this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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they voted for Biden because he made meaningful concessions to the progressive caucus. He gave Bernie a prominent roll in his campaign and made promises about student loan forgiveness and raising the minimum wage, on top of affirming people's anxiety about covid and a pledge to address it.
Harris had none of that. She didn't primary against progressive candidates, didn't have to address progressive concerns, and when there was vocal opposition to any of her policies she said "excuse me, i'm speaking". She was more right-moderate than Biden was, even if only because she didn't face the progressive primary he did.
Biden may have had (relatively minor) details around the side but his campaign message was straight center.
Right, and Harris didn't even have those relatively minor details. She was as center-right as they come
We can say her campaign was bad because she had no time to figure out what policy was the winner (take polls and normally it's tested in primaries). BUT she ran on abortion rights and fucking democracy. If that doesn't get the left out to vote, literally nothing will. We won't see a left platform for fucking decades, because literally nothing gets the left out to vote.
I don't even think you know who you're referring to as 'the left'
Well that's a pretty good non sequitur. How am I supposed to even respond, I say I do and then you say nuhuh. Well that's the point of a non sequitur huh.
If "democracy" means i cant pay my bills and my relatives get slaughtered overseas, it seems a pretty lame thing to hold on to.
And that is again a big failure. People all things considered dont care about democracy as a virtue in itself. They care about economic and social security and a prospect of personal developmemt and social participation. contrary to the popular stories revolutions rarely were fought over political participation. They were fought over empty stomaches and lack of housing.
Trump understood to pretend to care about these problems of the people. Harris lowkey denied them existing.
I agree, though I would amend one part to make my point:
And that's exactly where the Dems are going to go. All these left things that left people care about? They will be on the backburner at best.
all the left things that left people care about aren't just progressive policy, they're populist policy. Abortion makes the most sense when classified as a healthcare issue. Universal healthcare, and medicare for all, consistently polls popular. So does increasing the minimum wage. So does student loan forgiveness, and free college, which is why biden campaigned on that.
Harris' most popular policy was probably price controls, because despite all the hemming and hawwing that economists get up to whenever you touch any economic lever, that's something that the american people can believe will decrease their costs of living. people don't give a shit about the left, or about ideologies, you're right on that front, as the person before you is. but make no mistake, those policies which tangibly reign in the economy, control it, and give people free shit, those are, at the very least, progressive policies, if not outright leftist policies.
Everything polls well in blind polls. Then when they say it's a Dem idea. support craters. Chalk that up to whatever you want. I'm starting to realize this polling stuff, it's easy to say "yes I support that" when you get a phone call. But when it comes to the ballot box, well... something else happens.
So that and combined with the left never coming out (they couldn't even come out for their own freaking rights). it will not win elections. Biden gave student loan concessions, and his thanks was polling said he was going to lose, aka the left was not going to show up. ACA was on the line for anyone that payed attention, and the left did not come out.
The only thing that wins elections is "it's the economy stupid", which maybe includes a minimum wage.
And the appetite for change is so great that even those minor details are enough for people, but this campaign couldn't even do that.
That's not what won Biden the election, it was the straight center that won it.
You still don't get it.
It isn't about voting for Harris.
It's about voting against Trump.
You can give me all sorts of reasons why Harris wasn't an appealing candidate. It's not relevant. Trump was a clear and present danger.
I don't give a shit about whether or not people liked her or whatever their idealistic reasons not to vote for her were. None of them justify allowing Trump to take office by refusing stop him from doing it. That is on people who refused to vote or vote third party. You were not going to get the candidate you wanted this year. You were a fool if you didn't know that.
You're talking to me as if I'm one of those non-voters.
Most Americans are not the terminally-online type - they didn't see your impassioned warnings about Trump. All they heard was that there was an election, and the choice was between Trump and Harris, and neither one really had anything material to offer them. To them, democrats screaming about how bad Trump is is just par for the course. They needed more than to not be Trump, and they didn't deliver.
Go ahead and scream into the void if you want. None of it will change the fact that Harris lost because she ran a bad campaign and turned her back on meaningful progress.
One of her key points was human fucking rights (abortion if you need). That left people can't even show up for their own fucking rights... Well they won't show up for anything. Running a left platform is dead for decades.
Left policy is hugely popular - it isn't just the 'left people' you're referring to, it's also a majority of dis-affected voters who don't think they have anything to vote for
It's popular in blind surveys. Once they say it's a Dem idea, support craters. Chalk that up to whatever you want, it won't win Dems an election.
Disaffected center will go for center policy. While we see through Trump, this is what I think won Trump both elections.
No part of Harris's campaign can be thought of as 'left'. She ran on right-of-center foreign policy and center neo-liberal economic policy.
People are hurting from inflation and decades of wage stagnation and wealth disparity, and the democrats have no answer for that except means-tested bullshit.
She didn't run a left platform exactly, BUT she relied on the left coming out to support their own fucking human rights and mfing democracy. She was very clear on that and it was a big part of her time. That they can't even do that, well that means they will never show up for literally anything. That means the Dems will never, never, never rely on the left coming out ever again. Kiss any left policy goodbye. Dems will run on "it's the economy, stupid" because yes we agree this was won on inflation and housing.
Lmao, who do you think 'the left' is?
The 14million democrats who voted in 2020 but didn't in 2024?
Lol wow I had no idea 'the left' was that big
Hey this looks familar! Yup it's you again with your non sequitur.
Lmao
"It's the left's fault!"
"Who do you mean by 'the left'?"
"That's not relevant!!"
OK bud
Well you're defending them.
And it's has nothing to do with my warnings. It has to do with the literal words he said out loud repeatedly.
Now all you're saying is American voters are ignorant and that's somehow Kamala Harris' fault. If they didn't know what Trump had to say, they didn't know what Harris had to say.
Again not a good excuse.
Here's the thing man: It doesn't matter one bit if you and I think they were terrible people for not voting Harris despite all the very valid reasons you have listed why they should have. (All of which I agree with.)
Bottom line: Dems didn't sell themselves to those voters in a way that worked. We can be outraged that it didn't work, but it didn't work.
So, we can wring our hands about how awful our fellow man is for not seeing the clear moral imperative that we do (exactly like the Genocide-Joe folks have been doing for months), or we can recognize that Dems need to start doing things differently.
Personally I'm of the opinion that unless they truly are just there to put up a token show of resistance against R while serving the same goals (and I'm not yet cynical enough to really believe that), they need to stop with this "let's move to the right and try for some R votes" crap. It's not getting them any R votes, and it's clearly pissing off a lot of D. Edit: And it's ratcheting the entire country rightward.
In my 50+ years they have never really moved to the left for more than a brief teaser. Let's see them seriously push for some Bernie or AOC crafted policies, etc. Some actual progressive fire. Stop treating the left like political suicide, and stop treating Republicans like they can be reasoned with.
no no, don't you understand? the american voter is just too racist, because they voted for donald trump, so we just need to tack harder to the right, I mean the center, actually I do just mean the right. then, surely, they will vote for the democratic party in overwhelming, obama-era numbers.
I'm not defending them, I'm just explaining why that message didn't land the way you think it should have.
Most people think democrats are alarmist (and they often are), and even if they thought the threat was credible, they don't think it would affect them.
Call them dumb if you want, I don't care, democrats didn't do enough to turn them out either way.
I voted for Harris. But in the first-past-the-post system, all that matters for a party is victory. That is how you judge the success of party officials. There is a whole class of extremely well-paid Democratic party officials whose ENTIRE JOB is to figure out how to select a candidate and sell them to the American people. That is literally their entire job.
The average voters is low-information, doesn't pay attention, and assumes both sides frequently lie. (And they're not wrong about the lying.) You can truthfully call the other side fascist, but the other side will simply say you're the fascist, and low-information voters can't tell the difference.
Voters have always been low-information. This isn't anything new. The entire reason we have primaries is that it forces candidates to actually try their hand at mass appeal and to take the temperature of the electorate. Democratic leaders kept Biden in far too long, til it was too late to hold a proper primary.
You can blame it on those who don't vote, but the truth is that most people pay attention to politics only tangentially. If you, as a political operator, didn't find a way to reach these voters, you have failed.
Does the blame ultimately fall on those who didn't vote for Biden? Sure. But the same is true of those who didn't vote for Walter Mondale. It doesn't mean Harris isn't just as big a failure as Mondale.
Then it isn't the fault of the Harris campaign.
That would not make a difference if voters have always been low-information.
You mean like have multiple TV channels and foreign governments pump out endless propaganda? You're right, the real issue in America is that there's no Democrat version of Fox News, Newsmax, etc. and they haven't reached out to Putin for help.
Also, this is nothing like Reagan/Mondale. Reagan never said he would be a dictator. Reagan never quoted Hitler.
This is the denial that I've been seeing everywhere. People keep thinking that "oh, the dems might learn something and do better in 4 years." Nope. It's done. The courts have been irreparably compromised and left of center policy will probably never again be allowed.
I'm going to suggest this book as some personal reading on this issue. But the point I would more broadly make is that running exclusively oppositional candidates does not work, and I would say that's probably because they don't really present a clear vision of the future, they only present opposition to something rhetorically. By opposing something in that way, you sort of, only serve to reinforce that thing. Only define yourself in relation to it.
That's also not really to speak about how she legitimately presented an incredibly conservative face to her campaign, and if that's the case, people would just vote for the guy who's actually just conservative.
Running any candidates will not work anymore. There will be no real elections anymore.
These guys are so entrenched in "left policy will surely win" that they can't let it go. Keep telling them but I don't know if it'll ever get through.