies) weren't going to be enough to win it for him. So Kamala comes out of the gate with a boost (because she's not Joe) and promptly proclaims she can't name a single policy decision she would have made differently than Biden. That's not winning undecided voters from either side.
Literally not true. Were you just not paying attention?
Shortly after becoming candidate, she was asked in an interview if she could think of anything she would have done different than Biden. She replied:
I voted for Harris but I think that was a monumental fuckup.
True, and she never said anything else after that...
She got handed a losing Biden campaign that was on fire, and thought the smart move was to double down on his policies that were already losing him the election, and then to throw in some Republican talking points. It was very obviously a losing strategy no matter how little time she had. The Democrats have been relying on "not Republicans" to carry them to victory for so long they seem to have forgotten why people vote for them over the Republicans.
Everything is "very obvious ” with 20/20 hindsight.
This stuff was all talked about prior to the election.
Everything is "hindsight" if you scream that the people saying it are Russian bots so you can ignore it until it's too late.
“That’ll show ‘em!”
For many, actively supporting Israeli genocide is something they simply can't support.
If there's anything that this election has proven, it's that there are A LOT of one issue voters in this country, across the board. They'll ignore everything else for the one issue they care about above all else. And when you only have two viable parties, that forced a black and white decision.
The fundamental solution is eradicating First Past the Post and getting ranked choice voting so we have a multitude of parties that are all more nuanced instead.
But that won't happen unless we abandon both of the major parties we have now, and they can't let that happen because that means they lose power.
What is Trump’s stated opinion on Israel and its war in Gaza? What is Trump’s stated opinion -and first term actions- on Muslims? Seriously, the Biden & Harris = “genocide” horseshit was 100% designed to disenfranchise Democrats. Congress votes on foreign aid. Congress is largely Republican. Protesters NEVER went after Republicans.
Oh 100%. But if there's anything this election proved, it's that the average American is fucking stupid, gullible as shit, and unable to determine propaganda from reality.
Yeah, and the problem is people just kind of stop at "they're dumb" like that's just the end of it. "They're dumb and our opponents are unscrupulous so we'll never win until dumbness is eradicated". It's an influence campaign. Figure out a way to make the dumb people want to vote for you! The dumb people exist, some of them vote, and others could probably be encouraged to vote who don't.
No ad agency would stay in business by saying "sorry, we didn't get you any extra sales, but it's not our fault because the consumers are dumb, and also you should hire us to do it all over again next time because our failure was the absolute best that could have been done under the circumstances".
horseshit
So why are the democrats currently taking part in genociding Palestinians? Thats horseshit too?
Is anything stopping them from being vocally opposed to the situation?
Both candidates messaging was they would "get the war over with" but I guess it sounds better coming from Kamala than Trump?
So now they get genocide and child rape. NICE
They all campaigned for Harris and mostly held their criticism to themselves. Harris is the one who decided to go campaign with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban.
I seriously doubt left wingers were the difference in this election. I doubt there are significant enough numbers of far left people in Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin for it to have made any real difference.
This election was lost in every measurable way. She did not lose because of leftists who didn't vote on principal. She lost because the working class overwhelmingly chose not to vote for her. Many of them voted for Trump instead. Many first-time voters voted for Trump. She thoroughly lost to him in every possible way.
Looks like you agree with the announcement 🤦
Harris relied on the left showing up for their rights and for democracy. But they will literally never show up. This is why the Dems will never, ever rely on the left showing up ever again. Dems will go hard center next election.
I don't think there's enough center left for them to go any harder center without going further left. They were already running on a bunch of right wing Republican policies. They've only got three options. Go harder right and actually become diet Republicans (all the oligarchy, but only half the fascism!). Stay exactly where they are. Or go left and return to being mildly progressive. They've shown that where they are currently is a losing proposition, so realistically their option is to try to appeal to the middle of the Republican base, or walk back some of their right shift of the last few decades. I don't think they're going to be able to successfully out Republican the Republicans so they've really only got one viable play.
I don't know how else to say it: Harris relied on the left with abortion rights and saving democracy, and the left didn't show up. The center cares about inflation and housing, which Harris did not address enough. They will go to that center, Bill Clinton's "It's the economy, stupid". There will be no real progress, just economy for the center.
Left isn't just social policies, it's economic policies as well. She should have been talking about inflation and housing this election in addition to things like abortion. Instead she decided to focus on border control and foreign policy, two Republican talking points, and even worse she decided to go right on both of them.
We live in different worlds because I think her focus was on abortion and saving democracy. Border is both center and right imo, you'd be amazed.
Foreign policy is an example of how no one cares about Gaza or Ukraine (or NATO), which are what the left cares about. The left didn't show up. Yes the Gaza situation is fucked, but the difference between Harris and Trump are stark and vast.
The difference is in who they will fuck over so we can stay greedy and entitled. Democrats fuck over poor people, republicans fuck over minorities and immigrants. Both groups fuck over the rest of the world.
The left would vote for the "won't fuck anyone over" party if there was one.
Oh yeah "we will give you abortion rights" is really fucking people over.
And you think making that difference narrower would have improved Harris' chances?
That was about Gaza, holy bad faith. Hey I recognize you.
As though there exists any policy you won't advocate moving right on.
Ah was it you that insists on calling
meanyone who doesn't agree with you an enlightened centrist? Still having fun with your strawman I see lol.Well let's hope so so they can collapse and a real leftist (or even just sane) party can rise from the ashes.
If a "real leftist" party arises from the ashes, guess what will happen? They will lose in the election. That's the whole point of what I'm saying: left policies do not win elections. We literally just saw this. Harris said to the left "come out for your body rights. come out for your democracy." If the left can't come out for that they 1) will literally never ever come out, or 2) they don't exist.
What wins elections is "it's the economy stupid".
They did, but it isn’t great knowing how much better they are than you? We can at least take comfort in their “moral high ground” even though they let a guy who explicitly stated he wanted to be a dictator become president.
It's not like they could've made their voices heard after she became President, you know?
yeah this was a really fucking stupid idea and I think any Dingus on Twitter could have told you the same. The Trump voter base does not move. everyone's been saying this. I don't understand the Democrat strategy at all
I don't know what the actual numbers are on this, but I have to imagine the number of progressive voters who want more progressive policies far exceeds the number of Republicans that will vote Democrat. if anyone has a source to this data, I am interested in it.
Someone else summed it up better than I can. The democratic party is doing exactly what it set out to do.
Nitter link.
They have no interest in furthering progressive policies so they don't. That's why the DNC chair is calling Bernie Sander's critique of the party's platform bullshit right now, instead of admitting he's right.
The system is as it does.
i think some of this is true, but I don't think that they would be implementing all of the same policies. maybe all the things that they actually care about are common between the two, and that's what he means.
Democrats called those Twitter users Russian trolls. They are now advocating to restrict social media so this cannot happen again.
source?
Saw a brazen example yesterday about how social media is the fault of it all. It was an article like this one https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/11/07/10-democratic-thinkers-on-what-the-party-needs-right-now-00187993
My favorite line
This. Right. Here.
Stop the triangulation it needs to die already.
The fascist playbook has always been "meet me in the middle" and then take two steps back. Rinse, repeat. Fuck bipartisanship and fuck the corpo Dems.
I don't get why it's hard to comprehend. By becoming (even) more conservative, more "R", they betrayed (even more of) their base. Why would timid Republicans want to vote for traitors pandering to them?
Shit I was saying when Biden was still running and I got crucified for it.
As you shift to the right you leave your base behind, ignoring a growing, left swinging faction within the party is going to lead to outcomes like this. Working class people all have the same problems, and one party says they'll do something about it. They're lying, people who are generally smarter and paying attention know they're lying, but that's not most people.
The other party has had a chance, and failed to do anything to alleviate the concerns of the working class. Regardless of the circumstances, or their actual ability to affect change. And they spent the entire election cycle trying to curry votes from a dedicated base instead of getting voters excited about something.
Swing left, swing hard. Become the unhinged leftist the other side is already accusing you of being.
Its a two party system, why would anyone think being a bit more like the other guy be a good idea?
Why would someone pick knockoff awful when the name brand is right there?
Democrats would prefer to lose than become more progressive because the rich and powerful still benefit from Republicans winning or Democrats winning as long as Democrats are still centre-right wing.
As soon as Democrats move left the elites start to lose so Democrats don't.
Not only that, if she's not targeting Democrats they won't feel motivated to vote for her. Yes, yes, fascism was the other option. But people are not smart, and I say that as a people.
And we won't have another election again, so these democratic voters who stayed home have denied themselves any other opportunities to right this ship.
Everyone needs to let them know how strongly this article is nailing it.
https://democrats.org/contact-us/
Based on them already attacking Bernie, who sucked up to them so hard this last year, I doubt they're going to listen to anyone's opinion if it doesn't also come with millions of dollars
You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
Also explains their fundraising campaigns
I'm on my knees begging you to just give us money
Michael Scott
Done. And threatened to not vote for them next time
It's not so much as that it collapsed as it was artificially inflated in 2020.
The drive for covid-safe vote by mail turned out far more people in 2020 than 2024 and that helped Biden.
Trump seems to have turned out just as many as before. Plus, I don't think any of the blue wall states changed their vote by mail policies.
Trump was pushing for in person voting in 2020 as well, that didn't change.
It was the stupidest of ideas. Republicans were never going to vote for her in any numbers. She was all about gun control, she personally owned the 12 million border crossings, she had all those defund the police sound bites from her earlier years, and she couldn't effectively separate herself from the difficult economy for middle and low earners - while failing to communicate that she even cared about the common man's plight or would try to help it. Even her proposed tax plan raised taxes on lower middle class, at least the charts I saw (including here on Lemmy). And Republicans have seen four years of Trump and think all the Nazi and "all Republicans are racist" talk is literally the stupidest thing on the earth. Abortion was all Dems really had, and although lots of Republicans are pro-choice, Trump had promised to veto a national abortion ban (for whatever that's worth).
I remember when Democrats were for the working people. They need to stop being "We're not the Nazis"and start telling us who they are. But I don't think they want to tell us who they are. They're no longer the party of the working man, they're the party of corporate interest and global governance, and they're also almost as authoritarian as the right. Maybe the collapse of the Democrat party will result in the birth of an actual socialist party in the US. We've seen major party changes in the past. Will it happen again, soon?
When you consider that left leaning folk are more likely to lean into voting apathy that the right-wing, the DNC were fools to assume they had all the left-wing votes in the bag without actually doing anything to appeal to them.
For Christ's sake, Harris got in because people wanted change over Biden, her campaign was for change, yet the first thing she says is she doesn't plan to do anything different to Biden - and if that's not a momentum killer, I don't know what is.
Both her and Clinton should have been braver with VP choice.
They both chose VP milquetoast when the time called for people wanting change.
Walz was a great choice. The best moments in the campaign came from him.
They lost because they were pandering to republicans, not because of Walz
I don't even remember who Clinton chose for her vp
Why do people keep saying Democrats. These were not Democrats. They were political apathetics who were so dumb they didn't see a difference between an existential threat to America, convicted felon, and pathological liar... And a woman with a clean record.
No actual Democrat gave up voting for Harris because of the obvious reach to Republicans who saw that existential threat.
They gave up because of disinformation silos and the economy, stupid
Is this intended to be a parody of a No True Scotsman?
Voting Democrat temporarily does not make you a Democrat no differently than Liz Cheney voting for Harris or the first-time low-propensity voter who thinks "they're all the same, but since covid impacted me I'm getting rid of the current guy." People just voted against Trump more than they were voting for Biden or his policies. They just wanted him out and to try something different purely because of covid.
This time around, those people just said, "Both Sides." And sat out. Presumably because they drank the Russian Kool-Aid and live in media silos.
That said, I misread the title and paragraph not referencing Democrat, but Democratic support, so my mistake.
Cool-aide, silos and two parties who both neglected the little guy given that their wealthy backers can't stomach doing so. Yes the Democrats ignore them less (Joe Biden's effort to forgive student loans) but it wasn't enough, and Trump says what desperate people want to hear I guess.
Trump gives his little guys entertainment and the promise to hurt the types of people they don't like. His little guys are well-accounted for, just not in a way that would ever make them not stuck at the bottom. Their propaganda has made them think the problems in their lives are trans minority immigrants rather than the boss that hasn't given them a pay raise in three years because "times are tight".
You had it right the first time, people voted for change in 2020, and they did it again this time. Same same.
It's more accurate to say Trump's base cult voted like a cult and will always vote for him no matter. This evidenced by the fact that Trump may or may not even break his 2020 numbers despite even population growth.
It's not just that these people voted for change as in all those millions who voted for Biden in 2020 voted for Trump; they just didn't vote for anything at all.
People died in her prisons and she kept some after their term so she could use them as slave labor to put out wildfires
and she supported genocide while promising it would continue under her, not for nothing
Lmfao.
Talk about pure bullshit. People die in every prison everywhere. Maybe you should take a step back in time and look who drafted those laws in the first place.
Well have fun with the 100% support of genocide with Trump, buddy. I'm sure they'll treat your little protests with kid gloves lol. While she was seeking a permanent ceasefire, Trump was undermining it and telling Bibi to finish the job hahah.
That's not to mention what blood is on one's hands for Ukraine, too.
Why are you speaking like you're upset with the outcome of the election if you're a republican?
Another 'liberal' takes their mask off
lol nah man, I'm sure Palestinians will be much better off under Trump and far more amicable to protesters than Harris would've been... Totally ;)
Pat yourself on the back for this MuH BoTh SiDeS narrative!
See you in 4 years when you emptily vote for Jill Stein again.
No one looks as happy about the outcome of the election as you
Glad you're having fun scolding the people you told to shut the fuck up for the last 4 years for not doing as they're told
Poor form, but fuck the abstained for letting the rapist become president. Genocide bad. But genocide with a child rape seasoning is fine. Yeah fuck you guys
Imagine still not getting it.
We didn't vote for Trump. Harris knew (or should have known) we wouldn't support her genocide. Now she lost.
Yes, a Trump win is bad. But I would rather a Trump win than to let Democrats think I will vote for them no matter what.
Third party until they completely reform their shenanigans.
I'm not sure that the problem was going too far towards Republicans rather than not going far enough, because I expect that the leftists staying home stayed home in solidly blue states. I think that the political positions that many people here on Lemmy wanted Harris to take would have been extremely unpopular with the electorate.
With that said, it might have been impossible for Harris to move to the right convincingly, because she couldn't plausibly distance herself from Biden's unpopular policies. I wish the Democrats nominated someone who could have criticized Biden in a way that Harris could not.
These problems are well beyond petty "leftists", but centrists will never engage in introspection about their failures.
Petty leftists weren't even a significant part of the problem, IMO. Biden is very unpopular, people didn't want more of the same, and Biden's vice president looked like more of the same. However, the Democratic party was too hierarchical to nominate the sort of candidate that they needed to nominate.
Hell, they nominated Biden himself even though his age could have given them a perfect excuse not to nominate a sitting president. He was only forced to step aside once his inadequacies were undeniably obvious to all, and even then he was like a child throwing a tantrum. History is going to remember him as the emperor with no clothes.
What? Didn't he step aside when he had COVID infection this year?
17 July - Biden tested positive for COVID.
21 July - He stepped down.
Source on him throwing a tantrum?
Many senior Democrats were calling on Biden to resign long before he got covid, but he repeatedly made defiant announcements that he would never resign (and Harris supported him). He's the guy who said that he would only resign if God told him to! His covid infection appears to have been mild (lasting less than a week), and he resigned not because of it but because pretty much the entire Democratic establishment (led by Pelosi) told him that he must.
Is it possible that there were different camps in the DNC and there was another camp which wanted to ride on incumbent advantage? Especially when Biden was performing well with the hand he was dealt? US had the best recovery post-COVID, after all.