Biden followed Trump so it was fresh in everyone’s minds how awful he was
What about Joe Biden made him sufficiently left while Kamala Harris wasn’t?
-Joe Biden wasn’t campaigning to finish building Trump’s wall. Or saying that actually it was a good idea to build the wall and the only problems were just that Trump said Mexico was going to pay for it and that he didn’t finish the job.
-Joe Biden wasn’t campaigning on being pro-fracking. And bragging about how he was the tie breaking vote for the IRA, which leased new land for fracking. (I understand there was more to this act, but Harris points to it as a way to show she supports fracking)
-At the time the genocide in Gaza hadn’t ramped up and gotten as much publicity as has now, so we didn’t get to hear Joe Biden’s stance on it.
-Joe Biden wasn’t calling to ensure America has the “strongest most lethal fighting force in the world”.
-Joe Biden didn’t align himself with the Cheneys.
You see that 10 million more Democrats voted for Biden, but stayed home for Harris and you believe the problem is with the people and not the candidate? Now granted, racism and sexism played a role in this for sure. But to attribute that much of a difference just to that? Most of the people that are deeply racist and sexist are already voting for Trump because he supports those ideas. And from what I’ve seen, the Republican voters stayed pretty consistent from last election. It was mainly a dip in Democratic voters. If the problem is with the voters and not just that Harris was an incredibly weak candidate, then why do you believe that many more people voted last election?
Biden would not have won if we weren’t also in the middle of the greatest global pandemic in a century that the incumbent Trump administration was handling terribly.
Seriously what did you expect after 4 years of genocide joe?
More importantly I can’t believe libs are still vote shaming (about “commies” lmao) a week after their garbage candidate got blown out.
Never going to learn.
I don’t mean to offend you, but you were divided and conquered.
The Republicans found a topic to divide you on. The left-wing coalition collapsed (while the right wing consolidated) and you were conquered.
Because Biden was to the left of Harris, and Gaza wasn’t a big issue? Like yeah, the people who didn’t vote did so because of Harris’ move to the right
you, sir, were divided an conquered.
This whole Election is a perfect case study of divide and conquer.
What got people to vote for Biden but not Harris? A dire need. Not voting for Biden meant that Trump stayed in office. Even though the stakes were the same, too many people sat on the couch thinking it was going to happen again and they didn’t have to go.
Negative. That the democratic candidate had a vagina and breasts is why ten million people sat home.
I think it’s a result of the “divide and conquer” game the republicans played. Stichwort Israel and Palestine.
I’ve heard the following arguments, I’m ordering them in the way I think they effect an election.
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Elon musk buyout and the AI lockdown of social media, and banning of tiktok have all had the effect to fracture democratic/leftist messaging (fault: dems, biden, musk, reddit, people who stayed on x. Affected groups: young people, people who are hard to reach with ads)
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The primary election is basically undivertable campaign time for democrats. The lack of primary campaigns and debates means harris had less time to build support and a base (fault biden, affected groups: everyone).
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Lack of economic excitement around policies and a shutdown of effective messaging on price gouging in favor of saying a former president will surely destroy the country this time. (fault Harris, donors effect, likely low turnout on younger people)
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Lack of demographic excitement around key policies. Latinos: Immigration. Muslims: Israel. (fault biden/harris, effect low turnout in key groups)
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Wasteful campaign spending on republicans: Courting Liz Cheney and buying ads to woo republicans at best wasted money and at worst is a giveaway to telecoms who immediately donated it to republicans(fault Harris, effect waste)
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Covid provided a boost in 2020 that no longer exists
8 should be way higher. You can be sexist and not like Trump, and not vote because of it. I’d also add high on that list: rampant and nonstop right wing propoganda in all media formats (news, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc.) with no equivalent left leaning alternative. It should come as no surprise that young men are leaning right when casual mysogony and racism flood the content they watch, even when the content itself isn’t strictly political.
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Crazy how mail in voting was universal in 2020. Then we had states pass a slew of laws to make it increasingly difficult, and turnout slumped.
bad post, the flaw is OP’s assertion that Biden “set commies on fire”
COVID brought universal early voting and Biden didn’t go mask off conservative and communicated at least a modicum of support for young people facing alienation and low income. that alone is enough to set normies working two jobs on fire. commies have so little to do with it it’s laughable.
(in my opinion) Biden-Harris probably had the opportunity to win over normies again despite Harris’ gender and race (normies are racist and sexist) but instead they spent the last year courting conservatives and nazis. they even forced Walz to silence his normally empathetic and empirically based positions on the border.
if mcdonalds runs an ad for the all new mcburger, and no one buys it? we generally will blame the advertising strategy or the product concept itself. but for some reason when we order a mcburger from the DNC and they deliver a fucking cold tortilla with runny egg on it, it’s “the people’s fault” there wasn’t a lot of buyers.
i voted for harris. she is by far the best candidate of the race. but i will not play pretend and hold her and biden blameless for their abject inattention to the communicated values of their constituents.
Ten Million commies in the US - lol - if only.
Flaunting your Dick Cheney endorsement isn’t being insufficiently left. Its political suicide.Covid is the reason democrats won in 2020, but they assumed they won because they’re geniuses. Instead of trying to appeal to voters, they just tried to tell people to vote against trump. Turns out that isn’t enough to motivate people when there isn’t a pandemic raging on that is making people’s lives miserable. Democrats really need to get their act together because 2028 won’t be against trump, so the “anyone but trump” strategy will be even more useless and all that time spent kissing the asses of ghouls like dick cheney just tells people that republicans are okay to vote for.
Well be lucky if there are elections any more after this term. He already said if he’s elected there won’t be another election. You think he’s joking? This mf isn’t giving up power willingly. And with his sycophantic base, you’d be surprised what he can accomplish.
I’m in literal fear for our country.
There’s no doubt that trump will be bad for the country, but he also says a lot of things like how he’d lock up hillary clinton. At this point all we can do is buckle up and hope for the best.
Yeah well what worries me is how badly he took giving up power last time. The only reason he even SOMEWHAT chilled the fuck out is because he knew he had a chance in 2024 to get it back.
If he gives it up this time it’s gone for good.
You don’t think he’s thought of nothing else this entire time? He’s definitely got plans to turn this bitch into a dictatorship. “I need more generals like Hitler had.”
The signs are all there.
It’s a possibility, but I wouldn’t say it’s guaranteed. Presidents enjoy an immunity that is not afforded to most others. He got impeached twice and has had a bunch of court cases against him but what has that meant? There is no chance in hell that democrats would actually pursue putting him in jail so basically he has no consequences to face. He’ll carry out his second term as president, do all sorts of awful things, and then he’ll leave without democrats pursuing any punishments. If george w bush can escape without being arrested as the war criminal that he is, then trump doesn’t stand a chance at punishment either, so he has no reason to install a dictatorship to save himself.
Speaking of george w bush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHVmJlMF_Lg
So yeah, I wouldn’t sweat an explicit dictatorship when the rich already completely control the system. It’s much easier to horde wealth while pretending we have a democracy and the pretense of legitimacy that brings than it is with an overt dictatorship. You can see this with people online making all sorts of excuses for this “democracy” of ours.
The pandemic of 2024 is corporate profiteering. A great example is Kroger admitting they raised prices higher than inflation for profit.
People generally blame the current administration for that. They are the one that kept trotting out stock market numbers and unemployment numbers, and acting like things are fine.
If they wouldnt even acknowledge the problem, how are they going to attract voters?
Thats not even bringing up gaza, but I dont think either candidate will change that situation in any way. The current administration is signaling they think this is a great opportunity to shake up the middle east for the benefit of western countries, cause colonialism can’t ever die I guess.
All trump ever said was end it, that it should be over already. Thats just as vague as kamala saying she will do everything in her power to end the war. They both could be implying to carpet bomb gaza, but we won’t know until we know right?
Neither candidate talked about why we should allow israel to lobby in our politics either.
True, but also the republicans won’t have a trump to vote for.
He really would be the God-Emperor then, a withered corpse figurehead.
Biden won by a really thin margin in swing states, the book Lucky went into detail about how close of a call it was, but he interpreted it as some huge popular win because of the high vote totals.
He flipped a couple of historically red states - Arizona and Georgia - for the first time in decades.
Should be noted that Dems still did reasonably well in these states and in downballot races. Same with the Midwest. Dem senators and governors won seats in states Harris lost.
Really makes you think.
Oh dang I didn’t know that about Dem seats in states that Harris lost. Here in PA the people may have voted out a LONG standing Democratic Senator because people showed up for Trump and then went right down the ballot.
Bernie.
Bernie was what got us to vote for Biden. Biden formed a comittee with Bernie and actually adopted a bunch of his ideas. That’s what got the left to vote for Biden.
That and all of us were reeling from the economy after coronavirus.
Meanwhile Harris told the left to fuck off with your Palestinians are human nonsense and tried to get the Liz Cheney constituency (that doesn’t exist).
Mean is no one going to call out the strategy for like the last month to possibly 3 months was her pandering as hard as she could to Republicans moderate and isolating the leftist Democratic base?
Of course not. Then they would have to learn that they can’t out Republican a Republican.
It was the promise that he could be negotiated to the left.
Instead Joe gave us a country producing the most oil and gas in world history, no movement on healthcare, etc.
The weather is going crazy because of the increase in fossil fuels Biden presided over.
He broke the deal that he could be brought left on economic/environmental/medical issues.
Kamala promised more of the same.
How can you expect anyone to trust the same deal from the VP that the P didn’t make good on?
Joe didn’t deliver, and Kamala didn’t promise anything new.
Four more years of wildfire.
Joe didn’t deliver, and Kamala didn’t promise anything new.
Joe delivered the Inflation Reduction Act. It invests hundreds of billions of dollars into various climate initiatives over 10 years. That includes renewable generation, grid storage, EV, and nuclear generation. Then there’s infrastructure investment, which included much needed investments in transit and intercity rail.
Yeah, best to go with the guy who says he thinks climate change is a liberal hoax
Believe Climate Change is real, but insist we can’t do anything to stop it as your base is driven insane by the loaming crisis.
Or deny climate change is happening and use your state agents to suppress dissenting views, so that people aren’t terrified all the time.
These are your only two choices.
Thats how our shitty elections work, yes.
But we all know you don’t give a shit, you probably didn’t even bother to register to vote. Joking about how few extra palestinians would die under trump in that other thread is kind of a giveaway you’re not interested in actually doing anything.
we all know you don’t give a shit
Every accusation is a confession
Ok, one side says it with actions, but the other says it with actions and words.
That sounds like one side being honest.
Drillin’ Joe was sure acting like it was a hoax!
I voted Kamala, but I understand sitting out.
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.”
You missed the second part: good men to do nothing, and your candidate to make a bunch of shitty shitty decisions.
Its utilitaritarian philosophy. Its saying if you stand by and do nothing an even worse person will do things in your name. The result of nonvoters here was trump. its rather explicit. By not voting “your guy” is whoever wins, aka Trump. That is the essence of the statement.
Bystanders have a duty to step in.
Michael Moore called Trump a Molotov Cocktail in 2016.
Project 2025 is going to reshape the federal government. It is structured as a new constitution. It defines the roles and checks/balances of various government agencies at greater specificity than the constitution.
We need to produce a progressive counter constitution that promises something better.
Project 2025 is a specific deal with America.
We need a better offer, and the people need to trust that the person running will enact it.
I agree with all that. I’m just asking you to stop coddling people who have made all our lives worse because they the prospect of voting vexes them. Do you think democrats will come up with better policies because they lost?
We’re now further from a better deal for america than we have been in a while.
Listen, as a brown person in America, just be honest.
You caea about the genocide of brown people elsewhere, just not here.
It’s OK, the vote is over, you don’t have to deny it anymore, we get it, it’s not like we’re surprised or anything, it’s basically America’s legacy.
The shocking part?
We thought you at least cared about women, but you’re literally no better than the racist sexist fascist neoconfederates that are proud to vote Trump.
Just be honest with your words, your actions already spoke the truth.
You caea about the genocide of brown people elsewhere, just not here.
What was Biden doing to stop the killing in his own country?
You’ve got states lawlessly executing innocent men. You’ve got women bleeding out on hospital floors because doctors don’t want to be convicted of doing an illegal abortion. Over a million COVID deaths and counting. The rollback of post-COVID economic relief combined with the spike in inflation has driven up national poverty and thrown thousands more Americans out on the street despite millions of vacant units. Storms are killing Americans. Power failures are killing Americans. Lack of pharmaceuticals are killing Americans. Police violence. Vigilantism. The oppressive heat.
Biden’s been in charge though it all.
Just be honest with your words, your actions already spoke the truth.
Right back atcha.
Ignorant moron.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/02/us/alabama-hanging-death-dennoriss-richardson/index.html
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/fbi-civil-rights-investigation-nc-police-shooting-1.6004160
There are hundreds of these investigations, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Chauvin was in 2021
Seriously, as a brown person, shut the fucking fuck up! You have no idea what living in this country under republicans is like, you can’t begin to imagine it and you need to take your privileged dick out of your overprivileged ass and realize what many of us are going to have to face now.
Literally have the KKK reforming in anticipation of his inauguration, it’s “good people on both sides” all over again.
Seriously, as a brown person, shut the fucking fuck up! You have no idea what living in this country under republicans is like
Tell it to Eric Adams, a man who took office under the Democratic flag and threw our people directly under the bus. Tell it to Lori Lightfoot, London Breed, John Whitmire - it seems like every Dem mayor has made it open season on the homeless and the vulnerable.
But you don’t want to see this, because you think politics is a spectator sport.
Literally have the KKK reforming in anticipation of his inauguration,
With the blessing of every law enforcement agency in the country, it seems.
Blue Lives Dems don’t seem to mind.
I could not dream of better evidence of a Lemming being a troll than replying to someone saying they’re scared for their life under the current political administration with “you think politics is a spectator sport”.
Dude you have problems.
Trump literally told the proud boys to stand by, called neo-nazis “good people” and I just don’t even get where you’re going.
Politics isn’t a sport, and the fuckers who didn’t vote deserve the blame because people will be hurt.
You’re the one who seems to be trying to make it a game.
… My actions of voting Harris? My actions of working to get others to vote?
It’s time to build a real alternative to America’s legacy of settler-colonialism, starting at a local level.
You realize the person you replied to already said they voted D…
Right?
But even if they didn’t explicitly state it, the ones who didn’t hold their nose aren’t going to be hanging out on political forums.
Why would they?
They’re politically disengaged because “both parties are the same”.
The way to get them involved is moving the party to the left, not the right like we have been. It’s always a great time to start, and the job is never over.
The billionaires won’t stop buying off both parties, we gotta try to save at least one party.
Yeah, given the choice between racism, mass deportations, mass incarcerations of trans people, and abuse of the office to punish his political opponents, and none of those things, I can definitely understand staying home too. They were really the same on all the other issues, and those are the ones that matter.
I didn’t do it, but I respect holding back in this election to demand a better option in the next one.
I hear the next election will be the most important and pivotal ever!
I hope the choices won’t be corpo trash and fascist dictator.
I hope the next time I’m trapped in a bus with ten other people, and we have a choice between driving the bus off a cliff and turning around and going back into town to get ice cream, I hope it’s a better flavor of ice cream. I voted ice cream this time, even though I hate rocky road. But the next time it better not be.
“But the dems say that every year!” You saw what Trump did the first time he was in office. You’ve seen how directly he can control all three branches of the federal government. You’ve heard what he promised to do this time around. How can anyone with more than six brain cells possibly justify staying home?
Kamala isn’t “getting the wrong ice cream flavor” compared to Trump.
She is still genocide, racism, incarceration, transphobia and the rest which you call Trump.
She just sugarcoats it.
The sugarcoating does make it palatable, but a palatable slavery to the rich is still a slavery to the rich.
I don’t want a country run by a few guys getting rich off of bombing and incarcerating.
If you talk to anyone affected by the proposed policies you’d know there’s a fucking lightyear of distance between the two. Its not sugar coating. You can measure the difference in gallons of human blood.
Gay and trans people are fucked by this. The supreme court is fucked by this. Ukraine is fucked by this. The climate is fucked by this. Immagrants are fucked by this. There’s now a real risk of entire cities in the US having the military used on them if they defy police. I’m sure you saw the people in portland being disappeared in vans during the riots there in 2020.
Every extra person that dies or suffers because of this shit is on the bloody hands of assholes that sat this election out because picking a lesser evil was too hard of a choice for their delicate constitutions.
You are doing all these people a disservice by trying to console them for being cowards and sitting things out. And they are cowards. The only sugar coating going on is to say they are not.
And now we need to toughen them up. Because they chose a more difficult path for everyone.
She is still racism, incarceration, transphobia and the rest which you call Trump.
[citation needed]
I don’t want a country run by a few guys getting rich off bombing and incarcerating.
No one does. But putting Kamala in office would have at least given us an easier conduit towards getting out of it.
Look, the Democrats have to own this loss, for once, like they should have last time. It is clearly insufficient to try and frighten democratic supporters with a probability of fascism which we’ve never experienced before. It is clearly insufficient to abandon the working class as they have for so long. We should never fund or promote far right candidates in primaries. The media should not provide free coverage for outrage candidates to drive viewershop. It is clearly a mistake to try and court conservative voters, because hardly any have ever crossed over. It was certainly a mistake for Biden to run again, and then to drop out so late, far too late to have a primary.
Maybe the fact she is a minority woman turned people off. I don’t know. It’s a stupid reason not to run women, but that possibility exists.
But it damn sure isn’t the only reason we lost.
