I think the point is that while you’re right that nobody cares about comparing policies to each other, what decides voter turnout is how much each candidate lives up to the ideal of their own side.

Harris had to be at least as inspiringly progressive as Trump had been inspiringly conservative to drive turnout. Instead, she did the equivalent of Trump declaring that he’s a bit of a socialist.

Yeah, courting far left people like Dick Cheney was the problem. Next time they will just run Ivanka Trump and if you’re against her, you are a misogynist.

Just kidding, they won’t run her until she’s at least 60, everyone knows people who are younger than that can’t politics.

Well, there is the fact that that right-wing activism is bankrolled by some wacko billionaires, while even the DNC works against progressives where it can.

Money in politics is what it boils down to, again, and wealth inequality.

Not in the US, not yet.

In a Russian style society, money means jack shit against actual power.

Because the economy has not been working for the common person for a long time, and given a choice between “all is well” and “let’s blow ourselves up”, the second tends to get more turnout.

I stand corrected, she did better than Biden would have in this election.

Yes, it’s a gender issue, not an economic one, at least that’s what the voters said.

Wait, they didn’t.

We will have to fight for it though. At this rate we will have to vote down chat control yearly for the next century, and Macron and Scholz are not infinitely better than the US dems either.

At least now, they see that immediate rearmament and asserting ourselves as an economic and geopolitic power is a necessity, even if our industry doesn’t feel like it and never wants to change.

The ACA, which brought US healthcare from an 18th century level to a 19th century one in 2010, was a half measure under Obama, he got reelected for it, he was president for 7 more years after he signed that.

First time voters today were 4 years old when it happened. What else has the Democratic Party been doing? How about the housing crisis? How about inflation? Oh, they got that one 1400 USD stimmy check passed after Trump looted the coffers for corpos big and small.

Look, I’m not saying Harris wasn’t the better, less destructive choice. I’m saying something had had to happen, and people didn’t turn out for a candidate who said the past four years and the way the world is going is good. Not as well as for someone who saw problems and proposed - admittedly monstrous and ineffective - solutions.

Are you drunk? Just because I would understand if you were drunk.