this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
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So fucking predictable.
Remember when Biden stepped down? Do you remember how unpopular he was and the massive wave of hope and support for Kamala that showed itself? Well, what the fuck did you think was gonna happen when Kamala glued herself to Biden, and tried to appeal to center right voters? They refuse to make compromises with the left, try to appeal to the center-right, and then blame the left for not voting for them; classic center/lib playbook, the same thing happens in Portugal, same thing happened in 2016 USA elections.
I thought that Democrats would win DESPITE the absolute dog shit campaign, given everything about Trump, but it was still an absolute dog shit campaign by people who claimed this was the most important election of people's lives, but then dug their hills in ideologically and refused to compromise with people on their left.
If the situation wasn't so dire, it would be hilarious to see the double think by Dem voters in this thread:
"How can Rep voters not hold Trump accountable despite everything he's done!"
"It's not the Dems fault that they lost, despite trying to appeal to the center-right instead of the left; it's never their fault! It's the leftists fault for not voting Dem! Kamala did nothing wrong!"
The thing is, I strongly agree with you AND the person you replied to because although I've been agape at watching Kamala sprint away from the left from essentially the moment her candidacy was announced, and I think Democrat leadership is FAR too in the pocket of corporate interests, and far too welcoming of Republicans, she's still so very obviously a better choice than Trump that I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this. I'd have thought that women alone would have pushed Kamala over the top due to the whole Roe v. Wade thing.
In summary - all my grumpiness at the DNC and Kamala for ignoring the left again was still miles short of what would have propelled me to vote for Trump or enable a Trump win.
Same, the difference is i knew that distinction wouldnt bring people out. If you, I'm assuming, a committed voter were reluctant about voting for harris despite everything. What does that mean for people who are fairly indifferent to voting? 😞😭😞😭😞😭
Oh I wasn't reluctant, there was never any doubt. I just wasn't happy. But the thing is - the things I was unhappy about don't matter to the folks who don't really follow politics. Whatever their reasons were, they weren't my reasons.
The point is that willingness to vote, dislike of Trump, the strenght of ones principle, even political awareness and other similar things are scales, not just absolutes.
Some people will always vote, some never, others can be convinced or convince themselves with different levels of inducement (be it fear or enthusiasm).
Ditto for dislike of Trump - people are all over from love him to hate him and everything in between.
As for principles, well, some people are inflexible no mater what, most are somewhere in the middle being capable of breaking certain principles in certain conditions and other have a Groucho Marx take on them ("These are my principles. If you don't like them, well, I have others.")
And ditto for political awareness: just because all you see and hear is the very politically aware types talking about politics because they're loudly political, doesn't mean there aren't a lot people who think, for example, that "it's all a show and my vote makes no difference so why should I care?"
Just because you, being at a specific point of those various scales, are very politically aware and could easily be cowed by fear of Trump whom (I assume) you detest to vote Democrat even if they were actively going against your principles (assuming one of them is "people shouldn't be killed due to their race"), doesn't mean that many others at different points of those scales ended up not voting for Harris when they could otherwise have voted Democrat if it wasn't for her making choices that went against their strongly held principles or her campaign strategy of fear rather than hope didn't work on them because they have mixed feelings about Trump so don't fear him or think their "my vote makes no difference - they're all bullshitters who don't do what they say" so don't see the point in voting for the other guys because Trump is Bad.
Harris' actions and campaign strategy did capture the votes of people like you even if you had to hold your nose (which they couldn't care less about) to vote Harris, but those choices of them stopped from voting Harris plenty of people who sit elsewhere in these scales and would otherwise vote Democrat.
Clealy had she chosen differently she would've captured the votes of people not quite at your end of those various scales but by all indications the positions she assumed and campaign strategy moved the peak appeal points in those various scales in such away that it dropped a lot more votes (mainly on the Left, Highly Principled and Distrusting of Politics sides) than the ones it gained from appealing to the other side (mainly Rightwing, Party fanatics and unprincipled or even supporting of the Israeli Genocide).
The Democrat loss is not the fault of voters for being who they are, it's the fault of the Democrats for chosing a strategy of using the fear of Trump to retain votes whilst breaking some pretty strong principles of many people with their support for mass murderers of children, and not fixing certain things during the years they were in power and then last minute announcing measures for it (which is really not going to convince the people more distrusting of politicians to go out and vote).
Here, Here.
Yeah, as I said, even I though Kamala would win despite everything because Trump is... well, Trump, and I honestly did not think anywhere near this many people would vote for him again. If yesterday someone had told me he was going to win the popular vote, I would not have come anywhere close to believing them. It's extremely depressing to see how many people still choose to vote for Trump and back him after everything he has done and said he was gonna do.
I find it very odd you thought that. The people who voted for him are primarily the people who voted for him in 2020. no? similar level of votes. the indifferent souls didn't turn out this time because democrats did democrat things.
Well, Jan 6 happened after the 2020 elections, and Trump has got nuttier and more openly extreme. His rallies and speeches this year leading up to the elections have been on a different level. I though more republications would be rethinking their choice to back him at this point, enough that Kamala could win despite a poor performance. Unfortunately, I was very wrong about that.
Jan 6th was done by his base. oi. humbaba.... I'd give you a hug if i could. I just wish the democrats hadnt been so willing to throw their supporters under the bus chasing phantoms.
This shit exactly. They literally gave us nothing to vote for. All they really had was abortion, but that's fuckin it? No other decent policy. And now I wonder if they see this outcome do they think they weren't right wing enough? Stupid.
Harris and Biden put billions of dollars into a renewable energy fund, and Harris was promising a 20 grand subsidy for first home buyers. It's not nothing. Y'all just chose not to listen.
They think being "right" is more important than the horrifying shit that is to come. It really seems like these so-called "progressives" do not grasp what actual fascism and autocracy looks like. They think this is a good thing because it'll make the Democratic party rethink their priorities or something, when in reality, we will be lucky if there is a Democratic party or even a real election in 2 or 4 years.
This shit is over, there will be no progressive party now.
You're trapped in a burning building.
A firefighter hacks the door down and reaches their hand out to pull you free and carry you outside.
And you ask "What's in it for me?"
I truly don't think you people grasp how meaningless all this text your wasting is.
This happened because people are stupid. That's it. That's the long and short of it. They have no, absolutely no concept whatsoever of how bad things are about to get. There's no world where the citizenship understands what fascism is where Kamala needed to do anything different than she did.
At this point, I truly don't think it matters. None of this shit matters. The problem is the people.
Ask yourself what do you think is going to happen next election? Answer: The Dems are going to go hard center. If the left doesn't show up after Biden did green energy, IRA, student debt relief, non-compete clauses being banned via FTC, etc, AND to prevent a literal Hitler quoting fascist getting in, then the left either will literally never show up, or doesn't exist. The left is done. No one is going to run a left platform for fucking decades. Because the left never shows up, or doesn't exist.
Everything you said has nothing to do with the left, they are basic as shit things that event center and center-right European parties would do. I mean, what does the sentence "did green energy" even mean to you? The US is one of the largest polluters per capita in the world, installing a few solar panels means jack shit. Starting to heavily invest in public transportation, putting forth serious proposals to reduce the use of plastic, etc. would just be a start.
Meanwhile, they were also running on an anti-migration platform, just not as bad as Trump - remember how Democrats were so proud of the fact Trump shot down a Dem proposal that would reduce immigration?
Also, remember when Obama was elected on an anti-war policy in 2008? He even won a Nobel Peace Prize! And remember how Trump was elected in 2016 on a "pull back troops from the Middle East policy", standing opposite to "Hillary the Hawk"?
Meanwhile, while most of the world condemns Israels actions, and millions of people in the US protest the US involvement in the ongoing genocide, both candidates are in favor of supporting and giving weapons to Israel.
If your argument is "but Biden was so far left", then you're a perfect representation of what is wrong with the Dem party and the US in general.
Edit: I almost forgot this beautiful (\s) fucking cherry on top: Dick fucking Cheney endorsed the Dems. And you seriously wanna make the argument they couldn't have gone more left?
You think that green energy isn't left? Debt relief isn't left? What planet are you on? Do I have to say left [of center]? Jeez.
Yes it's a start. What do you expect? The entire power grid and entire vehicle fleet to be redone in 2 years? Things take time. And what happens now that the start is undone and we have to start from scratch in, hopefully, another 4 years. This conversation is shaping up to the old classic of you saying "but they didn't do everything, everywhere, all at once".
Jeez this is some select history. Obama won on "hope". Trump won because he appealed to the middle class and Hillary did not.
This election shows that Gaza didn't matter one iota. Ukraine didn't matter one bit. They didn't even register, no one cared. Even your own human rights didn't matter. It came down to inflation, housing, and further on the right xenophobia. Clinton was right "It's the economy, stupid".
Ah strawman. Well that bad faith means that this will be my last reply. No point in discussing when you make shit up.
I did not say "so far left". Do a ctrl+f and you won't find those words. I said: "If the left doesn’t show up after Biden did green energy, IRA, student debt relief, non-compete clauses being banned via FDA, etc". If the left can't show up to support things like that, you're not going to get anything further left. Not gonna happen. Not how it works. You walk before you run, you test the waters before you take the plunge, and now that we saw it doesn't get you votes (midterms or next election), guess what fucking direction the Dems are going to sprint to? Yeah the Dems are going to sprint to the center. Because the left never shows up, or doesn't exist.
Orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr maybe it was because even Dick fucking Cheney saw that Trump is a fascist. It wasn't based on policy, it was Trump's fascism. I'm having a hard time deciding if you're just horribly off base or bad faith. Either way, ciao.
No, it's not left. I've already explained to you why. If I then drive a monster truck everywhere and eat steak for every meal, but then I install a solar panel in my house, does that make me an environmentalist?
Jesus, I really do honestly try not to be rude, but the amount of stupidity in one paragraph mixed with the arrogance is off the damn charts. Firstly, Hillary, the person you're quoting, lost the fucking election; secondly, neither candidate in this election was against selling weapons to Israel, both of them together had less than 50% of American citizens voting for them, and one of them - the one that has the largest overlap with pro-Palestine voters - lost the popular vote to the Republicans, which hadn't happened to Democrats since 2004, and your conclusion is "Gaza didn't matter and here's another Dem loser's take on it!". Careful that you don't get hemorrhoids with how hard you're shitting these takes out.
Yeah, which implies those are very leftist measures and policies. Would you say "if the leftists don't show up to support racial segregation (...)" - no you fucking wouldn't, cuz it's obviously not a fucking leftist measure, is it? And neither are those, they are measures even most centrists agree with.
They'll sprint to the center because that's historically what they always do, in this and other elections, and in other countries as well - refuse to compromise with the left, appeal to center and center right, and then blame the left when they lose. This isn't news for me and plenty of other people budy, we predicted this might happen and what the reaction would be - the only thing I didn't predict is that so many people would still support Trump - but plenty of people literally saw the writing on the wall about the support for Kamala and called attention to it, but the democrats don't want to accept reality, just as they didn't accept it in 2016.
I know I said I'm out but this is too good. It was BILL Clinton that said that. The irony LMAO. Ok peace.
Fair enough, nice gotcha, it still doesn't change anything that I said.
Also, I forgot to add it to the other comment, and then I was just going to leave it out, but now I'm here again, so:
Fuck your "things take time", especially in a country that is both one of the richest and most polluting countries per capita in the world. A bunch of the world is becoming uninhabitable, storms become more frequent, some places are having a harder and harder time growing food, panama had to relocate people who lived on an island due to rising sea levels, and things are going to get exponentially worse, but "things take time guys, we can't rush it!"
Let me ask you this: are you vegan, avoid using plastic as much as possible, use public transport/walk/bike whenever possible, try to minimize your consumption as much as possible, try to buy locally, and overall do you just try to ethically consume? Or are you one of those "it's the government and corporations who have to do something"? Because you certainly can't be the second and then, when talking about one of the richest and most polluting countries in the world, say we need to take things slow.
The point is not a "gotcha". You are everything you project. I can't life coach you anymore.
Comparing the democratic party with the left that exists in Europe is asinine. You can't leap the American Overton window overnight. As much as online leftists like to yap about social policies the reality, as indicated by this election, is that the American Overton window is far different than what you see in Europe and you can't leap into the same policies overnight.
The reality indicated by this election is that less than 50% of Americans voted for either Kamala or Trump, and after Kamala had immense support and raised $1 Billion after replacing Biden, she attached to Biden, courted the center-right, and ended up losing the election.
You're just restating your original claim without addressing what I wrote. You're stuck on your point for some reason. I'm telling you, the American Overton window - - as much as we online people want it to be-- is not aligned with what we see in Europe. Step outside social media and talk to real Americans or look at polls. Yes, some things poll really well like Universal health care. But when the same poll ran with a different question "would you be in favor of abolishing private insurance" only fraction rated it favorably. The reality is the US is not yet where we as lefties would like to see it.
Thank you for pointing out how Democrats are cannibalizing their allies, the Left, when we were the only sound ones calling out inadequacies with Kamala's campaign.
Democrats truly will never learn.
I think you might be replying to the wrong person.
How about the left instead make compromises with reality instead?
Fuck that noise, drama baby leftists who can’t think past tomorrow cost us this election.
Not sure if you noticed, but reality called and the Dems just lost. Turns out they can't win after refusing to compromise with the left and going after center-right voters. The same shit happened in 2016, but Dems refuse to learn. And, as always, blame the "drama baby leftists who can't accept reality", while completely missing the irony.
Drag doesn't care what your excuse is.
My excuse? Firstly, I'm from Europe, I can't vote in American elections; secondly, I'm replying to people making excuses for why Kamala lost, perhaps you should direct your comment at them.
The ones who need to excuse themselves, in order, are: Republicans; their voters; and finally the Dems for not having primaries (twice), not running a winnable campaign, and trying to appeal to the center-right.
Drag doesn't mean your excuse for not voting. Drag means your excuse for justifying other people's decision not to vote. They elected a fascist and you're defending them. There is no excuse.
Blame the Democratic Party for not winning their vote in "the most important election of our lifetimes" and instead trying to appeal to the center right.
To sort of reiterate the point in my original comment, let me ask you two questions. You don't have to give me the answers, but at least ponder them internally:
What's your opinion on people who voted for Trump despite everything he's done, and try to blame all their problems on immigrants and leftists?
Why do you refuse to hold the Dems accountable for their campaign and the policies they run on, and keep trying to throw the blame on other people?
Blame isn't finite resource. Blame is infinite. Harris deserves all the blame. The voters also deserve all the blame. And people like you who demotivated the voters also deserve all the blame. You are all 100% responsible. And drag still doesn't care about any of the excuses you've continued to give.
When you make assumptions, you make an ass of you and me both. Here's the last comment I made on the electoral race, July 25th, after Biden stepped down.
Since then, I haven't said anything about it. But sure, if it makes you feel better, just keep on throwing blame everywhere except where it lies, like a monkey throwing feces everywhere. I don't have to excuse anything.