If voters bear no responsibility, do you really believe in democracy, or are you thinking about this as an issue to be solved by authority?
The self-righteousness of this discussion is a problem. Politics requires some humility, which we seem to be short of.
This is maddening. It will never stop. The democrats refuse to campaign on progressive policies, which are incredibly popular among the entire electorate (yes, also among republicans, see the recent ballot measures in Missouri on paid sick leave and higher minimum wage, for example), instead opting to position themselves as "republican light". They completely capitulate to republican messaging on pretty much every issue (border wall, fracking, pro war, etc), and predictably lose to the people who invented this messaging. And then comes the worst part: angry libs start blaming the electorate instead of the people who lost. It's not the lack of the dems even mentioning universal health care, no it's the trans people. It's not the genocide that the current democratic regime is committing, no it's probably actually latino voters. It's not the fact that the Harris campaign asks us to pretend everything is hunky spunky with the economy, offering nothing to relieve the 80% of the population who live paycheck to paycheck. Noooo you know what it's actually white women and muslims faults. You fucking morons.
Can't wait for the 2026 anti-transgender dem ticket, and the anti gay marriage ticket in 2028. It's gonna be great.
then comes the worst part: angry libs start blaming the electorate instead of the people who lost
I feel like even calling them "angry libs" gives them some measure of undeserved credibility. Let's call them "fucking crybaby closet fascists" because that's what they are.
Try some lefty moves or keep losing Dems.
It's kinda crazy to me that a sizable amount of people expect a perfect completely spotless candidate, or they don't vote and hand over the win to fascism.
In a rational world, Harris would have won without even doing a single rally, because the alternative is Trump and his cronies.
People generally don't realize that the only way to get an option to the left of the democrats is if Republicans no longer win elections. But with each "punishment", voters give the democrats, the Republicans' grip on power gets tighter and tighter, with more cronie judges, more gerrymandering, more voter purges, more ID rules, and more propaganda.
So, are the voters, or rather those who didn't vote, wrong? Fuck yes, for the reason that because of them, we now have Trump as the US president rather than him going to prison like he deserves. Of course they are wrong. How is that even a question?
People generally don't realize that the only way to get an option to the left of the democrats is if Republicans no longer win elections.
Absofuckinglutely wrong. The number of Democrats still buying this bullshit is astounding. THIS is why you lose so damn much.
No Democratic candidate has had more support from right leaning voters than Bernie Sanders in the last 30 years. Explain that with your model. It's not just about some smooth gradient from left to right and capturing the middle. We are in a populist age. The people are totally fed up with the status quo.
It's disruptors that win, not whomever captures the center of a spectrum that only policy wonks even care about. Anyone who's chief concern is left vs right is already a decided voter.
Way to miss the point. Against Trump, it shouldn't matter who the other candidate is. A fucking bucket of snails could have been candidate and I'd vote for it over it over fascism.
this is why you lose so damn much
"This candidate isn't left enough for me. By not voting I essentially vote for fascism". That is why democrats lose.
Would a more left leaning candidate have more chances? Maybe? No matter what, should it have mattered if the alternative is Trump? Absolutelyfucking not, but apparently it does.
Way to miss the point. Against Trump, it shouldn't matter who the other candidate is.
That's a useless point to make. Of course is shouldn't matter. The important point is, it did matter. The disconnect between these two points ought to make you question your assumptions about how to win elections. Clinging desperately to a model that has failed over and over and over again is insanity.
"This candidate isn't left enough for me. By not voting I essentially vote for fascism"
This is rhetorically a dumb way to argue. I don't disagree with the sentiment, but it's just to easy to point out that not voting for fascism would also have to be considered a vote against fascism. It's just a dumb way to argue and just further antagonizes the person you are supposedly trying to convince. You don't get votes by attacking voters.
Would a more left leaning candidate have more chances? Maybe?
A more populist candidate would have more chances. That does generally mean further left or right, but doesn't necessarily have to be either. I want a leftist candidate but, honestly, an anti-corruption centrist might have as much of a chance. Big money billionaires buying politicians is extremely unpopular across the spectrum. Good luck getting a Democratic centrist to run on that though.
During Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992, he employed a strategy to appeal to moderate and right-leaning voters, which helped him secure support from some traditionally Republican constituencies. Here are key points about Clinton's approach and support from right-wing voters:
Clinton positioned himself as a "New Democrat," advocating for centrist policies that appealed to moderate and conservative voters[2]. This included:
Clinton specifically aimed to win back "Reagan Democrats" - working-class white voters who had previously supported Republicans[6]. He focused on economic issues and cultural values that resonated with this group.
Clinton used a strategy of "triangulation," which involved:
Clinton made significant inroads with suburban voters, including many who had previously voted Republican[2]. His moderate positions on social and economic issues appealed to this demographic.
Clinton's strategy helped him win states that had been part of the Republican "lock" on the Electoral College, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin[6].
While Clinton did not win a majority of right-wing voters, his centrist approach and focus on economic issues allowed him to peel away enough support from traditionally Republican constituencies to win the election. This strategy was controversial within the Democratic Party but proved effective in the general election[2][7].
Citations: [1] An examination of the 2016 electorate, based on validated voters https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/ [2] Controversy: Why Did Clinton Win? - The American Prospect https://prospect.org/power/controversy-clinton-win/ [3] In Their Own Words: Why Voters Support – and Have Concerns About https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/09/21/in-their-own-words-why-voters-support-and-have-concerns-about-clinton-and-trump/ [4] Basket of deplorables - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basket_of_deplorables [5] Governing in an Age of No Majorities: Bill Clinton's mission for a ... https://www.brookings.edu/articles/governing-in-an-age-of-no-majorities-bill-clintons-mission-for-a-second-term/ [6] Here's how Democrats have changed since the Bill Clinton era https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/democratic-party-dnc-bill-clinton-era-changes-rcna166669 [7] Bill Clinton: Campaigns and Elections | Miller Center https://millercenter.org/president/clinton/campaigns-and-elections [8] Don't understand Trump supporters? Remembering Bill Clinton ... https://kansasreflector.com/2024/08/03/dont-understand-trump-supporters-remembering-bill-clinton-might-help-you/
That's an impressive writeup. Here is the problem. This is 2024, not 1992. Clinton's strategy has not aged well.
2008 - Hillary and McCain both ran a centrist strategy and lost to Obama who ran as a disruptor. Obama gets a mandate.
2010 - Democrats lose Congress and the mandate on a centrist strategy.
2012 - Obama almost loses to Mit Romney with both running centrist strategies.
2016 - Hillary loses on a centrist strategy against Trump who is clearly not a centrist.
2020 - Biden barely moves towards a disruptor position and barely beats Trump who should have been easily beatable.
2024 - Need I say it?
Out of your 6 examples half of them involve Democratic victories and you noticeably left 2018 and 2022 for not fitting in with your straw man
I didn't have time to write a book. The examples I gave were more than sufficient to get the point across. A couple of minor exceptions don't disprove the rule. COVID and abortion dominated in 2022, and Trump looked more like the status quo than a disruptor in 2018.
The half that were victories are when the Republicans took the more centrist approach and Democrats ran as disruptors. Remember Obama's "Change!" slogan? Too bad he didn't mean it.
I note that you only used one election from over a quarter of a century ago to support your argument.
Good luck with shaming people into voting for you. It didn't work in 2016 and it didn't work now. Letting the DNC off the hook won't change anything.
Its a two party system. You will not get anything close to a working progressive government until there are more then two. If the Dems win, they get a bit more corrupt and take money to slide a bit right. If they lose, they slide right to "capture" more votes/money (the money works the votes not so much).
The nasty things that get done (say under 2016 trump) are not undone by the Democrats when next in power. This makes them at best an enabler of crap policy and at worst (also most likely) guilty of using the bad actions of the Republicans to stay in power.
I don't know how at this point you doods can fix it, but you don't have a democracy at the moment. Its just authoritarianism under threat of worse authoritarianism.
Perfection is the enemy of progress.
I can tell that many people in these comments have given up on every artistic skill they've ever tried to learn because their attempts were never good enough right out of the gate.
This, but unironically.
Trump was so bad that in a sane world a desiccated cat turd shoukd have beat him
The fact Harris lost doesn't mean shes a bad candidate, it means we don't live in a sane world.
Yeah I agree, it's the voters who are wrong. Can't wait to see how this strategy pans out next cycle!
Honestly, the voters voted in a way that made sense, given the information they had, which was either nothing - complete and utter lethargy, or a hyper-partisan distortion of reality reinforced by a multi-billion dollar propaganda industry backed by, among many others, the literally richest man on the planet in addition to an entire network of propaganda stations blasting disinformation 24/7. The voters being wrong is intentional and has been in the making for decades.
They did vote in a way that makes sense. The Harris campaign offered nothing in the way of economic relief, while committing genocide. That's an insanely bad proposition. Stop blaming voters and look at your dogshit candidates.
Be honest: you claim that Harris offers no economic relief because you yourself never bothered to look up her actual policies and you've been told that she has none. It's wild to even compare anything she's proposed to Trump's economic policies and conclude that she offers the general populace less when all Trump has done is to massively shift wealth from the bottom to the top and will most likely continue to do just that.
Name them.
Go to her fucking policy page and read them. They're still there. Off the top of my head, additional support for parents, anti-gouging laws limiting price hiking, tax incentives for creation of more housing supply, among others that were expressly mentioned by her and can still be found on hee campaign page.
You understand we're talking about messaging here, and that most of the electorate does not read the policy pages. I guess you don't actually otherwise I wouldn't have to write this. The electorate sees the ads, the debates, and if they're really engaged, maybe the interview. Compare those with Obamna's interviews and so on. His were inundated with references to health care and the like. Hers with quaint stories about how she was a small business when she was growing up or some shit, and maybe uncritical support for apartheid.
Harris had concrete plans to tackle many, though not all, of the issues people actually care about. People voted for the man openly stating he will make those issues worse.
It's blatantly the fault of the voters. Until you people can get your heads out of your asses and join us in reality nothing will change.
Truth. We definitely need to nominate better voters next cycle.
I mean, yes, the over 70 million voters who voted for Trump absolutely are wrong. That they're mostly too willfully fucking stupid to understand that may speak to a failure in Harris' messaging, but nevertheless does not absolve them of the guilt of being willfully dumb as fucking rocks.
The voters aren’t wrong. It’s the non-voters that are wrong. Democracy should never be collateral for a protest..
EVER.
Despite everyone on Lemmy saying otherwise, people didn't stay home because of the genocide. Most Americans don't give a fuck about what's happening in the next town over, let alone in Gaza. They stayed home because they weren't given a convincing self-serving reason to make the effort to vote.
If the only reason you voted for trump as a form of ‘punishment’ towards dems, then yea that is on the voters. You should be voting for what helps you. Not to be a petty idiot.
People vote for single issues all the time. Sometimes its abortions, the economy, etc. But God forbid people seem disgusted at rewarding genocide and voting for harris. People saw no other option other than to either punish them by voting for the other, 3rd party or not voting at all. I dont blame them.
So the action plan is what? Cull the voters? Breed better voters?
The first job of a politician is to reach and convince voters. Harris had a billion dollars and didn't do it. Yes, the voters made bad choices, but blaming the voters is not a way forward. There is no escaping that we have to figure out what Harris could have done better. More precisely, shitlibs need to figure it out because progressives already know and have been screaming it from the rooftops for decades.
makes me happy seeing politically intelligent people in the thread here.
These type of threads always suck for the first few days to a week though lmao.
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