In a sane world, literally anyone would have beaten trump. A rotten ham sandwich would have won a write in vote over trump.
I do not blame Democrats for running a bad campaign.
I blame the jellyfish stimulus eater organisms that insist they’re the same species as me who were “not impressed” by Harris but were dazzled by the funny orange meme man with the dick sucking dance.
At this point I don’t hate Trump supporters any more. They’re just dogs. I hate the left for allowing us to get to this stage.
I hope the apocalypse is painful for everyone. It would be the first instance of justice our species would experience.
I have to say that by all means, Harris’ campaign was not a failure by any means. She rocked most of the debates and her speeches were insane. Her only issue was the lack of a proper procedure for being elected at primary candidate, and she focused on ideologies that alienated her from the more centrist and slightly red leaning views.
But despite what has been being spammed in the lemmy communities for months now, her way of being elected was just the old way, that was replaced by the current primaries. I don’t agree that they didn’t hold another primary but, I also can totally see the argument of “We can’t just hold back the election process because someone dropped out”
Harris’ main campaign goals alienated a crucial part of the voters though, which was the side that had given up on Trump but had no valid alternative. I had so many friends that if they gave a reason for voting for trump it was “I don’t really want to, but I have no other choice, and there is no way I can vote for her because of what her standing is with rights are”.
I don’t personally agree with the ideology but, sadly she needed those votes the people who didn’t vote for trump, ended up doing write in instead of voting blue, because coming out super strong with that as the main argument more or less pushed them back into voting Trump.
This attitude is generally insane.
“I don’t hate racists, I hate people who hate genocide so much they can’t stomach voting for it.”
Look, I voted for Harris, but it wasn’t easy. Because that blood is on this administrations hands. The party is moving further and further away from my ideals every election. Because they keep moving right. On immigration, tax breaks, health care, foreign policy. She was courting the fuckin neocons!!!
I understand how frustrating it is, because you’re right—not allowing trump to win is better than allowing him. But it’s not so straightforward when your vote is support for something you can’t stomach. Can you understand how that is difficult for people? I sure can. But I also understand how many people stand to get hurt under an authoritarian regime, so i sacrificed my morals again to do what I can to somewhat stem the bleeding.
But that’s not an easy decision to make. Much harder than, say, blaming the racists for racism, and not the people who are anti-racist.
I hate the left for allowing us to get to this stage.
I’m curious what you think the left did.
I do not blame Democrats for running a bad campaign.
I do:
- no primary
- select the candidate who dropped out early due to terrible polling in 2020
- have pretty vague set of campaign policies
- go after celebs instead of appealing to people facing actual issues
What they should have done is:
- run a primary, with Biden choosing to retire instead of seek reelection
- select the candidate voters actually want
- have a clear set of campaign policies
- appeal to everyday people with even an ounce of charisma
The main issue people seemed to care about was inflation. The Democratic candidate really needed to attack that head on by explaining why inflation got bad, how it’s better, and what they’ll do to help wages continue to catch up. But instead, Harris made vague promises to “fight price gouging” (that’s not what’s actually going on) and give handouts to people to buy houses.
That said, there’s no way any Democrat would’ve won my state, so I voted my conscience by picking a third party instead of picking either unqualified candidates. I just wonder how many people felt completely uninspired by Harris like I was, and I can’t help but think that cost her the election.
Once they decided to skip the primary and started getting contributions to a Biden/Harris campaign, it became virtually impossible to select anyone else once Biden dropped out. Only a Harris campaign could take over the money already raised for the campaign. Any other candidate would have to start fundraising a few months before the election starting from nothing, and would have been at a massive disadvantage.
voted my conscience by picking a third party instead of picking either unqualified candidates
Are you implying there was a qualified third party candidate? Is this an oxymoron?
Once they decided to skip the primary and started getting contributions to a Biden/Harris campaign, it became virtually impossible to select anyone else once Biden dropped out.
Right, and that was the first mistake, they should have held the primary.
Are you implying there was a qualified third party candidate? Is this an oxymoron?
I thought Chase Oliver was pretty decent. I especially like his immigration policies, I like that he’s pretty young, and he seems to tick off both parties equally, so hopefully both parties would have to actually work together to get something he can sign. I highly doubt he’d get any of his policies done (except maybe ending tariffs, which would help a bit w/ prices), so the main benefit of having a third party in the White House is as a moderator between the two parties.
He had absolutely no chance to win, especially since his own party largely turned on him (I guess he wasn’t conservative enough or whatever), but I felt he was a decent protest vote.
Harris is more progressive than every single person who voted for Jill Stein. It’s an incredibly low bar.
I’ll never understand why people think the people running the DNC aren’t total fucking liars that will say anything for money.
Beating trump isn’t hard.
But beating him while grifting a billion dollar campaign funded by the people your voting base hates is very difficult.
Unfortunately when confronted with the choice, the DNC has shown us three elections straight that they’ll always pick money over votes.
So we either need to leave the party or replace leadership.
If we don’t do either 2028 will be exactly the same as the last three elections.
Find your local/state Dems, get involved with them, figure out who the conservatives are and replace them… It’s not hard, like 10 people vote in those elections… They are the ones who elect DNC leadership, take the local and state parties, take the DNC
people have been beating this drum for decades and i, for today only, am wondering if it’s having any impact despite it being completely true and easy to see.
It won’t. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that a large majority of the Democratic Party voter base is just as dumb and addicted to propoganda as the GOP’s. The people who are so happy to call anyone with a genuine critique a Russian shill, who believed that Biden had to lead the ticket “no matter what,” who cheered when Harris went further right to snap up conservative voters; these people also treat politics like a sport and think their side can do no wrong. They feel smug and superior because “they’re not dumb enough to vote for Trump,” as if that makes them immune to propoganda.
My plan is to leave. Maybe other countries have a chance still, but the U.S. does not.
And which other country do you have in mind where the right-wing parties aren’t growing in influence or have already done massive damage (as with Brexit in the UK)?
So we either need to leave the party or replace leadership.
I think at this point, leaving is the only way forward. The DNC/ the DCCC have shown that even given effectively infinite money, they don’t have the competence to win elections. They are always willing to rat-fuck popular candidates in favor of establishment candidates. There is no fixing this with Citizens United in place.
Beating trump isn’t hard.
He won three out of four primaries, and two out of three general elections. It seems… pretty fucking hard.
Well, he won his own party primaries too, and by a landslide. So it’s not just the DNC that can’t beat him. People are still trying to play by the old playbook where things like qualifications, competency, and sanity matter. Trump is out there doing something that absolutely works, telling the people whatever they want to hear, regardless of how stupid, impossible, or untrue it is.
I lived thru 9/11 and 2016.
For over 20 years everytime a republican became president I’ve been told we’ll never have another election.
Maybe this time the wolf is real, but it’s a basic part of human psychology that more and more people will stop having a fear response everytime they hear “wolf”.
If we really don’t have an election in 2028, we’ll have a civil war before 2032. Maybe what comes after will be better than what we have now.
It sucks to live in interesting times, but that’s what’s happening.
This is literally the day after the election, don’t fucking tell me it’s too late to plan how to fix shit for 2028
If it were like 2016 I’d be less worried but taking into account what happened with the 2020 election and now facist rhetoric has reached new heights. They want King Trump and I am worried they will get it.
I say this as a woman who is pretty bummed to say this.
I don’t think women candidates can win over enough men to get votes on a national level. Radicalized men aren’t ever going to empathize with women and sure as hell aren’t going to vote for one anytime soon.
Obviously there is a lot more than that, but it’s a big part of it.
I still think it was policy and not gender :/
But I understand that the evidence isn’t exactly clear on this.
Exactly.
Harris was dead last on my preferred candidate list in 2020, and it had nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with how little I trusted her due to her background as a cop. And she got hammered in the primaries that year, so I’m certainly not alone. I didn’t like her performance as VP (she had a pretty poor public opinion score up until she became the candidate for Pres), and she certainly didn’t convince me that she had any interesting policies this time around.
Likewise for Hillary Clinton. She was dead last on my preferred candidate list long before she won the nomination, and she didn’t get any better after winning.
In both 2016 and 2024, I voted for a third party because neither major candidate interested me (and it didn’t matter because Trump won my state by ~20% in each election anyway). I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people who would have voted Democrat didn’t bother voting or voted for a third party because they found her uninteresting. Her policies suck, her campaign sucked, and she has pretty much no charisma. It has nothing to do with her being a woman and everything to do with her being a crappy candidate.
So my vote is on a mixture of:
- no real primary, just a candidate switch (feels very undemocratic)
- poor, vague policies, especially on the issues people seem to care about most (inflation)
- very little charisma
- weird obsession with getting celeb endorsements instead of appealing to the average person
Being female doesn’t register at all.
Blow it up. The DNC is never going to get it, just blow up the party.