Fault is on everyone
Non-voters and trump voters
russian propagandists
"useful idiots" telling people to not vote harris for perceived evil
democratic leadership for not having a better platform
Kamala Harris, who just cant stop getting pulled towards cheneys like a magnet
Joe "I don't wanna quit yet, even tho I'm old as fuck" Biden
republicans, who just want to destroy democracy
Everyone is at fault
Miserable, isn't it?
People want one easy foe to blame, and to exonerate all other forces. Tribal mentality. Absurd from a supposedly educated modern population, but here we are.
Nearly everyone who had a serious hand in this election is guilty for this fucking debacle. Some by action, some by inaction; some by malice, some by incompetence, some by ignorance, some by sheer fucking stupidity.
What a fucking shitshow this all was. And will be for the foreseeable future.
The denial of some assholes on here go through is incredible. They won't hold anyone accountable for their vote. Like who the fucks voting? The DNC isn't voting. No group is voting vicariously for anyone. No one is mandating you vote. People vote. And many people let themselves be misled, and shirked all personal responsibility to understand who is leading the country and why and how. The half that voted for that orange asshole fucking deserve what's coming to this country. I fucking hate it here.
PROTIP: Dems being spineless, brainless cretins does NOT absolve anyone who said that sitting by and letting fascists take over the country was preferable! And yes, you CAN blame the voters for that!
The voters did not magically come to the 'correct' decision to sit this out by the spirit of democracy whispering in their ear; they did so because they believed that fascism won't be 'that bad' to them, personally! And no amount of blaming Dems for being gutless corporate weasels can change that being an accomplice to deliberately driving fascists deeper into power is not a forgivable offense!
PROTIP: Dems being spineless, brainless cretins does NOT absolve anyone who said that sitting by and letting fascists take over the country was preferable! And yes, you CAN blame the voters for that!
I realize how old-man-ish this will sound (although in my defense I am literally becoming an old man) but there's a widespread lack of personal accountability these days. Everything must always be someone else's fault.
It's an ancient problem. But it's always frustrating to see it.
As a Brit I'm not immersed in American politics day to day. My (unqualified) take from a million miles away went:
"Oh, Joe Biden got elected thank god"
"Oh, he's promising to only serve one term, good that's completely sensible"
"Joe's running again? What? Could they not find anyone better? This isn't going to go well at all..."
"(during that debate) Oh well, looks like Trump's going to win.."
"Hey, Kamala looks like she would have won if this had been the plan from the beginning, not a sudden fumble when Biden's brain melted beyond repair on live TV.."
Seems like - from my point of view- the main culprit was hubris on Biden's part ever attempting a second term. And the inexplicable failure of the whole party to not force him out of that self destructive choice. Other candidates besides Kamala likely could have won, just seemed like any Dem candidate would be fatally undermined by starting a late campaign.
You're not wrong. Biden never formally promised to serve one term, but heavily implied it. Many of us were disappointed when he announced he was running again, but conventional political wisdom that the incumbent has a massive advantage was still a compelling argument. For an incumbent to be forced out is nearly unheard of in presidential politics.
Even after the debate, I was willing to lend Biden the benefit of the doubt insofar as I considered him to be doing what HE believed to be the best chance of winning. When I learned that he had internal polling showing a total massacre long before the debate, my opinion soured from "Idiot, but I get it" to "Narcissistic moron who lost the country to fascism".
Harris started with strong support she could have, potentially, won with, but in the process of 'defining' herself to the electorate, chose what she saw to be the 'safest' choices in a attempt to not lose that lead. Unfortunately, that lead was largely built on possibility, and in the process of defining herself, especially defining herself in the 'safest' possible way, obliterated the ability of all people to see her as all things, and cratered her chances of success. She would have probably had more success with at least a vague argument of change rather than "I can't think of anything I'd do differently [than Biden]", even if it created bad blood between her and the president. Whether that would have been enough to win, God only knows, but I think we can all look back and say, at this point, that the 'safe' choices were not, in any way, safe.
Tbh honest I was surprised Biden was even a consideration back in 2020, he was too old even then and it made the criticisms of Trump's age and mental health not land so well. The moment it was a close call in 2020 the plan should have been 'popular dem by any means necessary'. Not, double down on aging incumbent when they rarely do better on re-election. I can't tell it if was hubris or a complete failure of the party apparatus to believe it could come up with someone more appealing than Trump..
She would have probably had more success with at least a vague argument of change rather than "I can't think of anything I'd do differently [than Biden]", even if it created bad blood between her and the president.
Exactly! She should have thrown Biden under the bus! He's done with politics, his polling no longer matters and fuck his feelings. She should have used it as an opporitunity to highlight all the shit people dislike about him and promise to do differently. She should have used trashing him as a springboard to promise to be better. Instead, she just promised to be Biden 2.0 when nobody even liked Biden to begin with.
It seems like your take on the Harris campaign, boiled down, is basically that they tried to optimize for center too hard? And should have gone farther left? I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth, that's how it reads to me.
I agree. Like you said it's impossible to know how that would've turned out, but after seeing this last election, hard not to conclude that Dems need to start spitting some fire and getting spicy. This milquetoast party of reasonable takes really isn't getting anything done.
Sure they'd lose some (many) moderates, and I bet they've polled and "determined" that they'd lose more votes than they'd gain, but polls can't capture the momentum generated by a movement for change, the potential support is de facto unobservable under current conditions.
Regardless, even when Dems "win", it seems little changes. Really wish they'd start swinging for the fences and see what sticks.
Edit to add - I agree with your post as well, don't want to (yet again) hyper focus on Dems-the-party
That tracks. I was hopeful that Harris would put some more distance between Israel and us than Biden had (not a big or difficult ask, I thought). Her consistant distancing from any Palestinian-adjacent ideas really put the nail in that coffin.
She was either disappointing or unnoteworthy on most other fronts, but I voted for her anyway.
Well you see the Democrats are a gerontocracy and if they pushed him out then they could do the same to someone like Pelosi. Don't you know it's their god given right to die in office after years of going senile on live TV?
The Democrats used to promise real change and progress, but they've only proven themselves to be the party of stagnation in recent memory. Nowadays they don't even try to inspire their base, but rather scare them into submission with the threat of Trumpism.
Sure it's better than the rapid decline into chaos that the order party is trending towards but this pattern of "a couple careful steps forward then a dozen strides sprinting backwards" isn't working for Americans. Many of us have lost faith in the system because the system doesn't work for us. What's worse is that when we get a candidate who speaks to us, the Democratic establishment shuts them down with more efficacy than they ever seem to direct towards any of the Right's regressive politics.
While I still fall in line and vote for somebody who I am not excited or inspired by in a seemingly futile effort to hold the line, many others have given up because their struggles aren't being addressed or even acknowledged. You can yell at them and criticize them until you're blue in the face but I can guarantee you they're either so tuned out that they'll never hear it or so dug into their own political ideals that they won't receive it.
If you want their vote, you're going to have to earn it.
If you want their vote, you’re going to have to earn it.
"The Dems need to change" and "Allowing fascism is not okay" are not mutually exclusive positions, and I hold to both.
I think you're right and that's ultimately why I voted for Harris but as your original point says either apathy or ignorance amongst many other Americans has grown to the extent that they are willing to risk declining into fascism.
Are we going to change that by telling them to stop being apathetic/ignorant and that fascism is bad? Because that seems to have been the primary strategy the Dems have run over the last decade and the only time it's worked for them was when the effects of Trump's incompetence was unavoidably present in the minds of Americans. I'd rather we not depend on another catastrophe to win the next election, assuming we will have one.
I think those two statements are about two different things: on is about blame, the other is about course of action.
People who voted for fascists got duped/are into fascism, but you still have to convince them to chose otherwise because what is the alternative?
Yeah, this is the correct comment. We can't control voters, but the Democratic party can control itself, and we can exert influence over it. Blaming voters can only work as a sort of stress relief, but it isn't useful. It doesn't put us in a position to win the next election. If anything, it probably does the opposite and makes those people hate us.
Pug its only been a month
Go back to sleep and enjoy the last month of Biden doing fuck all about any of the core problems that Trump is about to expand a thousand times.
This meme even contradicts itself. If its already known there's a limit to reason, why didn't the Democrats utilize this like the Republicans did? Obama lied about a ton of crap to get votes and everyone was still happy. All of a sudden the DNC has moral compass that prevents them from properly pandering to voters but full send genocide is worth losing all three branches of the federal government over.
Do people not realize that without legislative backing the President's powers to make long term and lasting change are extremely limited and nil? Like how he pursued student loan relief and got blocked by the Supreme Court?
Biden has never had a true majority in Congress, the senate was always 50/50 at best and even then two of those were DINOs with one of them fully switching to GOP in the last year. Scream all you want about Biden not doing anything but there really isn't anything else he can't legally do without Congress or Supreme Court just stopping his plan before it can even be publicly known. You want to see change with an actual leftist government in the US? Then fucking vote. Not just every 4 years in Presidential elections. but in midterms and special elections too. Find out who your state representatives are and vote in those elections too. If you don't know who represents you from the local level of city council all the way up to US House and Senate then you've really got no room to criticize the DNC for being paralyzed in not wanting to upset the voters they actually can get to turn out to the polls.
I don't know about anybody else's state, but my state was gerrymandered to extremes. I agree that there are a lot of voters who need to do their jobs, but there's a lot of underhandedness going on to make sure voters have less power.
This meme even contradicts itself. If its already known there’s a limit to reason, why didn’t the Democrats utilize this like the Republicans did?
Because the Dems are fucking morons. This isn't an excuse for the Dems. This is a reminder that voters are at fault too, and that allowing fascism is not magically okay just because the Dems are spineless gutless weasels.
(TLDR the first two paragraphs this turned to a novel of a rant)
this is stupid as fuck. no. it's on the dems. the reason they lost is because they don't mind losing. they're corporate cunts anyway, if they're not in power they'll still be comfortable so why even pretend to challenge the status quo and possibly scare away your bribers?
fuck no. the american people are stupid, yes, but it's not like that's genetic. they've been undereducated, overworked, constantly distracted and endlessly bombarded with propaganda for decades at this point.
politicians are allowed to work for companies they regulate and regulate companies they used to work for. they're allowed to be bribed legally as long as you call it lobbying and don't have "I will pass this law in exchange for this money" in writing. they're allowed to lie to the public without consequence.
the media is allowed to lie without consequence even when it's provable that they know they're lying. every day for years. lie. lie. lie.
the dumbest fucks alive are allowed to homeschooled their children and make sure their kids are at least as dumb.
not that schools are perfect. they are allowed to push religion and politics over science. meanwhile churches are allowed to give political sermons and still keep tax exempt status (technically not but in practice they are).
even with all this brainwashing it's not like people are allowed to think for themselves for a minute let alone research shit and stay on top of political issues. wages are ass and lots of people have to work multiple jobs. even if they don't companies aren't mandated to have PTO, not even for federal holidays. they're not mandated to raise wages either, even though rent always keeps rising.
just in case some people still might feel a bit too comfortable most are also blessed with crushing debt for the garbage education they got and the healthcare industry is just waiting for the chance to fuck them over if they ever dare get sick, let alone have an accident. you're not allowed to think, you're not allowed to breathe. work. crash. consume to feel barely good enough to keep working.
and on top of all of that, even if you manage to get through all that hurdle... voting is a privilege, not a right. especially if you're likely to vote blue, the system is in place to make your chances to vote as low as possible.
and even then, you have the electoral college and the senate to make sure a bunch of rock and dirt has as much say as millions of people on one side. which leaves tons of people to think why even bother?
so with all that, when everything is bad, and everyone is lying, as one of only two eligible parties you can't just throw your hands up and say "why aren't people more educated?" IT'S YOUR FUCKING JOB! people are hurting and one side is saying "hey I know everything sucks and you don't know how anything works so here's an easy answer: it's black and brown people" and the other side instead of correcting THAT, they're trying to correct THE PEOPLE and their justified feelings about how everything sucks and say "nah things are good actually"... fuck the democratic party.
"I am speaking"
Both can be true
1 ) public ignorance is a widespread social force not a personal character fault that happens to individually affect the majority of the population.
2 ) This attitude of moral contempt is actively repellent to the people we need to reach out to, who do not subscribe to your premise. A lot of people don't think they are fascists - they are wrong, but they'll still look at you funny unless you can do a damn good job of making the argument. The Dems couldn't, the media couldn't, and nobody is watching it anyway. WE have to do it. Make better arguments and reach out to people instead of circlejerking and making our opponents arguments for them.
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