this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2024
1174 points (98.0% liked)
Political Memes
5462 readers
1619 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I get it, everyone is upset that Trump won (including myself). But the voters are not solely to blame here.
Democrats put forward a candidate who lost to fascism. What does that say about your policies, your messaging, how the voters feel about you when you tell them "You have to vote for me because I'm not the other guy!"
Y'all need to accept that 1. The Democrats can grasp defeat from the jaws of victory like no one else, and 2. The American people want change, they want progress, they have had enough of the status quo system that isn't working for them anymore.
They spent the last four years living under Biden, and despite all the screeching about how well the economy was doing, Americans don't feel it. And instead of addressing that, or doing anything about it, Biden and the Democrat establishment would just point the finger at Republicans and say, "No, no, they're worse, trust us, they're worse, they're worse."
They've spent a year telling Americans, despite everything they're seeing and hearing from Palestine, that Israel needs this unconditional support, while the world votes to hold Israel accountable and the US vetos it, under a Democrat administration. Multiple times, while refusing to let any Palestinians on stage at the DNC to speak, but parading Republican after Republican because they finished licking Trump's ass and decided to give Kamala's a go. Arab and Muslim Americans organized a protest vote, over 100,000 strong in Michigan alone (which she's projected to lose, btw), and the Democrats sent Bill Clinton to lecture them on how Israel is only doing what's necessary to defend themselves.
So we've had four years of milquetoast progress at best from a candidate the Democrat's constituency already didn't like. He dropped out but didn't leave enough time for a new primary, so the Democrat Party pushed Kamala on us, and then had her run on a centrist, return-to-the-status-quo platform, while refusing to take any meaningful stand on Palestine, with their biggest policy being, "Hey, you have to vote for us because we're not fascist."
If the American people, people in general, don't feel like they're being represented, why would the feel like voting? This is a failure on the Democrats, 100%, for running platform policies and candidates that don't drive people to the polls. Say what you want about Trump, and there's plenty to say about the absolute piece of shit of a human being he is.
But he makes his voters feel listened to and heard, and Democrats may consider it regression, but Republicans get their policies done, and they show progress to their constituents. Democrats get nothing done, usually due to Republican fuckery, but the Republicans don't face similar fuckery, so the average voter doesn't care, they just see one wide getting their agenda accomplished and the other not.
So now I pose this question to you, and I'm genuinely asking, this isn't an "I gotcha, I am so smart!"
If a person doesn't feel represented by their government regardless of who's in power, and your life doesn't drastically improve under either candidate, well... What difference does it make which form of government is fucking you over?
You can say this but when a republican policy is "drill for more oil" and a democratic policy is "focus on clean energy," one is easier, cheapens prices, and has readily apparent effects. Many democrat policies are long term goals that people won't notice, and might even hurt them in the short term, but they need to be done. Medicare will increase taxes, supporting Ukraine and not taking Russian oil increases prices, and most people agree these policies are good things. Yet what is the biggest complaint under Biden? Skyrocketing inflation, because the average voter doesn't care about policy they just care how it affects their lives.
You're asking for an impossible solution if you want the party of "this is a hard decision but will benefit us all in the future" to have the same draw as "here's cheaper prices NOW, we'll ignore the future." Not to mention as you already said republicans will block any and all attempts at real change. It's completely unfair that even if 90% of a democrat candidate's platform is beneficial, that's not good enough since they don't have the short-term effects to wow people with. If democratic policies reduced prices and republican policies increased them (say, swap the stances on oil and climate), we could have a literal potato as the candidate and people would run to vote for it.
I've written a lot of comments this morning, and I don't remember which one's I've said what in, so I apologize if I'm repeating something.
I understand what you're saying, it's not fair that the Democrats have an unrealistic standard compared to the Republicans. But the Democrats have to figure that out and get over it, and they're just not.
I'm seeing a lot of polls now showing the biggest factor for Americans voting was the economy. The economy has, verifiably, improved under Biden, and I will not argue against that.
But polls also consistently show that, despite the improved economy, Americans don't feel it. And that's the problem: the Dems were presented this information (Americans don't feel better under this economy), and just kept doubling down, spouting metrics that mean nothing to the average American.
I think in response to the economy polling, Harris trotted out the $15/hr minimum wage increase. In our political hellscape, that's a progressive policy. But it's 10 years too late... Minimum wage should be around $26/hr if it was (and should be) tied to inflation, the magic buzzword everyone has on their mind. But they're not campaigning on $26/hr, they're barely campaigning on $15/hr.
Someone in another thread pointed out bodily autonomy and how much worse it would get under Trump. Fair enough, but what has Biden shown the American people he's done about bodily autonomy in the last 4 years? Why wasn't it enshrined into law at any point during the decades since the initial Roe ruling? Why should voters believe Democrats are actually going to do it this time and not continue using abortion as a campaign tool?
You and I both know the answers to all of the questions above are not black and white, their answers range from the complexity of different administrations to the limited power within the executive branch to Democrats lacking a political majority outside of a few months every couple decades, etc. I get that, but even I'm tired of it being an excuse, and the average American doesn't even consider the excuse. They just don't care: they see their money worth less, their paycheck barely increasing to match inflation most years, and laws not being passed.
On the flip side, Trump got a lot done in his first four years, regardless of whatever legal obstacles got in his way. This flies in the face of our constitution and the very rule of law and is a direct threat to our democracy.....
.... But he got things done. No one can deny that, Trump got things done, and he did things his base wanted him to. As much as Trump hates his base, he at least panders to them, and if he doesn't support them, he shows faux support, which is good enough. He represents the worst of humanity, is a serial rapist, convicted felon, racist, misogynist, sexist, xenophobic, transphobic, homophobic orange shit stain on the annals of history...
But he got things done, and in the eyes if the average American, Biden didn't, and Harris promised 4 more years of the same. So voters stayed home, and it is 100% the Democrats fault.
You've probably seen this but this video is basically exactly why this is the case. I suppose the only path forward is for democrats to exploit anything they can and go even lower (like increasing the number of justices so you get a majority) and then both parties race to see who can exploit the constitution more. I think no democrat wants to do this because it would be insanity, but the Republicans have been doing it for years so there really aren't many options left.