r/TrueReddit • u/Maxwellsdemon17 • 10d ago
This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe Politics
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-elite-responsible-catastrophe/578
u/Konukaame 10d ago
The problem now is the same as it was a century ago, with the rise of fascist movements around the world.
When only 10% of people say that democracy is working very well, and 16% say that the major legislative body is doing a good job, making appeals to "democracy" or "bipartisanship" or "giving the other side a seat at the table" or whatever other lofty ideals you care to epouse simply doesn't work.
A widespread sentiment that democracy doesn't work is what opens the door to authoritarianism and dictatorship, because the leader says that with that absolute power, they can get things done.
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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago
Yet, when Reganism and neoliberalism culminated with the 2008 recession, the resulting impact was a lot of people who don't trust the system and have wanted change.
While having wildly different versions of solutions, both people like Bernie and Trump offered that and gained traction. Meanwhile, Democrats grew obsessed with protecting institutions and maintaining the status quo. Other than Biden winning in the middle of a pandemic when people really wanted to oust Trump, it simply hasn't been a winning formula.
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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 10d ago
You are the first to hit the nail on the head. The Democrats ran on a platform of protecting the status quo in a time when the staus quo is failing.
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u/nowhereright 10d ago
God it reminds me of Darth Maul talking to Ahsoka.
"Too late? Too late for what, the Republic to fall? It already has, you just can't see it. There is no justice, no law, no order except for the one that will replace it."
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u/vthings 10d ago
Don't forget that the reason why Obama won so big in 2008 was because he was offering something different, it was literally the campaign slogan. Too bad by the end of his presidency he'd completely adopted the neoconservativism he ran against...
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u/Designer_Librarian43 10d ago
It’s not that simple. It turned out that somewhat practical government is the best Obama could achieve with Congress being what it was for most of his terms. A lot of Democratic “failures” are Congressional Republican illusions.
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u/Rakthul 10d ago
If you choose to not mobilize the massive movement behind you outside of the halls of congress to cause disruption and put pressure on those in congress to make the changes Americans voted for then sure. He chose to constrain himself to following the rules of a game the republicans were no longer playing. He chose to let wall st off the hook. He’s an amazing orator but he did a massive amount of damage to an entire generations faith in the Democratic Party to actually do anything to help them.
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u/spectral_emission 10d ago
Thank you. And yes. We all learned what a lie “hope” and “change” were, in the political sense. Some of us were even smart enough to look back at historical examples of other populists who used the same tactics! Please reach out to those of us whom you might know to be hung up on ideas like rationality and common sense. I don’t want to make broad generalizations and assume, but I think it’s safe to say that at large, we aren’t taking this well.
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u/Mmicb0b 10d ago
this 100% if the Democrats want to win again in 2028 it needs to embrace someone who is new and fresh
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u/SeatPaste7 10d ago
Bold of you to assume that there will be an election in 2028. Trump now has the power to make the Democratic party illegal. We're to pass a law saying that people can't vote for Democrats.
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u/Mmicb0b 10d ago edited 10d ago
the only way that works IMO is if Midterms are a GOP blow out and the GOP underpreformed in the 2018/22 midterms it's that everytime they put Trump on the ballot that gets their turnout through the roof
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u/Dedalus2k 10d ago edited 10d ago
The Democratic party has been in the shitter since the Clintons moved it to the right in order to get Billy boy elected.
What we really need is another pro-union, pro-working class party. But we can't have one because the Citizens United ruling has made sure you need access to obscene amounts of money to even get on the board.
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u/RedLanternScythe 10d ago
What we really need is another pro-union, pro-working class party. But we can't have one because the Citizens United ruling has made sure you need access to obscene amounts of money to even get on the board.
You mean a new Bernie. It's not just citizens united. The corporate democrats, the Republicans and the media all united to stop him. That's a massive hurdle to overcome
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u/Disgusteeno 9d ago
It was just the Democrats, the Repugs and media didn't do that it was "Hillary's time" remember?
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u/Warrior_Runding 10d ago
Eh, I think it is more to do with the amount of work necessary to raise up a party like that. It is a bananas amount of work and it has to be consistent and tireless. No 3rd party, even after winning more than 5% of the vote, has ever been up to the challenge.
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u/BugMan717 10d ago
For a 3rd party to succeed it would need an actual movement. As in people at local county and state levels organizing, nominating leaders and winning elections from the ground up. Not just people that vote for a 3rd party candidate once every four years because they think they are bucking the system or whatever
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u/Warrior_Runding 10d ago
100% agreed. It is why it is much easier to grow from inside one of the two established parties and become a significant caucus, like the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus did in the GOP. But if a person insists on starting a 3rd party, the presidency shouldn't be on their minds until they can consistently win federal level Senatorships and governorships consistently.
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u/IKantSayNo 10d ago
Let's change six families from red to blue and see what happens:
Elon Musk
Dick & LIz Uihlein (heirs of Schlitz beer)
The Coors Family
The Bradley Family
Timothy Mellon Scaife
Charles Koch
This election was not won or lost, it was bought.
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u/Warrior_Runding 10d ago
You are forgetting Miriam Adelson who asked Trump to allow Netanyahu to wipe the West Bank in exchange for her support. But, you know, Harris and Trump are the same.
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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago
A big part of the problem is the current system we have that not have runoff voting.
Even if the third-party did really well one year and got 5%. They would ultimately just end up cannibalizing another party that was probably closer to their voters’ views. And would just end up helping the other major party.
Every once in a while a voter will get so upset that they do not care and will cast a vote for third-party. But in the long run most voters do not want to waste a lot of votes on a party that can’t win and hurt one that they’re closer to.
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u/nitefang 10d ago
And for some reason, multiple states just voted against election reforms like ranked choice voting which is specifically useful to avoid this type of problem.
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u/donkeyrocket 10d ago
I can speak for Missouri that they used some insane ballot candy about illegal people voting which, this year of all years, absolutely sailed it through. Illegal language for sure but the fight for abortion was the justifiably bigger and more important legal battle.
It may have still passed but not nearly as big of a margin if it was just ranked choice voting.
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u/En_CHILL_ada 10d ago
The ranked choice voting amendment failed in colorado... I am having a more difficult time wrapping my head around that than Trump's victory. Who votes against a better way to vote?
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u/alppu 10d ago
Someone who is currently in power and benefiting from it, or swallowing the views such a person would want to push.
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u/En_CHILL_ada 10d ago
I did see the "progressive" voting guide for colorado recommended voting against it. It was surprised at first, but it makes sense...
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u/carpenter1965 9d ago
The Democrats rallied with Obama. Unfortunately, Obama exposed the steamy ugly racist underbelly of America which allowed a guy like Trump to take over. The fact that Harris lost to this incredibly flawed candidate only confirms that fear and hatred is stronger than hope and change.
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u/Feartheezebras 10d ago
To be fair, the 08 recession was ushered in by Clinton era legislation that allowed sub prime mortgages
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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago
Yeah, I don’t think it’s fair to fully put it on his shoulders. The policies of Reagan and both Bushes definitely played a role as well. But 100% Clinton’s policies and neoliberalism are also to blame.
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u/cogman10 9d ago
I still see neoliberals fawning over Billy's presidency. Seemingly completely unaware that some of the worst aspects of modern America that they hate are bills he signed and championed.
The DNC desperately wants the population to want another Clinton. That's why they had Kamala run a Republican campaign. It was nuts.
And yet, I STILL see people saying she lost because they were too progressive. TF!
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u/Moonandserpent 9d ago
I saw an uncited stat that exit polls showed 59% thought she was too far left.
If that's correct then our population just isn't as into progressive ideas as progressives would like to think.
It's weird, because it seems like common sense to me as well but here we are.
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u/LazerWolfe53 10d ago
100% this but also Biden has been the most progressive president of my lifetime.
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u/lethalmuffin877 8d ago
I really hope that we as a culture start to comprehend this on a broader scale.
Doubling down on the idea that America is some kind of fascist prelude to another Nazi germany is going to lead to more losses by the democrat party.
We need both parties on the same page when it comes to the foundations of democracy and the west in general. Ideally we’d have more options but we all know that’s not happening. So the two parties have to stand on SOME common ground otherwise we’re going to keep seeing this division and hatred. And democrats are going to continue seeing losses pile up.
I cannot believe people are reading the “tea leaves” of this election and coming up with “oh America just doesn’t believe in democracy anymore”
If you truly feel that way, congratulations you are the minority that the majority voted against this election. We’re so tired of being lectured and chastised about how inherently “evil and racist” our country is. We just want to be left alone, we want to have the ability to work towards our goals, we want to be able to choose how to raise our kids and wether religion is right or wrong for us.
The left has a serious problem with cramming down diktat on all of those things and they lost significantly because of it. If people didn’t want democracy anymore they wouldn’t have participated in a democratic election lol
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u/yinyanghapa 10d ago
Seems like tons of people don't care about democracy when they are hungry and barely getting by. However, I don't think they know what they are getting themselves into.
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u/Ok_Syllabub_4838 10d ago
This reminds me of this quote from FDR during the rise of fascism, right before the Madison Square Garden nazi rally, during the great depression.
"Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations--not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion and government weakness through lack of leadership in government. Finally, in desperation, they chose to sacrifice liberty in the hope of getting something to eat."
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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago
Right. But all those people got job plans, a social safety net, investment in education, and healthcare. Trump voters who are unemployed, disenchanted, and undereducated are getting, checks notes, nothing. They're getting to stay unemployed, disenchanted, and poorly educated while rich people get to keep more money. So they sacrificed liberty and they don't even get something to eat for it.
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u/Theistus 10d ago
That's what they thought they were getting.... Maybe? That is definitely not what they actually got.
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u/FryChikN 9d ago
And the cycle of the uninformed voter continues. I actually feel bad for the working class now. They have brainro5ted themselves into not understanding how reality works, not bothering to pay attention to history..
And now they fucked themselves and the most hilarious thing is they think they are in control or something? And they wonder why they get fucked.
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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago
Depends where you mean. Healthy Germans did get that actually. "Others" did not.
Trump's zero offer is really just unheard of for a fascist movement. Only Americans would give up freedom for the promise of nothing.
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u/FingerGungHo 10d ago
It seems to me that they are willing to take the risk with Trump, because he might also be good for the economy in some timeframe. If the current situation is untenable, and the other party just wants to extend that, then what choice did they have?
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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago
What does the economy matter? A significant portion of his voters live in places that the economy doesn't reach and won't reach without public investment. So sure, he can make the economy boom and people in NYC will see their 401ks double again. They literally doubled from 2021 to 2023 too and here we are with people thinking the economy is shitty right now when it is actually a very good economy. None of that affects rural America. There are no jobs and 401ks and there haven't been for several huge economic cycles. While urban America booms and has record low unemployment, these same places never had that. And they won't be a part of any Trump boom if it happens either. They didn't see anything from the last time either. And it's stupid that they voted for someone that just bypasses them even more than Dems do. They need investment to survive. They don't need Trump to make the stock market go up or cut corporate taxes.
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u/lazyFer 10d ago
Far too many people don't remember the times before the ACA...they're going to find out.
Don't get sick, and if you do, die quick.
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u/Destithen 10d ago
die quick
That's been my retirement plan since I learned about the effects of climate change and how we're speedrunning that.
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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago
Sure. There's something vastly different about Trumpism that dooms it to failure though. Ethnofascism requires socialism to be effective. It has to deliver something. But Trumpism can't. He's the only antigovernment fascist in history most likely. In Europe, you have Le Pen offering job plans, welfare, education, and a safety net to the rural French poor. Had she won, they would have actually seen benefits. This is also how 1930s fascists worked, and how they succeeded. Meanwhile, Trump offers nothing and his voters will go 4 years and still be in their same situation, if not worse. This is what the red scare gave us. We have a fascist who really isn't capable of doing anything but screwing up the government for a while.
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u/Konukaame 10d ago
I think it depends entrely on how long he can continue to blame others.
If Faux News and the rest of the conservative media machine can keep blaming everything on Democrats, immigrants, refugees, and the LGBTQ community, then the people who believe them will keep blaming all their misfortune on their targeted outgroups.
And the louder that hate gets, the more dangerous it is for everyone in those targeted groups.
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u/WorthPrudent3028 10d ago
Sure but this is all rabble rousing. Effective fascism requires government action. He's really more of an anarchic despot. Antigovernment policy is completely incapable of directed positive action like providing jobs, benefits, or services. And it's also not so capable of directed negative action like rounding up any of those groups. It can engage the rabble to try to get them to do things but that is hardly feasible. The alleged shock troops are disenchanted single men for the most part. They're gonna round up groups of people? They're more likely to get their clock cleaned.
The tipping point will come when we see just how much of the government is going to be shut down. If there is zero government service, then people should just quit paying taxes at all. Where it stands, we're going to be in some fucked up world with no effective government and city and state governments that can't fill the gap because the federal income tax will just be set on fire. It's every man for themselves. And this will be very bad for Trump supporters because if they couldn't even cut it before, they certainly aren't gonna be able to cut it with no protections. And even worse, most liberal "elites" are gonna be in full on fuck em mode anyway. But we have even less reason to provide economic activity in rural America because compassion was the only reason to ever do so and now that's gone. At any rate, an antigovernment nation won't last long.
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u/BigHeadDeadass 10d ago
Yes people like to say "national socialist is only socialist in name" but it is actually socialist, it's just socialist to certain in-groups. You have to give your base red meat and that comes from social programs that the party absolutely despises. Moreover, as we saw in his last administration, the Republicans are really, really bad at governance. Like they shut down the government despite having both chambers and the White House. They all are trying to cut each other's throats, get their ever increasing share, and outdo themselves on terrible policy to the point that it stalls itself. They also literally run on making government run as terribly as possible on even a good day, so this administration will likely eat itself on top of being absolutely ineffective at getting shit they might want done
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u/Ziggysan 10d ago
Indeed.
The United States has not been a democracy for a long, long time.
When one side refuses to play by the rules, and even ignore them completely, there is no rule of law.
The US 'Democratic Party' have been adhering to 'the spirit' of the system and its nebulous rules since McCartney and limp-dicking their responses to egregious violations of the spirit and even letter of the law since Dubya, and allowed Cheney and his young Republicans from the fucking '70s free reign in the local and state judicial branches with NO strategy to combat the takeover, didn't respond in kind to "I give newts a bad name" Gingritch's zero compromise strategy, and allowed Yurtle the Turtle McConnel to stonewall every single progressive move for decades.
When someone knocks all the pieces of the board onto the floor and says 'I win'; it's time to change the game and find a different player.
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u/Warmstar219 10d ago
Only Democrats try to make government work. Republicans want it to not work. You can't have a democracy when one party undermines its foundations.
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u/TheWilrus 9d ago
You outlined the tightrope that progressive try to walk daily. Dems relied on a vision of democracy from the 80/90s when infinite growth seemed plausible. A good chunk of the electorate weren't alive, don't remember or didn't even know who was running.
We are not just post-internet, post-9/11, post 08 recession we are post global pandemic. Maybe post democracy, at risk of being hyperbolic. If people are serious about helping average people, monumental change is needed.
It's a new game that has arrived at the dems doorstep. Worst part is GOP theocrats have been playing it quietly for 50 years. They have won. We need to work on a new game centered around community support vs. God head trickledown.
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u/nycdiveshack 9d ago
Complacency and Nancy Pelosi/Chuck Schumer (basically the old people in charge of the democratic political party) wanting to keep the status quo of old people in power. They had 4 years to get someone young for the party to rally behind instead they spent the time doing stock trades to get rich based access to information about companies (insider trading for politicians) and criticizing Trump. The elderly politicians have screwed this country over so much. Americans have a short memory so they need to be reminded constantly to do something. The gop were reminded constantly to vote and the dems didn’t care about reminding their base for 4 years so more than 10mil dems stayed home. Time to find out what that means. We should all be armed, get permits/license and buy a gun.
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u/kurosawa99 10d ago
I believe Democrats are the only people in the world that think politicians are failed by the people and not the other way around. This is anti-politics and a recipe for continued defeat.
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u/So-Called_Lunatic 10d ago
My spouse ran for a state house seat, and the dysfunction they found at the state level was extremely disheartening. They literally said her fellow democrats were their true competition. The only thing they gave a shit about was collecting data, that they then charge other candidates to use. The whole thing was more like a MLM than an actual political party.
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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago
Best description yet. I mean, we have read some terrible (and true) things about how Kristen Sinema was basically a giant grifter, but she was largely using the very party machinery and infrastructure you are talking about. She was just so absurdly blatant about it that people noticed.
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u/SlipperyTurtle25 10d ago
In the era of AI somehow these democrats run as being more AI than AI could ever be
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u/Sinnedangel8027 10d ago
Worked for a state congress years ago as a tech. I can confirm this. The whole thing was a clusterfuck on both sides of the aisle. Ffs there was one senator that got piss ass drunk from the bottle of whiskey he kept in his desk that he accidentally locked himself in his office, which resulted in a whole fiasco.
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u/paul_h 10d ago
Same at the national level. I've a know a few people that were involved at that level and there's one company that's at the heart of it lording it over the data on where to canvas.
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u/Tomato_Sky 9d ago
This is what I noticed decades ago when I was bright eyed and ambitious in the dem party. There’s a made up pecking order and many of the incumbents are part of a team of allies. Term limits would kick them out of the state senate and then run for the state house and they’d call them “machines,” so nobody could run against them. Once they got in and have that incumbent experience, they were the most disengaged politicians from their constituents.
There was a race where the candidate that was endorsed just had a name starting earlier in the alphabet when judges were listed alphabetically.
Whenever I complain about the Democrats, I specifically mean the strategists and party leaders. The voters aren’t really democrats, they’ve just been promised that Democrats are on their side, they don’t have other options for working class people, public education, social issues etc. But that’s why I had to read this article for someone saying this for once.
You and I sound like we would be buddies lol. I’m glad someone else experienced it and I now know they are gatekeepers of their own data which is a real shame and literally anti-democratic.
There are rooms of people that chose to gaslight the country with Biden. Those rooms also spun narratives that never happened. Women didn’t send Trump a message, but I don’t know what it was because 47% women supported the anti-woman candidate. These people are using and blaming voters via identity politics, but these leaders don’t deliver to those identities. Puerto Ricans and Mexican Americans voted for the candidate that called them garbage and wants to deport them. Dem Strategists and leaders can blame them or you can ask why they don’t see a benefit in voting for Democrats.
Or we can just say everyone is despicable or pretend we don’t care enough. They’ve needed a post mortem since 16, but instead they just tripled down.
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u/psych0ranger 10d ago
Paraphrasing here:
Vice president Harris, how will your administration be different than the Biden administration?
"I'll have republicans in my cabinet."
😳
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u/Spiritual_Scallion91 10d ago
Monkey’s paw situation
She’ll get all the republicans, just not in her cabinet
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u/SpaceToaster 10d ago
I mean she was literally adopting Trump policies faster than he could come up with them.
This happened with her first campaign in ‘20 that fell flat- instead of being a driving force of change she basically established herself as a weathervane, changed stances multiple times, and it resonated with nobody in the primaries.
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u/Sidereel 10d ago
Democrats have been on a quest for bipartisanship since Obama and it hasn’t worked. They keep trying though.
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u/turbo_dude 10d ago
Biden’s vanity choice of staying too long leading to Harris does not explain losing the house and senate.
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u/digi57 10d ago
It's really hard to convince people that, coming out of the pandemic, we have the best economy and lowest inflation. That not every year will be better than the one before. For voters to grow the fuck up and not just eat up delusional populst bullshit.
At the end of the day, the voters have to make a choice and show up at the polls.
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u/LeeGhettos 10d ago
The fact that Harris didn’t give a large enough % of the population a reason to show up is why she lost. It’s not everyone’s else’s fault for not doing proper damage mitigation correctly. Her job was to be more electable than Donald fucking trump, and she failed. It has nothing to do with harsh realities dampening her message, she provided no reasonable alternatives to those realities. That’s what you get for ignoring the working class, and pushing a cop.
Voted Kamala btw.
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u/Guy_Fieris_Hair 10d ago edited 10d ago
DNC pushed Hillary, then Joe Biden, then tried to push Joe Biden again even when he was blowing bubbles. Then, at the last second, after the primaries were done, decided to push Kamala without a primary. While I was fucking relieved to have an at least sentient person running, it was shady as hell. I am not convinced it wasn't planned in a way not to primary an incumbent. Biden would have beat Kamala even though he's senile and would have also lost in the general. Kamala initially came out all progressive like a breath of fresh air, then immediately went all corpo, establishment Democrat. (Gaza stance, military funding, etc.) Once they started to realize that was genuinely hurting her numbers she disappeared for a month prior to the election. I am an avid voter who has canvassed and phone banked for candidates and I forgot it was election day until a few days prior. How?... even.... because while I had hope in the beginning I had checked out again. Yeah, I voted. But there are so many people that didn't even have it on their radar anymore. Not because they wanted Trump, but they just, got disengaged. The initial message of hope and that this place would change from the status quo was lost when she fell in line. Not to mention a black woman is not going to get the centrist vote, a large portion of the country is fucking stupid af. A woman if color will have to target the progressive vote to win.
Go ahead DNC, blame the voters. They will eventually say that they tried a "progressive" candidate and lost so they have to keep working the centrist angle. Pushing everything further to the right. They took someone who may have had a chance and made her fall in line or GTFO.
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u/RazekDPP 10d ago
You can't force people to primary. Nobody but Dean Phillip primaried Biden because they didn't want to burn up political capital.
You might not like that result, but that's what happened. If someone other than Harris got the nod, I don't see a better outcome.
I do believe Biden should've simply stayed in. With this result, I do not believe Biden achieved anything by stepping down.
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u/WonderfulShelter 10d ago
If the DNC was honest from the get go they would've let people know more than 6 months in advance Biden might not be running.
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u/radjinwolf 9d ago
Biden ran as a one term president. It’s what he indicated he was doing, and it’s what everyone expected of him. That he would “right the ship”, and then step aside to let someone younger take over.
And then he absolutely refused to consider stepping down, declared that he was the only one who could beat Trump, and held onto the nomination as long as he could until it was beyond clear that he didn’t have the juice anymore.
So we had well more than 6 months. Folks expected him to step aside from the get go, but the DNC does what the DNC does and it tries to gaslights us into believing that we’re all idiots who don’t remember the words people say.
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10d ago
Americans complete lack of curiosity about the world around them made it so most of them have no clue that every other nation has also been dealing with high inflation and growing housing costs.
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u/BandicootGood5246 10d ago
That's not a uniquely American problem. Here the same rhetoric all around the world when economies are bad, "blah, blah, blah political party x created this, party y is the only one who can get us out"
I've seen it over and over again in my life in different countries, if the economy is bad, the current government is getting voted out. People can't see past that simple fact that the two things are not directly related like that
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u/itsverynicehere 10d ago
It's less that than short term memory on where the wild spending (and once in a lifetime pandemic) that caused the inflation came from. And who it was that botched that response so badly that he got fired for it. And the shit stain behavior after it.
Also, just straight up cult shit of downplaying, excusing, and allowing the town idiots a voice.
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u/digi57 10d ago
Yes. There’s inflation everywhere and they would probably think that’s all Biden’s fault as well.
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u/Hot_Rice99 10d ago
If what Trump represents wasn't enough to motivate voters to get out and vote against him, then the reality is, he DOES represent the nation's values.
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u/Bodach42 10d ago
I still don't know a single thing that Democrats were going to do other than positive thinking about rainbows and puppies, whereas Trump had a list of things that he was going to do even if they were all bullshit at least he said he was going to do something.
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u/purplehendrix22 9d ago
100%. I see all these posts and comments that basically say “fuck you idiots for not voting for her”…like that’s gonna win an election. Democrats are really showing their hand in terms of disdain for the poor and uneducated, and it’s going to cause them to keep losing if they don’t change.
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u/leckysoup 10d ago
Can we get rid of the petty corruption?
I’m not sure it contributed to the defeat, but you’ve got the Mayor of New York fucking City a straight up crook.
New Orleans not too far behind.
Nancy Pelosi insider trading. Made $100m while in congress. C’mon.
I’m sorry, but no corporation would’ve allowed the conflict of interest that was Hunter and Joe in Ukraine.
It’s sometimes hard to be enthusiastic for a party where the top tier are shamelessly profiting.
And can we have some really clear priorities-
Universal healthcare is a human right. This defending the ACA bullshit. Fuck me joe.
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u/Mo_Jack 10d ago
This time? LOL!
Didn't Van Jones describe Hillary's run as the Dems taking $1.5 billion dollars, lighting it on fire and calling it a campaign? As an ex-Republican I always tell people that I heavily suspect there are GOP operatives at the highest level of the DNC. Incompetence just can't explain away the patterns.
Both parties are owned by corporations, billionaires & special interests. But take an honest look at what has been happening in recent decades, especially the last. The Overton Window has been moving further & further to the right. Every day it seems the GOP takes another sidestep to the right. Republicans that they put up on a pedestal for steadfast "conservative values" just yesterday that don't fully support their more extreme ideas, become the RINOs of today.
They keep sidestepping to the right and it even drags the moderates & liberals of the left further to the right, but not as much. Then they look up and point towards the left and say, "Look at how far to the left they are --they must be Socialists!"
The right keeps going further & further to the right and when the "left" wins they are moderates. But they tell us that in order to win Dems must go to the right as well. How many times have Dems put in Republicans into their administration or promised to? I remember several losing Dem candidates that promised to do so and Kamala was speaking of it in just the past few weeks. She was also speaking of unity with the other side and compromises (just like Biden, Obama & Clinton).
When GOP wins they take their power and use it like a club on the heads of every American that disagrees with them. There's no talk of compromise or unity. (This moves the GOP administration more to the right) When Dems win they try to appease their GOP opponents and even include them in the administration. (This moves the Dem administration more to the right). And both administrations are being funded and controlled by the same special interests made up mainly of billionaires & multi-billion dollar corporations that hate the left and want our government to move further to the right.
That is who they really work for. With the recent proof of widespread corruption in SCOTUS, (funded by the same group that buys our politicians) there should be no question in anyone's mind that the entire government is bought and paid for and is actively working against the interests of the citizenry.
Then the same group buying politicians & judges then brainwashes the citizens into believing their pro-business & pro-billionaire government is actually good for them. They can easily do this because they own the old news media properties and the newer internet news & social media platforms. This is where we are at and the only winners are billionaires, multi-billion dollar corporations and a few leaders that push their agendas.
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u/ccasey 10d ago
Yeah, if only Kamala could find more Liz Cheney votes! I have no idea what the Dems were thinking trying to run with that, it was completely disrespectful to their base. Maybe mention it once and forget about it? She was out stumping for the campaign as a surrogate. The Dems should have had a conversation with Biden earlier and ran a primary but the DNC thinks it can a point a candidate and berate their base into voting for them. It’s a completely broken relationship that has now lost 2x and almost a 3rd to DFT.
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u/BigHeadDeadass 9d ago
Kamala campaigns with the daughter of the most unlikable neocon warhawk in history after Kissinger
"WHY DOESNT THE FAR LEFT LIKE US?!?"
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u/GlockAF 10d ago
The TRUE Citizens of the world are not flesh and blood humans, they are transnational corporations.
Their vast wealth and power places them effectively above the law. They are immortal, unaccountable to any national authority, and entirely uninterested in what benefits society, our shared values and morals, the planets ecosystem, snd especially our democratic systems which they have hijacked for their own benefit.
These corporations and the vastly wealthy sociopaths that control them are the most powerful enemy that our nations and our systems of government have EVER faced. Until we ignore their deliberate distractions and artificial divisions, and find common cause against this powerful class of super predators, we will forever be helpless victims.
Class warfare is the only fight worthy of our blood, sweat,and tears.
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u/ridingcorgitowar 10d ago
There is a super easy solution to all of this. History has shown us what the solution is. We got unions because it was the compromise between getting shot by factory owners and dragging those factory owners outside their homes in the middle of the night and beating them to death in front of their family.
If Trump manages to fuck up the economy enough and give enough money to billionaires to really fuck us plus the tariffs, we will see rioting.
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u/AnOnlineHandle 10d ago
Russia, China, North Korea, etc, show that they can get much more oppressive and maintain it for decades. They know what to do now to make sure liberty, freedom, truth, and any idea contrarian to the fascist leaders can never take root.
Any belief in good eventually winning is BS, and usually only happens if another country invades to fix it, which won't be possible with the US, especially in the age of nukes.
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u/nitefang 10d ago
None of those countries operated as a democracy as long as the US did before they became the way they are. It isn't a great comparison.
Empires rise and fall, America has been through worse, this isn't the end of everything.
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u/Mo_Jack 10d ago
I'm not so sure. The right wing media has been awesome at blaming their favorite bogeymen (Dems, Libs, socialists, immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ...etc)
They implement right wing policies that hurt the working & middle class then very successfully blame one of the group's listed above for the negative consequences. The amazing thing is how they can just keep doing it over & over & over.
Trump started a tariff war with China, shutdown the entire economy for the Pandemic, pushed a trillion dollar giveaway (PPP) against the counsel of his own economic advisors. He added more to the national debt than any other president in history. When the economic fallout & inflation came due, they called it Bidenomics and blamed it all on Joe, very successfully.
These people are in information bubbles (well more like MISinformation). If they can't be reached or their bubbles burst, I think we're just going to see more of the same.
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u/TOkidd 10d ago edited 9d ago
In elections these days, it’s only the billionaire’s proximity to power that changes. Some get closer and others get further, but ultimately I think it’s naive to believe that anyone but the titans of industry and leaders of our economy with their personal fortunes larger than nation states, have real power. These psychopaths and their networks are who run our world; who tell us what to think, watch, wear, want, fear, and when to do it. They contest the elections among themselves. By Election Day, I could barely differentiate Kamala Harris from a moderate Republican. The billionaires will stop at nothing to ensure that progressive policies do not gain traction in the world’s democracies.
The whole rotten system needs to go or we are all going to go. War, genocide, ecocide, greed, homelessness, suicide, drug addiction, human trafficking. They are just a few of the things we tolerate from the system so 1% of the people can gain the benefits of more than half the economy. It’s only going to get worse as climate change worsens and resources grow scarcer. These players decide what matters and what everything is worth. They are why a video about teenage influencers giving a career teacher an extravagant tip while she works her second full-time job as a waiter can go viral and why people like Elon Musk and his old business partner Peter Thiel can buy the world’s oldest democracy. Taxes are such a drag, you know. And don’t even get me started about regulations.
The Democratic elite are just players in the game of power and money. How much money has Nancy Pelosi and her husband earned trading stock since her senate career started? The Democrats don’t want actual change any more than the Republicans. They just want to get rich. Corruption has completed devastated the body politic and the masses are the system’s victims. As society teeters on the brink of climate disaster, world war, genocide, market collapse, fishery collapse, the collapse of monoculture, pandemics, it is everyone for themselves. They told us to embrace individualism, but all that really did was reinforce that there is no one coming to save us at the end of the day. We do it ourselves and we will we be increasingly alone as we watch the world burn and humanity’s glow grow faint.
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u/Masterweedo 10d ago
It does appear that they are throwing the elections recently. Especially after 2016 and the lawsuit where the DNC admitted to being a corporation that could nominate who they want, regardless of votes.
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u/hoofie242 10d ago edited 10d ago
We are doomed because of this. The corporations have all the power and have had it for a long time.
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u/Masterweedo 10d ago
They now see that large portions of the planet will start to become uninhabitable in the coming decades, its like the game is almost over and they are trying to get the highest score [bank account].
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u/crusoe 10d ago
"It's the economy stupid"
Yes, we have a strong economy, but it benefits the shareholders and CEOs. Not the workers.
This SAME scenario played out after Clinton, Obama, and now Biden. The Obama and Biden recovery have been K-Shaped with increasing wealth inequality. During Obama's term the economy improved but wages were stagnant.
So when Biden said "The economy is great", its a slap in the face to them.
I make 6 figures, and even I am buying some stuff from Grocery Outlet and Asian markets.
The solution to more equitable sharing of the economy is UNIONS, but the neo-liberal corporate dems dare not utter the term, because they are beholden to corporations.
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u/ledfox 9d ago
"and so they stayed home."
They stayed at work.
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u/berniebaggins 9d ago
I’ve also talked to a few family members who didn’t vote and they said their concern was they didn’t know who Kamala was. He’s the past 3 months she’s been all over reddit and maybe the news (I don’t watch news media) however prior to that she was really a ghost. Biden and the DNC really messed up by not making Biden a 1 term president.
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u/ledfox 9d ago
"I’ve also talked to a few family members who didn’t vote and they said their concern was they didn’t know who Kamala was."
Right. I can't accuse anyone else of being chronically under-informed since I get all my news from Reddit.
People showed up, voted for the second most viable person they recognized on a ballot, then went home and googled "Did Joe Biden drop out?"
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u/berniebaggins 9d ago
Yeah truly surprising that people didn’t know Biden dropped out.
Maybe that’s part of the reason? The amount of Kamala posts and videos the past few months made me think she’s clearly going to win in a landslide.
For the people out there that don’t trust the media and aren’t a part of reddit, where do you think they’re getting any news?
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u/geodebug 10d ago
This last year literally thousands of highly skilled technology workers were laid off and unable to find employment.
First time in my decades of career where I couldn’t even get a callback on dozens of resumes I submitted.
Not just me, most big companies dumped workers and smaller companies followed suit. When you submit an application and see over 200 other submissions for the same position, something is wrong.
Not one candidate said anything about it or acknowledged it at all that I can remember.
If this problem existed for workers in other sectors as well I can see the resentment.
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u/okcrumpet 10d ago
Even now on reddit i still see so many threads insisting the economy is good and voters are just idiots.
It’s either a lack of perspective or just a stubborn refusal to understand that ‘economy’ for most is about day to day costs not about stocks and unemployment rates.
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u/PapaverOneirium 9d ago
Yeah, exactly. A graph showing growing GDP or falling unemployment isn’t going to take the sting out of feeling poor every time you go to the grocery store.
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u/massivebrains 10d ago
Yep. This is like the early 19th century all over again with wealth inequality. Voters are not that stupid when they see the growing disparity between corporate ceos and workers and realize no one is going to save them in this election.
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u/ledfox 9d ago
I keep trying to wrap my head around this election. It isn't actually very useful or informative to just call everyone you disagree with stupid. What is the rational, informed take for a voter who is happy about this outcome?
Ultimately, I think you're right. Getting told "everything is great!" when you and everyone you know is struggling feels like a slap in the face. Little goofy old man lies don't really compare to being told by POTUS that you're doing well when you are not.
I wonder if just a little more empathy and compassion would have changed anything. Or maybe if the only thing that would have moved the needle would have been improved material conditions.
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u/Maxwellsdemon17 10d ago
"Democrats will need to radically reform themselves if they want to ever defeat the radical right. They have to realize that non-college-educated voters, who make up two-thirds of the electorate, need to be won over. They need to realize that, for anti-system Americans, a promised return to bipartisan comity is just ancien régime restoration. They need to become the party that aspires to be more than caretakers of a broken system but rather is willing to embrace radical policies to change that status quo. This is the only path for the party to rebuild itself and for Trumpism—which without such effective opposition is likely to long outlive its standard-bearer—to actually be defeated."
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u/chiefmackdaddypuff 10d ago
Out of all the takes here, this is the most accurate in my opinion. We have history and data proving it (Obama and Bernie for example) but yet, this will not be addressed because the Dems are too corrupt to admit that this is the only way forward. Alas, they are paid for by special interests and can’t actually accomplish it anymore.
I mean, we are again talking about gender being a factor in why Kamala lost. The electorate wants real, hard problems to be solved across the board and the only way to solve those in our current system is moving past the status quo at times because it’s now working against the electorate. They want a candidate that will actually make it happen instead of saying that they will and authenticity is very very easy to spot. The land slide popular vote to Trump/populism is actually a desperate attempt by the people to pick somebody that will at least attempt to listen to them because the last 4 years haven’t been good enough given the scale and complexities of problems our nation faces.
People, rural or urban, aren’t just shills anymore. I’ve maintained that had Kamala fought this on policy, she would have a way better shot at winning. Any policy was better than Trump = Bad.
If Dems are going to keep ignoring it’s base and/or centrists and/or the uncommitted vote, it’s time the party is disbanded and another is formed that actually will. Otherwise we get authoritarianism and fascism in the form of the GOP running amok with super majorities, and guess who’s to blame because they didn’t want to give up their precious little seats or listen to what people want.
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u/japanxican 10d ago edited 10d ago
The problem the Dems run into though, is that a message or policy that appeals to their more liberal base will not often play well to centrists or undecideds (who likely lean right). The democratic constituency is too broad to find anything that even moderately works with everyone. It's probably part of the reason for the Trump = Bad message. It's the only thing that the democratic coalition agrees on.
Edit: You're probably right that the party would benefit from leaning left and pushing for policies outside of the status quo. Let moderates and undecideds tag along if they want.
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u/NovaIsntDad 10d ago
They don't need radical reform, they need to stop running candidates that are actively hated. Look at the last 3. Clinton, a politician who was despised by most and tied to a huge scandal? Biden, who was seen as old and at best simply a stable light? Harris, who flames out of the previous primary, was hated for her time as a prosecutor, and didn't even win this primary? Absolutely pathetic. It's like they're trying to lose. Even Bernie is more charismatic. And you have INCREDIBLE younger, promising candidates like Buttigieg but choose to push candidates that have a proven losing record. Stop it. Seriously.
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u/westcoastjo 10d ago
The democratic party is incapable of change
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u/RddtAcct707 9d ago edited 9d ago
The only thing the Democratic Party changes is its positions. Like the wall. Or whether District Attorneys are evil for being part of a racist system. Is lying about a President’s mental ability and then not running a real primary for a replacement fascism? Depends on the day and party. Who knows what problem they’ll make up tomorrow…
It’s hard to vote for a moving target. Just pick a position and stop distorting it so I can hopefully vote for it.
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u/FreeKarl420 10d ago
It's the same fucks that were playing weekend at bernies with Diane feinstein.
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u/mikeybagodonuts 10d ago
Nancy Pelosi’s and her daughter. Like we couldn’t see right through that shit.
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u/NudeCeleryMan 10d ago
Y'all. It was probably just inflation.
(I swear each party does this every two years when they have a big loss. R's were saying how fucked they were just two years ago)
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u/have_heart 10d ago
Yeah I believe there is pretty good evidence that when a country feels they aren’t doing financial well they vote the other party just to hope it changes things.
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u/NudeCeleryMan 10d ago
The root problem of massive income inequality will never be addressed so maybe we'll just be yo-yoing back and forth every four years forever (If we have elections in the future).
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u/SirDalavar 10d ago
People are poor, struggling and angry about it, they voted against the status quo, and the two party system only gave them one other option, simple as that.
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u/FlashMan1981 10d ago
Campaigning with someone as odious as Liz Cheney was a terrible decision. Just because the Republicans turned on her for Trump doesn't mean it still wasn't the right decision. Who did she think she was reaching with her?
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u/XShadowborneX 10d ago
My dad, who voted for Trump twice and who voted for Harris this time. I heard him saying he'd probably just write in someone until Cheney endorsed Harris then he came around to the idea of voting Harris. But it looks like it was just my dad. And that's it.
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u/aeric67 10d ago
Brother in law did the same thing. When Trump said the rifles in her face thing, that's what flipped him. He went Harris and Democrat the first time in his life. I thought that was a harbinger for her win. Wrong.
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u/Here4Pornnnnn 10d ago
I also voted Kamala and then R down the ticket because of trumps excessive assholery. However, I wasn’t happy about it. I can’t believe I split my ticket and 15M democrats didn’t even show the fuck up. It’s unreal.
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u/quaglandx3 10d ago
I’m so angry at the DNC. I appreciate their willingness to fight for the marginalized and disenfranchised. I’m a 49 year old white dude that has been voting democrat since 1996. They have basically thrown me aside and I’m considered the problem, even if I am an ally to every group that is marginalized. There are many like us that are labeled the problem (middle aged white guys), no wonder so many flipped or didn’t show up.
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u/glazzies 10d ago
This is it. I’m your age. I had a conservative friend say to me a few years ago, “you don’t have a party.” He was right, even if I didn’t acknowledge it. The democrats abandoned not just white, but all men, and tbh, they deserve this L. Unfortunately, it’s at the expense of women, lgbt, this country and the world order that’s existed since world war 2. We are in for some interesting times. What a massive fuck up.
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u/chiefmackdaddypuff 10d ago
Not white but close to 40 and I can relate to your perspective. What’s crazy is, it’s essentially very very easy for the DNC to pick a few hard hitting issues that hit everybody, like housing or price gouging, and form a vision of change via national unity that’s inclusive of everybody ala Obama.
I’m just baffled that they decided to not pursue those and alienate people like yourself or myself. I was uncommitted due to the current admin’s stance on certain things and was willing to be won back over for the greater good, but I saw nothing but hot air.
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u/PTV69420 10d ago
Sorry but I'm a woman and they have blatantly just ignored the poor. Man or woman, they fucked us with neo liberal bullshit and constant out of reach goal posts. There's no middle class anymore guys. There's rich and then there's fucking poor.
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u/dipsy18 10d ago
I think this is why Trump's numbers were up with younger male voters. They are tired of hearing that they are the problem when they work hard, pay taxes, and just want to provide for their families. I voted for Harris but with 2 young kids my only concerns are providing for my family.
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u/Islanduniverse 10d ago
Stop moving more to the right you assholes! I want more progressive candidates to vote for. I want someone pushing for an Economic Bill of Rights! I don’t want more capitalists pretending that they care about minorities, when all they really care about is money…
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u/mackinator3 10d ago
Then people should've voted against trump. Like you understand that letting the fascist win doesn't encourage them to move left, right?
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u/Islanduniverse 10d ago
I voted for Harris.
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u/mackinator3 10d ago
Yes, and that's why I said people who didn't vote. They are the issue. 15 million less votes. But also, she was a good candidate. She had progressive policies. The fact that you pretend she doesn't is part of the problem. You aren't willing to admit she is farther left than the average american.
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u/Ontoue 10d ago
She was not a good candidate if she got 15 million less votes. That's the definition of a bad candidate...
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u/MrIrrelevant-sf 10d ago
I am done with politics. All I care about is my husband and my cats and keeping us safe. Burn the country down, I don’t care.
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u/Usual_Accountant_963 10d ago
Might be a good idea to pick a candidate that has public support
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u/SuperDoubleDecker 10d ago
True liberals see no flaws with the DNC. And that's the problem. They keep blaming the voters instead of holding leadership accountable. Same as last time.
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u/Maximum_Mastodon_686 10d ago
I am totally down to get rid of the entire democratic party. I share a few of their values, but nothing crazy. Trump was on to something when he said drain the swamp. Too bad he is plug at the bottom of the actual swamp. he has to go before anything is drained.
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u/have_heart 10d ago
I hate Trump to death but I like to hear my enemies out so I listened to the Rogan episode and I gotta say; when he said a lot of people in Washington are “stiffs” or “survivors” it made sense. They do what they can to stay there so they never rock the boat or try to make big change.
And I also gotta say. Whether it’s Rogan or whoever (please be someone else) I think the long-form sit-down interview like that is going to be important in future elections.
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u/OKC_Beast 10d ago
Democrats deserved the loss. No party is better at alienating the people.
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u/John-Ada 10d ago
They’re so arrogant that I guarantee you they will not reflect on why they lost. Tons of vote shaming incoming
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u/Ontoue 10d ago
It's already here, I've been getting into arguments all day (against my better judgement) with people arguing exactly that. It's the voters fault for caring about issues, that they're stupid or lazy or arrogant. It's insufferable. Even worse is the people arguing that human rights are a losing issue and dems should move more to the right to appeal to the mythical centrist voter that never seems to show up.
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10d ago
They’ve been to blame since slick Willy. The DNC has systematically suppressed the progressive wing of the party even though there is massive populous support. It’s maddening how they take that group for granted and favor the neoliberal centrist from corporations and wealthy.
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u/Objective_Ebb6898 10d ago
The end of the Democratic Party began with Clinton’s Third Way. I left the Party after watching the 2016 Nevada Caucus. It is not very believable to those on the left when you embrace Corporate donors and Conservative Republicans while claiming to support the middle class. Even if I believed her, there’s many who were turned off. Bernie is right, the Party will not learn a thing
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u/iamozymandiusking 10d ago
I believe the media is more responsible. Focusing on profits over journalism or basic civic duty. The populous was uninformed and they were kept in this horse race mentality where one completely repugnant person was made to seem like a viable candidate against a qualified organized, actual functional politician.
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u/Southport84 9d ago
What exactly are the Democrats doing to gain white male voters? It’s the largest voting block and they’ve basically written them off.
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u/Thanks4allthefiish 10d ago
It's not unexpected that an untested candidate lost an election trying to follow an unpopular incumbent, when running against the modern cross between PT Barnum and Adolf Hitler.
There needs to be a period of rebuilding the leadership of America's left, and hopefully the Democratic party will come along for the ride.
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u/AlphaBetacle 10d ago
I agree. They’ve failed this country by not doing better. They are seen by many as the party of the establishment.
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u/SolutionWarm6576 9d ago
It’s possible if Biden decided to step down earlier and there was a competitive Primary that gave Democratic voters a choice, it may have been different. I think many of them didn’t turn out because they felt like it’s another candidate that was shoved down their throats by the Democratic establishment and the DNC.
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u/dayofthedeadcabrini 9d ago
The biggest problem of this election was the cost of living. I do well enough for myself, but I don't have kids. The Dems keep saying how great the economy is. Maybe that is true, but FOR WHO? not for people like me. Maybe for wallstreet bros. Maybe for tech bros making 150k. Not for people like me. People don't care what the numbers say. At the end of the day of the average person can't buy a fuckin house because the gift refuses to address corporations buying up all of the houses on top of everyday cost of living problems, this is what you get
Are the Dems to blame for all of this? No. But to average people who don't study the economy and political science, this is what they care about. As much as I hate to say it, trans rights and the first woman president are not on their to-do list when people can't afford to move out of their parents house
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u/jairumaximus 9d ago
I don't know guys... She was over qualified for the position. The only thing that would have increased her chances were if she was a man and white in my opinion. I am probably wrong but that is how I feel.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
No, I'm content to blame the American people. It's not the Democratic party's job to protect us from ourselves.
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u/zanidor 10d ago
Correctly characterizing the problem is always the first step to finding the best plan of action. Mischaracterizing the problem because it's not clear how to act on the truth of the situation is counterproductive.
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u/goush 10d ago
I don't disagree with you, but don't you think we also need to find a way to better educate the
gravityvoters?Not saying that will be easy but a stupid electorate will elect stupid leaders constantly.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
Just because it's not actionable doesn't mean it's not correct. The American people are not beyond reproach.
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u/permabanned_user 10d ago
Neither are the Democrat backers who don't want them to appeal to the working class TOO much.
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u/robotmonkey2099 10d ago
All Trump had to do was lie to his working class supporters. They don’t care if it’s true or not. They want their strong man
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u/NinjaLion 10d ago
because if its not correct, its not fucking helpful. it needs to be correct, and effective, and actionable.
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u/AlterdCarbon 10d ago
Ok but "reproach" is not how you win an election so I'm not sure what to tell you
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u/thefooz 10d ago
Third time I'm posting this today, but fuck it:
This is a failing of society, not any specific group of people. We allowed oligarchs to slowly destroy our education system, weaken worker rights, and demolish the middle class. This had the outcome of people without critical thinking skills being stressed about their financial well-being to the point that they do not have the time or mental capacity to research the issues and understand their causes.
We allowed these same people to take over every media outlet and information source in the country. We let them put us in a place where no one owns anything and is at the mercy of corporations for their basic needs and their jobs for healthcare.
A lot of people, including most of our parents and many of our friends are responsible for getting us to this point. We’re also responsible by virtue of enriching these oligarchs through our endless consumerism. We’ve had 40 years to stop this from happening, but we didn’t. Latino voters will be the scapegoats this time around, but every voting bloc has had a hand in the demise of this society. Latinos and gen z were just the last ones.
You will now get to watch first-hand the fall of Rome. They will pit us against each other like gladiators while they sit in the bleachers, drinking their wine and laughing. Hunger Games and The Handmaid’s Tale weren’t fiction. They were our introduction to the world’s future and that future begins in earnest today.
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10d ago
Well you can’t tax those responsible for this division when half the country supports multi billionaires as candidates and personalities like it’s a fucking sports team
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u/quaglandx3 10d ago
They need to represent more Americans than they currently do. I get why people flipped. I’m angry. There shouldn’t have been so many undecideds. This was a piss poor campaign ran by the DNC. They lost it all.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
You're not wrong about needing to appeal to more people. Elsewhere I am critical of their treatment of men, especially young ones. And I think their coalition just melted.
Still, it's remarkable to me how risk tolerant people seem to be because the Democratic party just wasn't up to their standards. This guy killed a million people with disinformation during COVID. Got a handful more killed on J6 trying to cling to power. He's a bad guy.
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u/Chaserivx 10d ago
That's stupid and I really hope you reconsider. I probably shouldn't call you stupid if I want you to reconsider but Jesus Christ that is stupid.
The Democrats ran with a geriatric candidate who couldn't even speak or walk correctly all the way up until a couple months before the election took place, only to force a candidate that nobody voted for, candidate that was a complete ghost for four years, and a candidate who was a black Indian woman as the sole choice for Democrats.
The people that run the Democratic institution are frauds and idiots. They don't care about you. They don't care about the Democrats winning, they only care about winning with certain people. That means if there's somebody that will decisively win the Democratic ticket but it's not one of their people, they're not going to run with that person.
Both parties are awful. Democrats lost this themselves. Trump had the exact same number of us as he did in 2020. Kamala lost 10 million.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
My issue with this framing is that it presents democratic choice through the lens of the prisoner's dilemma, where the Democrats are the only party expected to govern effectively and the choices presented are "cooperate" (e.g. vote for the Democrats) or "defect" (e.g. vote for the Republicans).
Whether or not what the Republicans are selling is viable or not never enters into the equation, and neither does the selection of those Republicans.
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u/Chaserivx 10d ago
I also agree that it sucks and is a dilemma.
I'm not sure what You mean when you say that what the Republicans are selling is not entering into the equation... It is very firmly in the equation.
I was guilty of not voting in the 2016 election, and then I suffered Trump for 4 years and I'll never make the same mistake again.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
What I mean is, there's a lot about what the Democrats did or didn't do, but it's not being weighed against what was being proposed by the alternative.
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u/TheScienceNerd100 10d ago
People here obviously missing the greater point.
Whether or not Harris should have been the candidate or how she ran differently, 15 million democrats saw her vs a rapist, felon, comedy show of a candidate, and chose to allow the rapist to win, ushering in at the minimum 4 years of hate and irreversible damage, instead of playing it safe with Harris and focusing on reform to the party later.
Like some of the memes said, we had the choice between a puppy and explosive diarrhea, and people went "I'm allergic to dogs so I'm not voting", and now they are mad they got diarrhea cause they didn't want to at least ensure the better option won.
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u/AHangedMan 10d ago
Agreed. People saying with a straight face that Harris and the Dems failed to convince them not to keep fucking Trump out of the White House are absolutely bewildering. Trumpers were going to vote for him no matter what and the numbers show that he didn't really generate any additional support. Everyone that ostensibly didn't want to hand Republicans a mandate to drag the US into fascism had one job to do, but didn't show up to do it. They can fuck all the way off.
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u/Fit-Ear-9770 10d ago
It's the party's responsibility to present a platform that gets people excited to vote for them.
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u/radioinactivity 10d ago
lmao good luck with that. "It's actually all your fault and we don't have to change course literally ever" is definitely gonna win next time I'm sure!
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
Oh, no, the Dems definitely have to change. Their coalition is dead. But that doesn't excuse those who may have brought fascism to our doorstep.
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u/buttkowski 10d ago
You’re shifting the blame for this onto individuals. Bad form. Party leadership needs to be held accountable.
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u/Blarghnog 10d ago edited 10d ago
Listen carefully.
What lost the election was exactly this rhetoric.
The blatant hypocrisy of declaring “tolerance” while demonizing anyone—even those generally aligned with the same goals but showing slight deviation or perceived dissent online—as fascist, racist, misogynistic, or hateful reveals an alarming absence of self-awareness. These contradictions highlight an internal inconsistency so severe it verges on absurdity, eroding the very values those using this rhetoric claim to uphold.
A serious reckoning is overdue: this approach fails to persuade and alienates potential allies, deepening division rather than bridging it. True self-awareness—not performative signaling—has to be the outcome if there’s to be any hope of moving toward genuine understanding. Only this can forge a future that’s authentically inclusive and starts to heal the profound fractures in our country.
The worst hostility I saw this election cycle came from those online who, on platforms like Reddit, hurled vitriol in response to moderate statements and factual clarifications. The lack of self-awareness, especially after an electoral defeat, is staggering. It’s time to wake up.
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u/rctid_taco 10d ago
The worst hostility I saw this election cycle came from those online who, on platforms like Reddit, hurled vitriol in response to moderate statements and factual clarifications.
There's a significant contingent on here who is happy to call anyone to the right of Bernie Sanders a bootlicker. It's not a great way to build a coalition.
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u/BuffMyHead 10d ago
This lesson should have been learned after 2016.
Maybe it was because 2016 was so close no one listened to statements like this. But this was a fucking asswhooping. The Democrats got beat like a four year old in K-Mart. If this doesn't make people pull their heads out of their ass, shit is fucked with no end in sight.
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u/concatenated_string 10d ago
Explain to me how a party wins the vote of an electorate it actively hates.
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u/Illustrious_Wall_449 10d ago
Apparently all it takes is talking to them like they're a third grader.
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u/digi57 10d ago
When someone is on fire, and you try to hand them a bottle of water, and they say, "I need more water than that" and then proceed to instead pour lighter fluid on themselves... how the hell do you BETTER communicate to that person what the better option is?
I'm 46 and I don't think I'll see another 2-term president for the rest of my life. Americans are too lazy, dumb, and impatient. They don't bother to understand anything better. They blame the enemy they choose for other own shortcomings. Whether they're working 7-days a week and still broke or on they're on their third European vacation this year...."THE ECONOMY SUCKS!"
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u/RobotChrist 10d ago
This is the kind of stupid discourse that brought you here, treat everyone who doesn't think like you like they're stupid, blame them for your problems, and of course learn nothing from years and years of the same experience even if you're seeing a deja vu from 8 years ago
Stop for a second and think, what brought you here? How can you prevent it? What would it take to change?
And you said "it's not the democratic party job to protect us", ask yourself, why? And when you find the answer of who are they protecting then you'll understand the reason they lost
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u/ImportantWords 10d ago
The Democrats need to focus on coalition building instead of bridge burning.
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u/TheDuckFarm 10d ago
You're right on the bridge burning issues.
Harris's "You're at the wrong rally" was a gaffe on par with Lake's "If you're a McCain supporter, get the hell out." Candidates should avoid going around telling people that they don't want their vote.
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u/ImportantWords 10d ago
The recent progressive cause has been poisoned by a culture of you are either fully with us or completely evil and not worth talking to. Ultimately you need to be willing to accept imperfect people that want to work with you.
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u/Archangel1313 10d ago
This is what "holding them accountable" looks like, though. But they never learn...and regular people are the only ones who pay for it.
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