What??? We literally saw democracy play out. You can’t even use the excuse that he lost the popular vote, he won every type of democratic way we have.
You know what wasn’t democracy? Installing candidates into primaries over democratically popular candidates. Hillary in 2016, Biden in 2020 and Kamala in 2024. In every single one of these primaries, they did everything they could to shut down anyone popular who showed any sign of having a backbone, even though they killed democracy as it happened.
What we saw was a backlash to a stifling of democracy. Democracy won last night.
If you’re referencing Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, he wasn’t “democratically popular” in either race. That simply is not supported by polling or election results. He was well behind Clinton by all metrics. Then in 2020, he was briefly “winning” because several similar candidates were splitting the center-left lane. The moment the center-left lane narrowed, Sanders’ lead evaporated.
It’s SOP for candidates to more or less clear the field for an incumbent president. This is partially because of a perceived effect from a strong primary challenger weakening an incumbent. So Democrats were just doing what both parties have been doing for the last half century.
The change from Biden was in response to clear reactions from the US electorate. The electorate saw Biden’s debate performance and was not impressed. There wasn’t time to run a process, so Kamala was the obvious choice given a non-ideal situation. But the electorate got what it wanted in terms of an option that wasn’t elderly.
I think you’re forgetting the part where Clinton paid off the DNC’s debts and became it’s only financial lifeline, for which DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz abdicated control of party to Clinton’s team long before she secured the nomination.. Or that the AP controversially called the primary for Hillary just before California voted, giving voters the impression the primary was over before voting finished. Or that the DNC argued in court that they had no obligation give Bernie a fair, democratic primary. Or that Representatives Ford and Smith admitted the party did coalesce around Biden in 2020 to block Bernie. Or that polls had Bernie beating Trump by a wider margin than Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020.
Did you forgot the part where it came down to just bernie vs biden in 2020 and people overwhelmingly voted for biden?
I like bernie too, but he wasn’t gonna get the pick
I am not sure you remember but the media reaction to Bernie doing well initially was major outlets like CNN reacting with fear, loathing, and uncertainty. And it impacted rhe course of an election. You had anchors yelling about how Sanders will result in public executions in central park during the primary.
Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other. In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.
And sure but with some of the worst polling numbers Biden, did not need to or should have thought he had incumbent advantage. Mud had a better approval rating.
And the change was from that and a protest vote of 100,000 voters voting against Biden in a primary that had no other option that’s was being ignored until the rich donors realized the polling wasnt gonna get better after the debate proved he was not fit for office.
There was time but the argument was made that it would be difficult and all the donations already made could be immediately given to Harris as she was already on the ticket, thus letting the money flow (which the DNC outspent Trump 2:1)
They got what they wanted which was a younger centrist willing to do Biden-esque policy without question that they thought would be easy with identity politics and being “not Trump” which is viewed as the main issue and not what issues he represents as a fix for.
Mostly being a willingness to change from status quo.
Which is exactly what hasn’t been allowed in races as shown before.
Bernie Sanders won 3 out of 5 primaries that occurred before the DNC called it for Biden in 2020 with Buttigeg picking up 1 other.
I’m not sure how to parse what you’re saying. As far as DNC rules are concerned, they “call” it once all primary races are held.
In 2016 Sanders won 23 races and was at 43% of the popular vote despite extreme pushback by the DNC. He was democratically supported cause he had people voting for him. Democratically.
The Democratic primary uses proportional representation, so candidates don’t win states, they win delegates. Hillary Clinton got 55% of the popular vote, Bernie Sanders got 43%. There are no two ways to slice it, Bernie lost that election by the rules of a democratic election by a sizeable margin. Meanwhile, Hillary was dealing with getting hacked and Benghazi Benghazi Benghazi. And you’re forgetting the often adoring coverage that was played to audiences on the left about Sanders.
The selling point for Kamala wasn’t anything in particular about her. She’s the VP and was the only obvious choice. There was no appetite for a contested convention, which was the alternative. It was always going to be an uphill battle, so in a sense she’s also a sacrificial lamb.
Trump has threatened to end democracy in the US. So yesterday may end up being the last time anyone in the US gets to vote.
I wouldn’t call that a win for democracy.
There is zero proof that he’ll be a dictator. My source is that he was president for 4 years and was not a dictator.
The only thing you’re basing your claim on is an offhand joke he made about fully shutting down the borders on the first day, then opening them back up with better safeguards. If you watch the whole clip, you’ll understand that.
Plain and simple… She was a woman, and a black person - There will be months of tap dancing and “deep” analysis, but we’re just an ugly, atrophied, broken, racist and patriarchal nation, like deep down in our DNA. We were able to elect Obama, yes - he is half white, and a man (those weren’t the loud messages as they attacked him, but Pennsylvania gramma knew those things quietly when she pulled the lever for him). It’s not satisfying, but it’s just the plain truth here. We’re closer to getting over race than we are over sex.
Plenty of deliberate work has been done, mostly by republicans, to keep America stupid, poor and in untreated pain, yes… But we’re also just trash on the whole. We raise trash and we vote for trash. We just aren’t smarter than social algorithms, TV soap opera narratives, costumes and makeup. “The pretend business man is white, old, wears a tie and has a gold watch. He feels like how daddy felt when I was little, and when things are bad, daddy fixed them the way I remember it.”
Video game trolls, people who failed the cop application physical and triple DUI wine moms are America. No further explanation or analysis needed.
Totally agree. After all the progress the US is still not ready to accept anyone else than white men at the top.
You people are about to overdose on copium. This is a lazy view. “she lost because of race and sex”. You need to really ask people why she couldn’t secure their vote.
I used to respond to people like you carefully and in some depth, with the hope that others who needed the words could read mine and feel indirectly supported.
I’m not doing that today. My original statement stands, you’re statement is the way you are personally trying to accept the guilt, shame or disappointment in this reality, I’ll leave it at that.
The “Run Up” podcast had an episode following the Working Families Party while they were out knocking on doors for Harris in a poor projects type neighborhood. The first lady they talk to is hesitant to vote for Harris because she’s a prosecutor who jailed black men for weed. While they are talking and the canvasser is trying to convince her, her neighbor jumps in and he says something to the effect of “Harris is a woman and world leaders won’t respect her and get us in a lot of trouble”.
Is sexism/racism the reason Harris lost? No, I personally at this point think it has more to do with the Democratic party’s inability to offer solutions for working families - Dems are the center right party representing corporate interests and the elite while paying lip service to actual regular people, MAGA is viewed as the party of the common man, as bullshit as that is it’s what voters feel. I personally think the only way forward is an actual progressive platform which addresses fundamental economic unfairness in the system, and candidates who can connect to and explain that platform to regular folk of all races and demographics.
But you can’t deny that sexism/racism didn’t play a significant role in the loss.
Setting aside whether she would’ve won had she been a white man, she could’ve made up for that handicap by appealing to the right people if she had actually been trying to win. Pinning it completely on her race and sex simply ignores her absolute failure of a campaign.
While this is a large part of it, a significant thing I think is that you get a lot more enthusiasm voting for something than against something. If she was campaigning for things I didn’t hear it above the constant “orange shit is an orange shit”.
A number of terrorist bomb threats to predominantly democratic polling locations in swing states and other fuckery may have also played a role.
Maybe care about things. Voting against him should’ve been enough to elect a ham sandwhich
I voted for Harris walz, but I think a lot of this is the fault of Biden for trying to run for reelection and sticking it out until July. I live in the south and I think the lack of a primary reallly hurt the ticket because a sizable portion of the people I’ve talked to felt like she was appointed instead of being elected, which is a bad move when public trust in our institutions is already at an all time low.
The people you talked to are bigoted cowards that wouldn’t have been swayed by any of that shit - She has a vagina and she’s black - That’s all it was ever going to be.
You’re hearing the thing they hope their neighbor would think of them after the fact, " I was this close, Bill… I just wanted more policy detail… More time… If only they didn’t make me vote for trump".
Your neighbor fucking sucks, Bill - this is the time you pause, take a breath, and fully internalize that to inform your future interactions.
Shit dude, I’m far left, believed that the only way to protect democracy was to vote for Harris, and then did it, but even I felt like she was appointed. Nobody wanted her as a first choice but we were forced to accept her when she succeeded Biden. She got 14 million less votes than Biden did in 2020. That isn’t only because she’s a black woman. It certainly plays a part, but we can’t act like it wasn’t just general voter malaise that led to this outcome.
This is all excuses. The fact that Trump made it all the way as the primary candidate for the GOP means that Republicans were okay with what he said and what he did.
For a normal person, it shouldn’t even take a second to choose Harris. But this isn’t the case. Trump won the popular vote and the presidency despite all the crazy shit because a sizeable part of the citizens voted him in regardless of the reason.
And not only that, but Republicans won the senate and well on their way to win the house.
It is about to get real bad, and Americans have themselves to blame for that.
Institutional democrats who thought they knew what they were doing and could ignore the base of the party is to blame. Biden being top of the list. Stubborn self assured who when finally pushed to change was only willing to do it on his terms. And made a decision for everyone, again.
One of the big stories is a Democratic party Mayor of a super Blue city being corrupt and organizing police to defend him and yet not a single member of the party has spoken out against it. Endorsed by Hakeem Jeffries.
Status quo is far more important than listening to their base right now and hopefully it changes instead of them once again thinking they need to head further right.
And for the love all things holy I hope the Democrats learn to stop “gaming” the election with specific counties in “blue walls” because they did advanced math that told them it was all they needed. Bare minimum should never have been the goal.
I don’t think it’s just the fact that she’s a black/Asian woman.
I saw this on BBC News which is probably correct:
“Imagined” is perhaps the right word considering he wanted to raise taxes for low income people, and lower taxes for rich people.
Oh yeah. But it’s people’s perceptions that everyone is hunting for anyways. It’s fake love for the working class in the way the rich love their butler but will replace him if he ever gets sick.
But that perception and the story of the party is super important and how to win elections. The Democrats haven’t been chasing that identity and let it slip while trying to figure out who should be the candidate that cost the least amount of money for its donors.
It’s not impossible to see how the perceptions got to where they are.
I remember hearing many democrats that joked how they voted for the white side of Obama. It wasn’t funny and isn’t funny now. They are not only voting against a woman but one of color.
We are going let christian fascism take control of America because a large portion of our population is sexiest, and racist. Not to mention all those protest votes or fucker who sat on their couch rather than do the right thing.
Now we are all fucked.
Plain and simple… She was a woman, and a black person
She was doing better than the old white guy she replaced though
She was doing better than the old white guy she replaced though
Was she really though? She couldnt identify a single thing she’d do differently than Biden, who has a truly remarkable and historic level of low approval.
She had excitement and energy, then said she’d do nothing different than Biden. Lost a lot of energy. Got Time Waltz, more energy, and then the party told him “stop calling Vance weird” and we lost more energy.
She had a better shot at talking trump, she just loved to shoot herself in the foot.
What does “doing better” mean to you in this day and age in that context? Polls are no longer a viable tool. They are captured, manipulated and heavily biased. They ask misleading questions and ask them of non-representative populations.
Very big difference between “doing better” in “the race” and casting your vote on election day. Again, gramma in Pennsylvania didn’t think Kamala was doing better, or really she didn’t care what she was doing, because there was just one “key issue” that gramma would never get onboard with for Kamala… Gramma didn’t talk about that issue during “the race”, but she was thinking about it when she pulled the lever.
Thanks, I still need to play it. Maybe a good distraction for a bit to regroup and prepare for a rough road ahead.
I get more the sense that people don’t care about her so much - or him either for that matter - so much as how things in general just “feel wrong”. I’m no expert but the news media having been bought out seems a likely culprit. Jon Stewart tried to warn us but we would not listen. He did his part, but if people don’t value things, they tend to fall - or in this case be taken - apart.
Obama was a unique situation in that he was both an incredibly charismatic JFK-style figure and ran after the Republicans had managed to both start a very unpopular war and destroy the world economy.
Barack Obama also never released a campaign ad that said “Hey white dudes, we only think some of you suck.”
Don’t like those ads? Should’ve stopped proving them right. We will go to the grave blaming you and your ilk now
If American democracy survived Jackson, Buchanan, Hoover, and Nixon…
Things are quite different. While Trump was in office, he did multiple things that were worse than what Nixon did, and was never forced to leave office. I think our institutions were stronger back then. We didn’t have a very good democracy when Hoover was president, and it took many decades for the Voting Rights Act to get passed (which has recently been weakened by SCOTUS, and will probably be weakened much more). I think we’ll regress quite a bit. Republicans obviously want more of an autocracy/oligarchy. I think it’s a very real possibility we have Russia-style “elections” in the future, and I don’t even know how you come back from that. Assuming democracy isn’t completely destroyed, it may take many decades of fighting and changing the minds of the people who aren’t disenfranchised to get back to where we were. Hell, even civil war is on the table if Trump follows through on some of his more egregious promises (i.e. if he deems Democratic state governments as the “enemy within” and tries to use the military to depose them).
You’re making this statement while standing over a dead body. Need to pause for a moment and smell the flesh starting to turn right beneath you. This is that moment. There was never going to be a letter embossed with a seal sent to you to announce it. America is dead, our neighbors quietly suffocated it with a pillow. And today is the next day. The changes will be quieter, more subtle at first, but longer reaching, more impactful and longer lasting.
trump wasn’t elected, a train, driven by hate and fear, overflowing with explosives that’s been fixed on everything you think you know about America was elected. The holocaust branded with trump’s name will be quieter, I imagine it will take longer, but it will probably collectively kill more.
America is the name of a country that used to attempt to maintain democracy. It’s the country the failed that mission in 2024. Anything you hear otherwise is self soothing. You’re entitled to it though, we all are, because hope is dead and that’s what used to bring us back to earth in difficult moments.
People are not basically good. People don’t “come to their senses” and we’re all just so fixing tired while they are all just in so much fucking adderall.
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musk will be in charge of the National Highway transportation safety board
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rfk jr will oversee vaccine production/distribution
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abbott will lead formation of the National laws on abortion and miscarriage
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joe rogan will be the named author on a new fairness doctrine (that won’t actually be)
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tim scott and lindsey graham will co-chair the committee on reforming LGBTQIA+ rights
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steve bannon will be on every month’s cover of normal skin magazine
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that church guy and trump’s close buddy that just got in trouble for abusing kids will be in charge of repealing the sex offender registry
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mike johnson’s son will be in charge of porn
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betsy devos will come back to finish devastating the DOE as public education is killed in favor of vouchers to religious schools
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and brawndo will be what plants crave.
Maybe those of you that stayed home will actually read protect 2025 now. It’s all going to happen.
The holocaust branded with trump’s name
Uh, no thats not true at all. Harris Biden and the DNC are 100% oboard with the genocide too. Are we collectively pretending thats not true anymore, so that we dont have to learn any lessons from it?
America is dead, our neighbors quietly suffocated it with a pillow.
Canada and Mexico?
Also say goodbye to internet freedom of speech, if even a small portion of Project 2025 comes into play. Anti-pornography activism sounds nice on paper, until you realize everyone has a different definition of pornography, and the people that want to ban porn the most have a rather interesting take on what constitutes as porn and what doesn’t…
How does anti-pornography sound good to you? If you are about to give some religious nonsense, please don’t bother.
Wisconsin, US here. My county went 70% for Trump this time. That’s versus ~48% in 2016. The problem isn’t democracy. The problem is the people. Pissed as hell for all the wrong reasons at all the wrong people. Unable to see reality, expecting that the person in charge could make it a utopia with the flick of a switch. The average American is delusional and irreparably stupid.
We constantly joke that it’s Idiocracy, but the truth is…
Thank you for saying it. The voter is the fucking problem. Anyone with half a brain realizes this. Gaza, egg prices, and the candidate not having a dick was enough to the traitor rapist felon to get a trifecta. That’s not a campaign problem. Maybe Harris didn’t run a perfect campaign, but that’s clearly not the issue here
I’m not American. Maybe my opinion also comes from a place of not understanding how government works in the US. But in 2020, Biden won the Presidency and the Democrats had control of the House and the Senate. Yet, they had a harder time of reversing Trump’s policies than he had pushing them through. Let alone not even trying to enact progressive policies.
As an outside observer, maybe that’s why people have lost faith in the Democratic party.
Because you have to consider all the court appointments he made, including the supreme court that he stacked. If the Biden admin did any more, itd just get struck down. The court can basically nullify any law or executive order they want without repercussion. Im frankly shocked he got away with as much as he did
Yeah uh, I really really hate to say it, but… democracy worked this time. The voice of the people is “Trump please”. Democracy just means you get what most people want, not what the best option is.
I’m pretty sure the majority of people mourning the loss of democracy aren’t saying it because they feel the democratic process was broken this election, rather they say it because Dump vowed to dismantle democracy and serve as a dictator.
This. Was crazy to see everyone turn on the DNC and Harris the moment it was over like we are just unable to come to terms with the fact that we’re surrounded by garbage and morons and there’s no way around it
The results aren’t showing that though. They are showing a large amount of Democrat voters just stayed on the couch. Trump didn’t get more votes than 2020, all that was needed was an energized democratic base.
Sorry but staying on the couch makes you fall under the garbage and/or moron category imo
Trump still got 72 million votes and counting this time. That’s with another four years of Trump scandals, revelations, criminal charges, insurrections, mental declines, and on-video insane statements.
The people who stayed home, or the politicians who failed to motivate them, sure they carry some blame. They could have helped. But they are not the base. The ones who followed Trump from being the outsider who is fun because he’s an asshole/racist like them, to the corrupt traitorous dictator-to-be who they’d like to watch hurt people. Blame them much more.
The steady level of Trump support unfortunately supports the fear that our culture is just garbage. We’re surrounded by it. There are plenty of proud assholes, sure. But so many people will legitimately be pleasant to everybody they meet and seem to function in society, but either believe horrible things or have a thick shell of indoctrination and ignorance around their brain.
