Summary
Gender bias played a significant role in Kamala Harrisās defeat, with many votersāoften womenāexpressing doubts about whether āAmerica is ready for a female president.ā
Some said they ācouldnāt see her in the chair,ā or questioned if a woman could lead, with one even remarking, āyou donāt see women building skyscrapers.ā Though some voters were open to persuasion, this often became a red line.
Oliver Hall, a Harris campaign volunteer, found that economic concerns, particularly inflation, also drove voters to Donald Trump, despite low unemployment and wage growth touted by Democrats.
Harris was viewed in conflicting ways, seen as both too tough and too lenient on crime, as well as ineffective yet overly tied to Bidenās administration.
Ultimately, Hall believes that Trumpās unique appeal and influence overshadowed Harrisās campaign efforts.
Correct, there is zero chance of ever getting through to these 75 million peopleā¦ But there was a very good chance of getting through to the 10 million who stayed home but had voted last time, and at least some chance of getting through to the 50% who regularly donāt voteā¦ But the Dems never go after those people, they continue to insist on wasting everyoneās time by only going after the imbeciles with actual policy changes (they go after the 10 million with bullying and fear mongering, which clearly doesnāt work)
Maybe and maybe not. Maybe I actually donāt give a fuck because all of this ābut they didnāt actually improve main streetā online shit also disappears during Republican administrations. Iāve been through multiple cycles of this shit and the people whining about the dnc online are just another level in Danteās Inferno.
We get it, you guys love Bernie and think Bernie wouldāve won everything. Carry that energy forward for another decade if you donāt wind up in a Trump camp first.
Bernie and AOC have been advocating for Americans to build a movement to get progressive policies passed by building from the bottom up, but instead everything is the mean old dncās fault despite the fact that there is no movement, no community, and so all youāre left with is career politicians trying to form an alliance out of everyone that doesnāt want to vote fascism. Thereās a reason Democrats canāt run a coherent campaign, they donāt have a fucking coherent constituency.
They absolutely donāt have a coherent constituency, thatās for sure, but they certainly could have a large enough constituency to put Trump and his entire army of ignorance and sleeze to bed once and for all, but they only cater to a very small segment of what could be their constituency, and for many of the people who could be their constituency it often feels like theyāre actually catering to the enemy rather than to them.
Thatās exactly my point. To appease one section of their potential voters they have to piss off others. We can second guess them on which decisions wouldāve led to a victory, but the fact remains that they come across as incoherent and inauthentic because they have to walk a tightrope to keep together an imaginary coalition between things like American Jews who support Israel and Palestinian immigrants. They fail because they arenāt representing a coherent set of people. Theyāre representing sometimes conflicting ideas. American atheists and Catholics. Muslims, some of whom believe that women should be subservient, and āchildless cat ladiesā. People in this country are overall much more regressive socially than online progressives want to admit.
When it comes to the conflicting ideas they need to pick a side. And the other side has to decide whether to show up or not, we know which side always shows up, maybe they should take a backseat for a bit, theyāll show up anyway.
Like if you think women should be subservient, youāre not on our side. If you are okay with arming a terrorist nation to carry out genocide youāre not on our side. Easy peasy ones.
I think weāre actually finally at a truly 50/50ish ratio of regressive to progressive in the USā¦ Thatās why things are so tense between the progressive actual left and the regressive āleftā DNC. Yeah thereās still misogynistic bigoted people here, but definitely way fewer than 100 years ago. And they should ALL be on the other team.
I think the movement is there, itās just kinda in the back of most peopleās minds because no one is leading them effectivelyā¦ Which I get, Bernie and AOC are obviously too busy to also be organizing a movement completely dependent on small donations and somehow figuring out how to use those to get the word out through the torrential downpour of bullshit we experience everywhere, but I wish they would choose leadership for that movement that can lead more effectively
Are you suggesting this movement only exists in peopleās minds? I think Iād agree.
A couple of national pseudo celebrity politicians are not going to personally organize the type of movement youād need to make any actual progress on anything in this country.
They keep telling us we need to build it, and then we keep deferring to celebrities and politicians at the top because we donāt want to build it. So we lean on the dnc. You get who shows up. Iām in CA and I looked during the pandemic for some mutual aid whatever in my area. There was one and as far as I could tell it shut down before I even knew about it.
All movements only exist in peopleās minds, until thereās something for them to set in motion, a plan for them to execute.
The thing we need to build is a political movement. As you pointed out, very few people have any idea about anything, let alone politics. I think the movement is bigger than just 5 million, thatās just the nihilistic partā¦ Iād think maybe 15-20 million are truly onboard to some degree in their minds, and even more to a lesser degree, they just donāt know what their supposed to do because they arenāt politics experts. Also whenever a true leader emerges they end up getting elected, (and apparently later they then get pushed back out by big money and Israel, who knew?) but once theyāre elected theyāre legitimately too busy to lead anymore.
People lean on the DNC because the DNC leans on themā¦ The DNC demands loyalty from people whoās loyalty they could get by actually doing what they want, instead theyāre chasing after loyalty from people whoās loyalty they could never possibly get. Itās insanity, and itās insulting. And the more they do it the more the lines between them begin to blur until theyāve moved so far to the right that the group to the left of them starts to look big enough to go without themā¦ If someone could unite them. But, the same people who own the media companies pay for the Dems campaignsā¦ the Dems control all the levers of political organizing on the left and like 6 companies control all the levers of mass communication, so the politically illiterate group kinda need the Dems apparatus to be able to make their thing workā¦ And the more the Dems refuse to cooperate, the more it starts to seem like maybe theyāre truly just not on the same team.
I think for a lot of people the choice ended up being between a quick leap into fascism or the ongoing painfully slow fascism temperature being risen one degree to keep the other guy from blowing it to 100, and I think more people than Iād have hoped decided to let the bandaid be ripped off
Less people than you think thought that was the choice. Americans are big time ignorant of politics and even on this site we had people asking if this was a normal election.
According to those who voted, this election was about the economy. š
Most people probably couldnāt tell you the first thing about fascism or even capitalism.
I wouldnāt say 5 million people thinking this way would be out of the question thoughā¦ Would you? And are they polling the people who voted for Biden but didnāt show up this time? Because that data would be wildly valuable
It really wouldnāt shock me if a lot of the loss could be attributed to the fact that they couldnāt mail it in from the couch as easily this go around. I also think that people in this country are not as progressive socially as some of the most ardent people online like to pretend. Some simply didnāt want to vote for a womanā¦which is part of what the article says.
I got 2 ballots mailed to me, and just had to fill one out and send it in. Thereās no reason it couldnāt have been that easy for everyone. Anywhere that it was harder than that, Iād guess Republicans were behind it, but if it was Dems they should be kicked out of the party, if the party wanted to start leading the widely varied left.
No one on the actual left wouldnāt vote for a woman because sheās a womanā¦ These are mutually exclusive things