Kamala should have primaried. She was not who democrats wanted. We are sick to fucking death of democrats constantly sliding to the right to offer concessions. Start shutting shit down, throw tantrums, filibuster the fuck outta things. Its all MAGA understands.
Only thing that came across from Kamala’s campaign was that she being not Donald Trump is the only reason to vote for her.
The democrats snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
It was their apathy that allowed Trump to go unpunished. It was their decision to run Biden again, breaking a promise and preventing democratic primaries to find the best candidate. It was their decision to muzzle Walz. It was Kamela’s decision to nuzzle up to conservatives in hope of getting their votes. It was their call whether or not to investigate Trump and Elon for fixing the polls.
Trump is a horrible person and politician. However, his sheer aggressiveness comes off as more genuine than the fairweather triangulation that the Democratic leadership loves so much.
We need dedicated progressives, not halfhearted centrists. People who give a damn.
If I’ve noticed anything about Dems/mainstream liberals… it’s that they are smug as hell and seem to think their ideas are so perfect and pure that they sell themselves. They absolutely refuse to sell their ideas or campaign on them… which it makes it seem to teh average person they are either condescending pricks, or have none.
BTW, Obama was not like this, nor was Clinton. Hence their sweeping victories. But the dem leadership and most dem voters seem to think ‘being on the right side of history’ means they don’t have to appeal to voters… because if the voters don’t vote for them they are ‘bad people’.
It’s not even about centrism or not. It’s about actually doing politics instead of sitting on your ass and blaming voters for not voting for you. Trump did the politics. His team and him targeted disgrunted americans of all flavors… and got their votes by appealing to them and telling them what they wanted to hear.
Meanwhile Kamala was lecturing the American public how great the economy was… while prices were exploding and the middle/lower classes fall further and further behind.
BTW, Obama was not like this, nor was Clinton
Important clarification: Bill Clinton was not. Hillary absolutely came off that way
Who really gives a fuck who the dem nominee was. Vote in that person then work for the change you want. Trump winning makes working for the thing you want much harder while adding a generation of damage on top of it. Probably more than a generation.
“People didn’t want to vote for me” isn’t the defence you think it is
Harris supporters will do anything but admit she was a bad candidate, and the reason she was a bad candidate was she ran a horrible campaign that was tone deaf and it’s talking points were alien to the average working-class voter.
Democrats did this same idoitic crap in 2004, and in 2016. And act like Obama was some sort of political genius… he wasn’t. He just gave speeches and ran a campaign that gave people something to give a shit about. Unlike Kerry, Clinton, and Harris. Biden lacked charisma, but nostalgia factor and his appeal to lifelong appeal working-class americans, which obama capitalized on.
Democrats need to stop being so stupid and arrogant. But it seems most of the party are entrenched out of touch idiots.
I both think she was a bad candidate AND blame apathic voters. Regardless of how bad a candidate she was we could all see the writing on the wall of where we would end up if Donnie got in and they still decided to stay home. Protesting by not voting is like proving guns kill people by playing Russian roulette.
voters are apathetic by default. you have to give them something to care about. Donnie gave them something to care about, so they voted for him.
The problem is people would rather complain when the bad things that were obviously going to happen come to pass rather than swallow their pride and go against their morals. The number of people I know that chose to stay home on the Gaza issue alone is mind boggling. Dems had plenty to care about after seeing the first Trump term and decided they had enough wiggle room to do some moral grandstanding. They chose poorly.
I can’t relate directly to Gaza non-voters. But I remember the first woman’s march during 2017, and I asked several people who went if they voted. about 3/5 said no. Apparently protesting/marching but not voting is how you win elections in these people’s minds.
Sadly it seems APPEARING to care is more important than actually protecting our country. I guess they have a lot in common with the majority of elected democratic politicians. Maybe people will have a wake up call after this but I’m not hopeful. I will however keep hoping AND striving for a better future.
yep. 100%. they legit don’t give a fuck, but everything they do is about appearing to care. it’s deeply cynical approach to politics. actual polciy and law making don’t matter, lip service to the cause du jour is everything
i don’t think it was this bad 10-20 years ago. social media hypercharged that reality is nothing more than appearances and truth and substance have zero value. and the populace laps it up like candy.
I think all she had to do was denounce the Israeli genocide and let voters know she was going to stand up to Israel.
just dont mention it, wouldve been enough. plus she had cards stacked against her from the start that was out of her control.
out of her control
I don’t buy this. Yes, I blame a lot of Trump’s victory on Biden, but I think Harris absolutely could have done something about it. She could have stopped Biden’s campaign cold by saying she didn’t believe he should run for a second term
Instead she went along with it, repeatedly stating she thought he was fit to run again. Either she is a poor judge of character or blatantly lied. Either way she supported a doomed campaign until it was too late for an actual primary
just dont mention it
She was being criticized for not mentioning it until people started demanding an answer and threatening to withhold their vote over her silence.
Yeah she would have been way better off not even aknowledging it.
She either lost the Zionist donations or the support of the youth depending on if she acknowledged the genocide. She could have avoided the whole choice if she avoided it.
Yeah let’s report on Harris’ book tour and not the pedopsycho oligarchs dismantling our nation.
If you can’t inspire people to vote for you the problem is you. I don’t know why she thinks that’s a good defense.
because democrats/leftists love to blame the public for being ‘ignorant’.
as if anyone/everyone should go to college and that will make them a democrat/liberal. it doesn’t, and it won’t.
instead of, maybe listening to the public and giving a message they can get behind? hmm I wonder which candidate did that and won handily…
Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats will someday realize that political parties are supposed to stand for something other than “what are you gonna do, vote Republican?”
If people didn’t vote for you, it’s because you didn’t appeal to them. Don’t blame the voters for not liking the shitty options presented. Actually represent the people, not the donors and consultants, and you might get some traction.
After this being the status quo for the last 50 years, I’m starting to think the Democrats are an opposition party.
Good to see this take without 100 down votes.
Dems offered zero leadership, just an anti-Trump.
Dems need an actual leader.
Infrastructure, student loan forgiveness, improving economy, sane leadership that doesn’t result in almost daily headlines about the next worst thing happening, environmental stewardship through green energy initiatives, opposition to the Palestinian genocide…
None of that was enough? Had to go full MAGA, huh?
Ah yes, I definitely went full MAGA.
No, I voted for her, just like I always vote for the Dems. But I also understand why she lost, and the Democratic party’s tendency to blame the voters rather than self-reflect is exactly why we’re in the situation we are.
Not everyone who doesn’t like Kamala is Maga.
If that was her platform she would have won the election
This is lemmy and you better blame the voters that were empathetic to Palestinians undergoing genocide or else. >:(
You can’t honestly think Palestine would have been worse off under Harris. Trump has put zero pressure on Israel and has plans to turn the Gaza strip into a resort for the ultra rich
who did you vote for?
Kamala, begrudgingly. Just like how I voted for Biden and Clinton. I live in a swing state, so I felt like voting tactically mattered.
Exactly. No one I know wanted to vote for an ex cop, but it better than a current felon, pedophile, rapist, demented septuagenarian
Who did you vote for?
she’s not wrong.
around 30% of Americans refused or failed to vote in the 2024 election. had they voted, we would probably be seeing Trump and his gaggle of shitbirds thrown in jail.
“oh Israel!” stfu. nobody actually believes that bullshit anymore. it’s clearly been worse under Trump, fuckbrains.
Roughly speaking, the quality of a politician is ranked on their ability to govern, and on their ability to get votes. One or the other isn’t good enough, it has to be both. In Kamala’s case she was marginally better than Trump in one, and marginally worse in the other. Democrats must do much better in both.
As for Israel, there is no reason whatsoever to think it would be any better under Harris. Biden was an ideological Zionist who was never going to put real pressure on Israel. Every indication was that Harris would be more of the same. Trump, through no ideology other than serving his own ego, might have actually done better than either of them ever would have.
95% of Congress is supports israeli. and the 5% that doesn’t is too out there to ever be a popular candidate for the presidency.
but moral purists want to bang on about gaza as if it’s some critical issue
A majority of American voters want the US to stop sending any support, military or otherwise, to Israel. Among Democratic voters that rises to 75%. I’m sorry that opposing genocide is too puritanical for your tastes, but you are completely out of touch with what is or isn’t “popular”.
cool, the stat i just looked up from a week ago says only 1/3 of americans disagree with military aid to israeli. and that’s from pew research. 1/3 don’t know, and the other 1/3 think we should support them more.
but keep making up your own facts I guess?
Mine come from a Quinnipiac poll. No matter what polling you use though, there is a pretty remarkable shift against Israel every time they do another poll. Nobody would have predicted that 1/3 a couple years ago.
“oh Israel!” stfu. nobody actually believes that bullshit
100% I highly doubt the motives of these people, makes me think they have some other agenda going on. Makes no sense they’d prefer this shit over Harris.
It’s not always a strictly logical choice for people. I can totally see how someone with family there would be unable to vote for either candidate. Yes, I was personally able to see my vote as anti trump, but if things were similar under a harris presidency I’d spend my whole life having to reconcile the fact that I did indeed vote for genocide (even if it was justified in my mind at the time). Not everyone wants to do that. And if I can see that problem I don’t understand how professional politicians can’t. People weren’t saying ‘dont vote for her cause genocide’ they were saying ‘some people won’t vote for her cause genocide, maybe enough to swing the thing’ - and they were right. I don’t know why we’re attacking them again and again when they were clearly right.
I get your point, but I’m strictly talking about people on this website whom I probably wrongly assume are more literate about politics and can see right through Trump based on the trends of thought on Lemmy. You can’t tell me that a platform devoted to USA politics that vehemently criticizes his hypocrisy and lies doesn’t realize he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth while doing exactly what Biden would’ve done, but worse.
It seems awfully convenient to US enemies that people on online forums would prefer genocide with their destructive fascism rather than plain old genocide, while actively playing down both under this administration. This shit makes no sense.
Bots, troll farm employees and the truly gullible appreciate you respecting them enough to call them people.
“people who care about genocide aren’t even human”
BlueMAGA loyalists do not care about mass genocide, so they can’t imagine anyone who does could actually be sincere. Pure projection.
Ah, because there’s no genocide happening right now. Right. Also, I’m not American so miss me with your pointless partisan rhetoric. Keep defending pedophiles and the destruction of the US, though. You saved Palestine!
Completely incoherent
Just making shit up, huh. I’m not the one getting downvoted, broski. No wonder I got you at -9 already, probably from saying nonsense like this often.
I’m not the one getting downvoted, broski.
Jesus Christ, go back to Reddit
Why, because I’m saying the points matter? Can you really not think of a sensible reason why I’m saying that? Hint: It signals community agreement over your bullshit. Simple fucking as.
Not surprised, coming from someone with this level of reactionary-ass takes who thinks Trump would’ve handled Gaza any differently. Yet here we still are, but worse. Congrats, you saved Gaza!
Israel’s great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas’s terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States. This is the primary significance of implementing the agreed-upon principle of demilitarizing Gaza and neutralizing Hamas of its weapons. I have instructed the IDF to prepare for carrying out the mission.
Defense Minister Israel Katz, October 12, 2025
Oh, whoops, more bombing planned supervised by the USA. Look how safe it is now.
. it’s clearly been worse under Trump, fuckbrains.
No, you were just a genocide denier when it was the democrats doing it
fucking book tour. of course.
Losers blame everything but themselves.
The person who never won a primary is complaining about low voter turnout in a general election. Now THAT’S fucking rich!
I’m convinced she was picked because DNC leadership is on Trump’s payroll.
Never even came close to winning a primary but overnight she’s “our gal,” yeah fucking right.
It was so shameless too, the reddit botting must have been like half of her campaign funds. She had those idiots so gaslit they thought it was going to be a landslide in her favor.
We’re cooked because Democrat leadership is just controlled opposition.
I don’t know about being on Trump’s payroll, but they’re definitely on the same team. The scam is to send in the republicans to sack the country, then the democrats to build it back up for another sacking.
Now THIS is a valid criticism. Don’t forget her campaign started a hundred days before the election
I hate to say it, but she’s right. Trump was very clear about his plans. Anyone paying attention knew what was going to happen. Any sane person with a pulse would have won the election if the public wasn’t so apathetic, ignorant, and/or misinformed.
“I only lost the election because people didn’t vote for me” is so something anyone who lost an election can say and technically be “right”.
The only candidate that mattered was Trump. Literally any Democrat would be a better option.
It mattered that Democrats didn’t run a campaign that could actually win
What I am saying is the Democrats were irrelevant. It didn’t matter who they ran. It didn’t matter what their policy was. Not being Trump should have been enough to win by a landslide if people weren’t too misinformed or apathetic.
If you care about beating Trump, then whether the Democrats ran a campaign that could win is extremely relevant.
Not being Trump should
Ok, but it’s not.
if the public wasn’t so apathetic, ignorant, and/or misinformed.
I don’t think all of the apathy is inherent. Some of that’s on her and the democratic party demoralizing their constituents. Yes, following game theory it is in their best interest to vote for the lesser evil and against the greater evil. I am politically active and I get that, so I voted.
Regardless, it still bothers me that a not insignificant portion of the Democratic party also knows this and takes advantage of this by coasting and doing the bare minimum. They seem more willing to spend their resources countering internal threats from progressives. It’s not easy to stay motivated to support a party openly hostile to your own values.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them would rather have a fascist opponent. Then voting comes down to, basically, vote for me because the alternative is fascism. How dare you question my policies (or lack thereof) or my soft stance our ally’s obvious genocide? I’m your only hope. Vote for me or else.
It only works for so long, then apathy takes over.
But doesn’t that just prove the point? These shitty Dems are allowed to exist because people don’t vote.
Yes, in part, and also because the party is actively trying to prevent those voters from getting the progressive candidates they want. It’s more blatant these days (Bush, Bowman, Mamdani) than it has been in the past, but it was still happening. They don’t want pressure from the left. They broke their promise to not support primary opponents (over incumbents) specifically when progressives started gaining ground. Many are openly hesitant to endorse Mamdani now if they aren’t openly skeptical or critical. Vote blue no matter who, eh?
More specially, people don’t vote in primaries or local elections.
Not that we really got a presidential primary in 2024, but yes.
Yeah… more thinking back to 2020 on the general. Not that we had that many options by the time they made it to my state.
The average American reads at a 7th grade reading level. You can bitch about it being the electorate’s fault when you lose an election, but there have always been uneducated voters and there always will be. If you’re a politician, you need to be able to reach all kinds of people; not just those with graduate degrees.
Literacy is less of a problem than the ability to determine a reliable source. There have always been undereducated people and dishonest journalists, but the spreading of misinformation has expanded to an unprecedented degree. A large portion of the population lives in a fictional reality built by propagandists. We can’t even agree on objective facts anymore.
Democrats think doing politics is beneath them. They just need to be marginally better than Republicans and if they don’t get elected then it’s the voter’s fault.
It’s neither of those three. People thought they had the moral high ground by not voting for either evil. These people weren’t apathetic, ignorant, or misinformed. They were evil, selfish, and shortsighted.
They were evil, selfish, and shortsighted.
Literally the opposite on all three but go off ig
I’m so fucking tired of that spin.
It’s like a restaurant owner who offered a crappy menu of poorly cooked food that nobody wanted in the first place blaming the restaurant’s failure on the people who refused to eat there.
Now add the ONLY alternative to that restaurant is a puppy smashing pudding shop. You have to pick one(or let your relatives pick for you). I guess we got puppy goo pudding.
It is specifically a Dim Sum restaurant, and the DNC rolled out the same shitty cold unwanted dim sum on the carts with a side of Liz Cheney to try and make it appetizing to Maga chuds.
Maga chuds don’t go to dim sum restaurants and your actual patrons don’t want cold shit and Liz Cheney. No wonder your restaurant gets voted last place in a two person race.
… Except the alternative was someone shitting on all of the food in the county.
Crazy they did even worse than that
But dems find a way
Which is exactly why the Democrat establishment should’ve done a better job of appealing to voters.
The option being “not a fascist” should have been enough for people. But looks like people don’t have any sense of self preservation.
Let’s say I agree with you - it should’ve been enough.
So ? How does that make a fucking bit of difference? Everybody with a working brain knew already, after 2016 and 2020, that there was some notable chance that, like it or not, it wasn’t going to be enough.
And the solution was easy - the whole thing could’ve been avoided just by offering up a candidate who wasn’t a pro-zionist, pro-corporate, pro-billionaire slimeball. Yes - maybe the case can be made that people should vote for a pro-zionist pro-corporate pro-billionaire slimeball when the alternative is a deranged fascist, but the simple fact is that there’s some number of people who, in that situation, are just going to say “fuck it” and stay home instead.
And anybody with a working brain who even briefly considered the matter had to know that that was the case.
Which means that anyone who thought that was a good strategy anyway is a fucking moron at best, and they and nobody else deserve the blame for following such a dumbass strategy.
Except the only options were corporate fascism or national fascism. Yeah, she was the better choice, but the democrats are a right wing fascist party by corporations. They make people not want to vote for them because they aren’t doing anything to improve our lives. At least Republicans lied to their voters that they would change things for them.
Then the democrats should have offered a “not a fascist” option
Except the ones that they cook at home, so they just stayed in.
Your analogy would be better in Australia where voting is compulsory.
The ones that stayed home still get shit in their food
You may not pay attention to politics but politics sure will pay attention to you.
And I’m so fucking tired of this “both sides” nonsense.
When the choice is between a politician you don’t like and a fucking fascist, the choice is clear. Well it should be. But there are people upset that there are “no good choices” so they just let the worst happen. No sense of self preservation, just complain that the choice that wasn’t fascism wasn’t good enough. It should be enough that it prevents fascism, but here we are, with people like you.
No, this is like there being two items in the menu, one that you don’t love and one that will poison you, and people have a hard time deciding for some reason.
The issue is in your analogy you’re upset at the people who just decide it’s not worth going to the restaurant at all. We need to give them an option they actually wouldn’t mind eating. Until then they’re just gonna keep deciding not to eat. That or we make voting compulsory.
“both sides”
lol
What is that - the Democrat apologist all-purpose strawman? You just call every point of view you desperately want to dismiss out of hand a “both sides” position?
I didn’t “both sides” anything.
My point is very simple - if the Democrats want people to vote for their candidate, they have to offer a candidate people want to vote for.
It’s really just that simple.
And if they can’t be bothered to even do that, then that’s their fault and nobody else’s.
And yes - if course you believe that people who didn’t vote for the somewhat less objectionsble pro-genocide, pro-corporate, pro-billionaire slimeball are awful, stupid fuck-ups - that’s the official Democratic spologist line that gets trotted out just like clockwork every time the subject comes up, and the exact spin I was talking about.
But here’s a bit of news for you and the DNC and the rest of their apologists - it doesn’t fucking matter what you think. The simple fact is that, for whatever reason and entirely regardless of your views on the matter, some significant number of people who would otherwise have voted for the Democrat candidate if they’d been an actual leftist are going to say “fuck it” and stay home if you try to push a sleazy neo-lib hack on them instead. It doesn’t matter what you think about it - that’s what they’re going to do.
They might well be just as ignorant and short-sighted and awful as you self-affirmingly want to believe them to be, and it still doesn’t matter in the slightest, because that’s how they are and that’s what they’re going to do and that’s just the way it is.
And if you go ahead and try to pish a sleazy neo-lib hack on them anyway, then you’re a fucking moron ar best.
Your argument is they didn’t win because they didn’t win. Clearly that’s true, but it was also clearly a choice by the electorate and a stupid one. Could the democrats have done better - we can’t know. If they had moved progressive, they may have lost centrist votes. Should they have had a white male populist candidate? It likely would have helped, but is that really a good way to go? If we accept that the dems were a better option for the majority but lost, then it comes down to education, or more specifically: media control. The repubs win because of their control of mass media. It doesn’t really matter if the dems have the best candidate by far; the right wing media system will villainize them; and people like you will be programmed to say they are bad and not worth a vote.
It should be enough that it prevents fascism
It doesn’t, though, and that’s the problem
Exactly. Copmala and the Democrats love rolling over for fascists.
a politician you don’t like and a fucking fascist
Holocaust Harris was also a fascist
Removed by mod
Man, you people are just fascists now, you realize? You support genocide and accuse anyone who doesn’t of being an agent of the Judeo-Bolshevick plot.
This is the worst analogy I’ve ever seen
You wish.
Yeah if people clearly understood if they dont eat this shit food then theyll be eating litteral shit. But time after time its clear most people are stupider then anyone could imagine.
