[alt text: a screenshot of a tweet by @delaney_nolan, which says, “Biden/Harris saw this polling and decided to keep unconditionally arming Israel”. Below the tweet is a screenshot from an article, which states: “In Pennsylvania, 34% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withold weapons to Israel, compared to 7% who said they would be less likely. The rest said it would make no difference. In Arizona, 35% said they’d be more likely, while 5% would be less likely. And in Georgia, 39% said they’d be more likely, also compared to 5% who would be less likely.”]
They made their decisions and you made yours. If you decided that we’d be better off with Trump, that’s on you. Own it.
Putting Trump in office makes Gaza worse. He’s promised us as much. Maybe you proved a point to the Democrats, and maybe you didn’t. Maybe now they’ll lean even harder to the center. Who knows. That’s a gamble you took, and you made steep sacrifices to make that gamble.
Gambling with someone’s life to make a political point does not make you their ally.
I’m sorry, did you personally count my ballot? Or are you just making assumptions about me?
Nah. I’m blaming our American people for this shit. Isreal or not, it was absolutely stupid and embarrassing to let that senile dumbass back into the white house. I would have rather had a slice of buttered bread running the country than this embarrassment.
So so so many people keep pointing at Trump and saying “But he’s the worst/we’re all doomed/holy shit you need to vote blue no matter who” and comments about “perfect being the enemy of the good” so we should hold our nose and support Democrats.
I feel like I’m the only person who remembers how hyperbolic we all were about Mitt Romney or John McCain being existential threats to democracy. South Park literally made fun of everybody at the time pointing at how running such a divisive campaign let them distract the public from their real goal of stealing the Hope Diamond (obviously). How many of us would BEG for Romney at the top of the Republican ticket at this point?
So sure, Trump is the threat now. When are we supposed to stop rewarding mediocre neoliberalism then? If it wasn’t 2016 or 2020 or 2024 then when? Trump will eventually die and some new Republican will take his place as the leader of the party. EVERY Republican will be the next existential threat and we’ll be scolded and told to hold our nose yet again and vote for the Democrat. If someone can tell me the “end date” where I don’t have to choose between the lesser of two evils, I’d love to know when that is.
I don’t blame other citizens for voting how they do. Everyone has to decide for themselves their red lines for support and in the privacy of the voting booth who they want to support. I do blame Democratic leadership for not learning a single lesson from 2016 about hand picking candidates and browbeating everyone into thinking that’s OK.
You’re exactly right, and this is my point. I’d bet damn near everyone commenting in this thread voted for Harris. It doesn’t matter, we aren’t the swing voters. And the swing voters are the ones that decided this election. There is nothing we can really do to convince swing voters, unless they are already our friends or family. It was Harris’s job to come out with bold policy proposals and messages that would convince those swing voters. Instead, she peddled the same milquetoast neolib shit that has been losing Dems elections since the 90s.
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This is absolute bullsh1t.
Trump has repeatedly said Netanyahu can do as he pleases, has repeatedly disparaged all Muslims, has repeatedly shown a political kinship with dictatorships.
Biden/Harris were protest targets in spite of it being the entirety of Congress that votes on/gives foreign aid because these protests were propaganda bent on disenfranchising Democrats and nothing else. The protests will wither to nothing now that pants-sh1tter rapist is going to be president.
You were duped. You fell for it. Gaza has zero chance now.
You have to convince people to vote for you, you can’t just rely on them voting against the other candidate. That’s why voter turnout was lower than previous elections.
How many more elections will Democrats have to lose before they’ll lean this lesson?
Not voting for KH & TW is saying that a fully-fascist America is A-OK with you. Full stop. There really isn’t any way you can justify voting otherwise.
I absolutely agree with you 100%. That still doesn’t address the fact that many people were less likely to vote for Harris if she continued to want to arm Israel. The stick of Trump was effective for getting yours and mine vote. Some other people needed the carrot of ending the Gaza Genocide. If they would have done the right thing, they had a chance of motivating those voters.
That still doesn’t address the fact that many people were less likely to vote for Harris if she continued to want to arm Israel.
There have always been holocausts going on, somewhere in the world. A lot of times, the US is involved.
For a certain audience, the narrative was that Biden caused inflation and Trump would rescue them and make their economic lives easy. And look at that, they bought it. Even though it was opposite-land bullshit.
For a certain audience, the narrative was that Biden caused the holocaust in Gaza. And look at that, they bought it. There was some validity. But the new thing was that it was hugely important, all over their social media, and Biden was responsible, and it defined his presidency in a way that 100 other things he did failed to do.
It only got presented and spread so widely and presented so singularly as a Democrats-only issue, without acknowledgement that Trump will be ten times worse, a hundred times worse, because that presentation would hurt the Democrats.
There were other narratives in the same way. Immigration, either that Biden was too kind or too mean. Oldness and feebleness. Policing. The truth or falsehood didn’t matter. They were expertly crafted.
And the result? Now, after people bought and acted on them, hook line and sinker?
Buddy just you fucking wait. Gaza will get much worse, of course, but it will barely even register as a major problem, by the time all of this is said and done.
Whoever made the narratives got their fucking money’s worth, and then some.
Edit: It should be said that I think “It’s not the voters’ fault. It’s Harris’s fault that she didn’t earn the votes.” is another of those narratives. You’ve probably seen it a few times today. Why they’re spending effort on pushing that new one, all of a sudden right after the election, I have no idea. It barely matters. But if you take a step back and think, it’s a pretty weird thing to decide is important to say, if you’re trying to do anything other than further depress support for anything left that’s in power, and soothe the consciences of people who might have been involved in this catastrophe from the voter side.
Buddy, I don’t disagree with you, I actually vehemently agree with most everything here BUT you still gotta beat the spread. You got to play the game better than the refs. All the nuance in the world doesn’t matter, you still gotta deliver and Harris didn’t.
- Media fault: 20%
- Putin / Musk / etc interference fault: 25%
- America dumb fault: 30%
- Long history of shitty Democrats fault: 15%
- Kamala Harris fault: 10%
Sure, you can say she shouldn’t have done the 10%. Would it have been enough? After watching what Biden did and how people reacted to him, probably not.
But anyway, we’ll never know. Also, I don’t know why the 10% is the most important part, to you. The other parts are fixable, going forward.
Well, maybe not now.
(Edit: Math is hard)
Its not actually, I just said in the end, she had to produce and she didn’t. I blame the media the most, but they’re just the propaganda arm of the oligarchy.
People had the opportunity to not vote for Harris and still vote for other elected representatives in the senate. Not voting was a better option it seems.
I can’t believe how often I have to repeat this but: remember the electoral college? Your vote for President only matters if you live in one of a few states. Your full stop is premature.
Does KH & TW not changing stance on this issue not mean they are A-OK with full-fascist America then?
You’re all for pulling the lever in trolley problems, aren’t you?
Thanks to the duped non-voters, it’s likely that they won’t have to worry about that.
Trump has repeatedly said Netanyahu can do as he pleases, has repeatedly disparaged all Muslims, has repeatedly shown a political kinship with dictatorships.
Right, and Harris shouted down protesters and wouldn’t denounce genocide. So if you are voting on this one single issue, you probably decide not to vote for either candidate, because they both cross your red line. However, most voters aren’t single-issue voters, and Harris didn’t provide much else in the way of policy to excite voters. Just vibes-based messaging and the occasional neoliberal economic policy.
So I repeat: Trump’s win is Harris’s fault. She had all the cards, and she flubbed it because she didn’t want to piss off her billionaire donors.
I feel like you as someone with pronouns in his bio should probably know that there are issues that the 2 available options differ in. So don’t try to wash the blood of trans people, women and other minorities in the US off your hands. You’re going to have to live with that because it ain’t coming off
How is there blood on my hands? I have not pretended that the candidates are the same. I wanted Harris to win. My point is that she ran a bad campaign.
Trump has repeatedly said Netanyahu can do as he please
So has Harris.
Biden/Harris were protest targets in spite of it being the entirety of Congress that votes on/gives foreign aid…
It is the Secretary of State who brokers deals. Congress follows the Executive branches lead for MOST funding. The Secretary of State answers to the President and Vice President.
You were duped. You fell for it. Gaza has zero chance now.
They never had a chance. You made sure of that. And, I’M SPEAKING HERE, all of the people in this echo chamber are to blame. We had a key opening when Biden was ousted to make change happen, to demand an open convention, to force the party left, to force a viable candidate, but instead, all of you latched on to Harris’ dick and went to war, not with Republicans (you guys apparently love Republicans, Love them Cheney endorsements, want em in the cabinet), you went to war with undecideds and pushed them third party.
This is your fault.
Edit: And even after the loss, the clowns here that call themselves mods are deleting my comments because people are actually upvoting them now, and it makes them salty.
Biden/Harris fucked up on more than just Gaza. Biden took action to address inflation, but Americans have continued to feel like their economic situation is worse off than it was 4 years ago. This is because grocery store and gas prices remain inflated, while the average American’s income has stagnated. In short: corporate greed. Biden has done little to address corporate greed, and Harris did little to assure Americans that she would combat corporate greed or make Americans feel better about their personal finances. All evidence suggested that she would be even cozier with the billionaires than Biden was. Not hard to see why people stayed home when they felt like their choices were a billionaire and a billionaire-sympathizer.
In short, STOP BLAMING YOUR ALLIES. Trump’s win is HARRIS’S FAULT.
Mate you are not our ally
If you are not trying to make allies, that’s fine. Just don’t expect to ever win another election.
I don’t. I also don’t believe we’re ever going to get another (fair) election, thanks to your inaction. The rule of law is finished, because:
- A convicted felon, in the middle of four separate criminal indictments
- Known to have raped his wife
- Raped a 14-year-old, probably raped a bunch of others with Epstein
- Bragged about sexually assaulting many other women
- Incited the Jan 6th riot to storm the White House and threaten to kill the vice president, as well as many other Congresspeople
- Stole boxes and boxes of top secret CIA documents
- Send many of those top secrets to foreign agents, including Putin, which got CIA agents killed
- Praises dictators and the way they rule out in the open
- Put three Supreme Court justices who are currently dismantling whatever judicial ideals the government has
That guy, he got voted president. If he can get re-elected after doing all of that shit, instead of being put in prison, then the rule of law is finished. We don’t really have a functional government that punishes criminals. We’re on the level of Brazil in terms of government corruption now, and quickly sliding into Turkey or Nazi Germany by the next decade.
Be sure to thank your fellow trans Beehaw Lemmy users [he/him] for deciding that your protest non-vote is more important than their lives, while they have their medical rights stripped, and their faces curb-stomped by an already-hostile public.
Thanks for assuming you know everything about me and what I am about. I voted for Harris. But unlike you, I respect the decision of people who didn’t, because genocide is a pretty fucking fair red line to draw. If both sides are advocating genocide, I can respect that someone might feel like the entire American project is failed and fascism will be essentially the same. I am not trans, but I have talked to trans people in my life who were extremely committed to withholding their vote until like, this week. They knew they were potentially sacrificing their own rights, but voting for self-preservation felt selfish when entire cities are being wiped out by Israel. Ultimately, everyone I personally know in that camp decided to hold their nose and vote for Harris.
But go on assuming things about your allies and sowing division, I guess. It won’t help anything, but whatever makes you feel better about Trump winning.
You are not my ally. You are useful idiot to my enemies at best, and my direct enemy at worst.
what makes me not your ally?
I’ll remember how this was all Kamala’s fault when Trump starts rounding people up. I’m sure it will bring me great comfort. I’m also sure it will bring great comfort to the people of Palesine because Trump DEFINITELY isn’t going to keep arming Israel, and we know he’s way more susceptible to public pressure than Harris would have been.
I’ll also accept cursing Trump voters, as it is obvious that they will never be allies.
I’m sure the trans people whose lives are now in danger will sleep much better tonight knowing that the blood of those Palestinian children who are going to continue dying because Donald Trump has promised not to even try for a ceasefire isn’t on your hands, because you didn’t vote for Kamala Harris.
I hope you’re fucking happy.
I’m sorry, did you personally check my ballot?
Gentle reminder: changing her stance on the Gaza genocide was the “damned if you do” side of the trap that she didn’t go for.
Gentle idea: maybe think a few moves ahead. Even the conservatives were.
Hard to see people as allies who are willing to let the world burn because the only other option wasn’t perfect. The campaign fucked up, for sure, but every voter that stayed home shares blame in this.
Same. I can’t see you as allies if you throw trans people, immigrants, disabled people and homeless people under the bus to protest a policy that will be even worse under the opposition.
A lot of people (probably the majority) that stayed home didn’t do so because of Gaza. They did so because they are too busy to keep up with the news, and nothing they heard about either candidate was compelling enough to get up off the couch on election night. It was Harris’s job to reach and then convince those people.
I didn’t say Gaza, and it doesnt matter why they couldn’t be bothered. Their share remains the same.
you just have zero empathy for people with busier lives than you? what about people that work a full-time job while caretaking for an ill parent and maybe also raising kids? people that can barely find time to sleep? it was Harris’s job to find a way to reach those people, and convince them to make time to vote. she didn’t.
Goal-post yeeting aside (first “off the couch”, now “no time to sleep”?), barring actual factual voter suppression, there’s little-to-no valid excuse in the US to not vote at all. Only 3 states have zero early-voting or vote-by-mail options (for now). The thing with democracy is that everyone shares responsibility to take part. Shirking that responsibility doesn’t absolve anyone of guilt, more so the opposite. Now democracy very well may not be an option again, so no, I’m not going to spend much time empathizing with the people that enabled that.
And Trump will be better for Palestinians how exactly? Anyone who prefers inane grandstanding instead of picking the lesser evil (no matter the topic) is a moron. That’s how politics work. The ideal candidate doesn’t exist and will never exist. If you ever come across one who 100% mirrors every single one of your opinions, get your head examined.
Edit: Also, every single credible poll out there indicates that American voters - idiotically - picked Trump due to their dissatisfaction with the economy. Middle Eastern wars were not high on the list of priorities for most voters.
And taking people’s votes for granted worked how exactly?
Voter turn out was much lower than 2020 and 2016 just like this poll predicted.
you don’t have to convince me, friend. The fact is, winning a national election involves building a coalition with people that you don’t see eye-to-eye with 100%. The Dems don’t have a great coalition to begin with - if they win their highly-educated base and nobody else, they lose the election 100% of the time. They have to win over other people, mostly the very few groups of undecided voters. And in this election, it was clear that one of the few undecided groups available were Arab-Americans that cared a whole lot about what has been happening on the West Bank. And Harris did fuck-all to court those voters, so they decided to stay home.
Arab-Americans
0.639% of the US population. This is a tiny minority of no relevance to American politics. Trump has 51% of popular votes already, not that this matters, because the districts that carry Trump to victory have few voters with this kind of background. Arab Americans could not have changed the outcome of this election, even if 100% had voted for Harris.
2.1% of Michigan, and Harris could really use an extra 2.1% in Michigan right now.
Not really, without Pennsylvania Michigan doesn’t matter unless nearly every other swing state goes for her, and they don’t look like that’s even a possibility.
126k Arab-Americans living in PA. As of reporting right now, Harris is losing PA by 152k votes. Obviously this doesn’t clearly indicate that this single issue would swing the election in her favor, but I wouldn’t call that “a tiny minority of no relevance to American politics”.
And the Jewish voting population of PA is more than three times that. Now, that hardly means that they’ll all vote for Isreal, but it does mean that how that group breaks has a far more outsized impact and why Haris was focused so much on things that both sides can generally agree with like conditional aid.
I would have much preferred an actual hardline leftist stance of course, but at the end of the day Gaza does not seem to have played a significant part in this election.
Sure, but I would argue a much larger chunk of that Jewish voting population is firmly in the Democratic base, and may have voted for her either way. Only one party is supporting antisemitism, after all.
Okay, how about the 34% of voters in PA as mentioned in the OP? Or the black Americans who said Gaza was important to them?
The quote is deliberately misleading by leaving out that they were only asking Democrats and independents. It also doesn’t mention that it (leading questions and all) was commissioned by the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding Policy Project, which is a self-proclaimed pro-Palestinian group that opposed protections of Jewish Americans from antisemitism. Hardly an unbiased entity.
The war against Hamas ranks 15th among all issues to American voters. It’s not entirely unimportant, but don’t kid yourself by making the unfounded claim that it had any significant influence on this election.
How does the IMEU oppose protection against antisemitism, specifically
Here’s the initiative:
https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism
Here’s how the organization reacted to it:
https://imeu.org/article/imeu-policy-analysis-9-ihra-definition-silences-speech-for-palestinian-righ
That’s what I thought you meant. Sorry, not remotely buying it
That 0.639% of the population actually has a lot of them in a critical swing state that helped Biden win 2020. Harris lost Michigan by less than 85K votes, they could have made the difference.
Fuck that, I’m blaming every single person that didn’t vote for Harris
I mean, if you’re referring to the people that voted for Trump, I’m right there with you. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that a rapist and convicted felon won the popular vote.
The majority of population aren’t the ones who voted for Trump. The majority of the population didn’t vote at all.
Yeah, they are just as guilty as the ones that voted for Trump (and the ones that voted third party) in my book
I’m blaming those who didn’t vote the most.
You’re going to have a busy day.
No number of additional blue votes in Massachusetts or Hawaii was ever going to matter.
“Don’t blame your allies.”
Proceeds to blame his allies, picking out the one wedge issue which the opponents used to greatest effect to split the left in this election.
Nothing in particular that would help anyone pick up the pieces, or figure out what happens now or what to do.
Fair point. It’s the day after the election. Anger is a valid emotion. Today, I’m choosing to direct my anger at the Harris campaign for doing fuck-all to court undecided voters. Not the people in this thread; I suspect almost every American here went to the ballot box and voted for Harris/Walz, regardless of their opinions about Israel.
When I say “undecided voters”, I mean the single mothers in Pennsylvania that are so completely underwater because they have two jobs and everything is so expensive now and they probably have medical debt and other bills weighing them down. The people that don’t have time to watch every Harris interview and decide whether or not they are “coconut-pilled”. Those people saw what Harris was selling, and the message they received was “more of Biden, who did fuck all for me”. In the face of that, and when you have to move heaven and earth just to get the time to go vote, why would you bother?
I’ve spent enough of my arguing about politics energy for today, especially now that the horse has left the barn.
https://ponder.cat/comment/839212
https://ponder.cat/comment/837488
https://ponder.cat/comment/835981
That’s my response. There’s some good stuff in there. I do not require any kind of response on any of it.
Everyone here missing the point…
I want to build a broad-based coalition that marginalizes these fascists so we never again have to choose between a fascist and a genocide-enabler. But nah, let’s just stay in our echo chambers and tear each other to shreds while society crumbles outside.
Just want to clarify I was referring to the comments and not your post. I will be right there with you.
I know I got that! I was just adding to the sentiment. If anything, I’m getting the sense that more here agree with us than disagree, and I find that heartening.
I mean, I feel like it is quite fair to blame the people who voted for Trump for Harris’s loss tbh. I don’t really buy the "the dems would win if they didn’t just refuse to try to win over conservatives and instead promised to go all-in on progressive policy that I’ve seen lately. I wish we got more progressive policy too, but it’s not like they don’t have any idea what people want, they have whole teams of people whose job it is to figure out that kind of thing. If promising some more progressive policy was a clear winner, why wouldn’t they do it? The answer I generally see implied or stated is that the dem establishment doesn’t want that policy, but that isn’t really an adequate explanation, because politicians are perfectly familiar with dishonesty. If supporting some progressive policy they didn’t like would win them power, they’d just promise it and then just not do that thing upon getting elected. It’s happened for state and congressional races before, so it’s not like that’s never been thought of.
I don’t think Harris’s loss is down to refusing to say the right words to inspire her base or anything like that, it’s down to the fact that, somehow, Trump is very good at inspiring his. She gave it a decent shot, but it’s very hard to win an election against a massive cult of personality. He, and the people that support him, are the problem here.
If promising some more progressive policy was a clear winner, why wouldn’t they do it? The answer I generally see implied or stated is that the dem establishment doesn’t want that policy, but that isn’t really an adequate explanation, because politicians are perfectly familiar with dishonesty. If supporting some progressive policy they didn’t like would win them power, they’d just promise it and then just not do that thing upon getting elected.
Because their personal motivations are not “maximize the chances for a Democratic win”, but preserve the power of themselves and their allies with money and influence. If these policies become a centerpiece of the election and broadly popularized, it becomes dangerous to ignore it and advances the saliency regardless of the outcome, pushing it closer to someone actually doing it. A campaign that says “the rich are abusing workers to fill their pockets and the government should tax their wealth until there are no billionaires and provide benefits to the workers” is dangerous to the rich people, even if its initially proposed by someone with no intention of following through.
In an election with stakes like this one though, doesnt maximizing their chances for a win also serve that? Like, being rich offers you some protection from the law, especially in a corrupt regime, but when the other side is an actual authoritarian, half-assing it so that they win while also being publicly against them is dangerous to one’s personal safety. Even rich people dont tend to get away with being against authoritarians, when they are in charge. If all you care about is power and influence, and you dont actually have any values beyond that, and one side is an authoritarian, then being on their side serves your interest, and being put in power to stop them serves your interest, but publicly failing to stop them puts a target on your back and gives you no power and influence by which to ward it off.
The same thing is looking like it’s going to happen in Canada
Current Liberal government is going to hold out all support for a genocidal country doing genocidal things for no apparent obvious reason and any moderate voter out there will avoid them for them it.
It doesn’t matter what your politics are … if your political party openly and wholeheartedly wants to support something that does no benefit to your country, ruins the lives of others and supports a maniacal regime, and does it at the cost of millions and billions of dollars -> why would you want to vote for them?
I don’t get it … sure Israel is pretty important but why would political leaders obviously tank their entire prospects just to save the support of a country that has very little to do with their own other than to cost everyone money.
But they got the Cheneys!
