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316 comments
  • They refuse to actually campaign and address people's concerns. They gaslight, minimize, denigrate, guilt trip, and verbally abuse people and then are surprised Pikachu when no one is happy or motivated to vote for them.

    "You owe it to your country to vote." "You are a bad person/stupid/russian shill etc if you vote for anyone but Kamala."

    These things just stroke your ego and are otherwise thought terminating. They do not get votes. Like holy fuck, if you just listen to people's concerns and talk with them, it tends to work.

    But with Citizens united, campaigns focus around a capitalist spending strategy like it's Election Christmas. Bernie Sanders, Stacey Abrams, and AOC all had what I'd call "authentic" campaigns, where they requested help with canvassing and phone calls before they requested donations. Like donations were fine, but most emails and texts were asking for workers, volunteers, and physical help. Those requests were completely absent from Kamala's campaign.

    The status quo just doesn't want the common person to have political literacy. If they teach us how to canvas, then we'll do it for someone who isn't status quo. If they show us how to run for office, then we will just run ourselves like AOC did. They are in direct conflict with themselves because they are trying to suppress anything except status quo Dems.

  • The problem with that strategy is that moderate Republicans don't watch the news. They believe that all other Republicans are just like them and hold all the same beliefs, because all their friends are in the same echo chamber. So then they believe all Republican politicians are the same way. They intentionally don't pay attention to the news because it is full of sensationalism and depressing things they can't personally control like terrorism and mass shootings. They still believe it's important to vote, because that's the patriotic thing to do, and they can just fill the bubbles next to every name marked REP and not have to worry about doing research and learning facts. It's just the easy way and they've lived their whole lives doing things the easy way because of white privilege and generational wealth, but any low points in their lives they will consider to be "hardship" so they "know" that anyone living in poverty is just not trying hard enough, because they personally made it through that "struggle" with barely more than the average effort they usually contribute to anything.

    How do I know this? I was raised in a family that is exactly how I described here. The only reason I'm not just like them is that I went to public school and made friends with kids who did not come from the same background. It took about 17 years to finally see all the flawed logic and head-in-sandness before finally breaking free and forging my own path based on my own beliefs.

  • I mean, there's a whole lot that went wrong, but the big one was subverting the democratic process with primaries that didn't really pick a popular candidate (2016 and 2024).

    The primaries are the time for the candidate to energize a base of support. Harris has never energized anybody, and it was silly to think that affection for Biden would carry her.

    Conservatives vote in force to signal their loyalty to their chosen community.

    Progressives stay home when they perceive that their community doesn't chose them. Harris' vote totals at the end of this will sit somewhere below Biden 2020, for that reason.

    • I wouldn't leave 2020 out. Having politicians ahead of Joe Biden pull out to endorse him ahead of super Tuesday was really irregular and didn't result in a good candidate either

    • There werent primaries. None of the challengers had sufficient ballot access.

  • meanwhile im already seeing "moderate" "pundits" saying the reason Harris lost is because she was too woke and Democrats need to move further right 🙃

  • Hey, I'll probably delete my account soon because I shilled so hard for this campaign and it feels so gross. I knew day one enthusiasm was going to sink the dems and pushed back against the apathy as hard as I could. I was pretty devastated when kamala took the stage at the DNC and gave her support for, "a strong military" and talked about her gun or what ever. After that was just going through the motions and convincing myself I wasn't crazy for not wanting trump to win this badly.

    The way I see it now, and will remember as we go in the future the DNC offers nothing. That's not fair, they do a lot of good for state and local governments but at a federal level, they will never be able to effect real change. Maybe it's because the way the fed is setup or for what ever other reason. It's not that the leadership has failed, it's that they can't win. I've hopped to lots of different possible solutions for Americans over the years and I guess there is one way out. Until we see liberals migrate away from the cities and take root in the land we will never have a government that represents them. That's where the war will be fought. Until then, even if Trump doesn't crown himself king asshole it's the RNC's game the DNC just resets the board.

    • I am sorry, but this is not going to happen. Liberals are found in cities because of class interests, not genetic opinions. People's ideas are driven by their material conditions. But, hope is not lost. The Dems are, but they were never a path out, they represent their donors above all else.

      Revolution is necessary. Voting can't get us there. I recommend reading Reform or Revolution and The State and Revolution for why reform is pretty much impossible and revolution is necessary.

      I can offer a good intro list to Marxism if you'd like, or answer any questions you may have.

    • I think the Democrats needed a solid message and populist policy. The "opportunity economy" sounded like a vague platitude, and her policies were weak tea like increasing the child tax credit and helping to fund down payments on houses.

      • It's the populist policy that's the hanging point. The DNC Services Corp will never let that happen. They're all too happy to let fascists win and fundraise off the fallout.

        This country is cooked. The empire is finally dying. My big concern is that this empire has nukes it will use on the way down.

316 comments