I think I’ll do some data Analysis on how much this community shits.on third parties, non voters, and Republicans relative to how much they advertise what’s good about the Dems.
If you’re a politically uninformed citizen: Please. Do not vote. It’s your right and duty.
Don’t worry, the communists of Lemmy are already celebrating the Trump victory.
They were never leftists, or if they are, then they’re extremely anti-American leftists who want to see the US burn, not improve.
Are you even federated with Lemmygrad and Hexbear? Because they’re not celebrating. You’re like the Republicans who blame immigrants because you want an easy excuse to hide the fact the party is dogshit.
I am federated with the bear, but not grad. What’s going on is thinly veiled celebrations. Plus never have I heard a single one of those people have a bad thing to say about Trump or conservatism.
I’m not too sure most of the people on Hexbear are leftists tbh, I reckon they’re fans of authoritarianism more than anything. I even got banned for saying that voting third party (aka not voting against Trump) is pretty much voting for genocide. Of course, they don’t see it that way - Biden and Harris are personally killing Palestinians and under Trump this would surely be stopped.
would someone like to explain to me why dem turnouts were SO FUCKING ASS this cycle?
Did you guys just like, forget to vote? What the fuck happened?
I think there are 3 reasons.
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The economy is ALWAYS, FUCKING ALWAYS, the driving force behind the general public’s vote. The current American economy, when observed at a macro level, has been great under Biden’s presidency. Inflation induced by COVID and Trump’s first term policies has been declining, GDP is up, the trade balance is good, and interest rates are starting to come down. Americans aren’t benefiting from this in their personal finances. The wealth gap is severe because of trickle down economics. The democrats are shit at communicating this or even having a plan for it. Instead the democrats campaigned that identity politics were as important as the economy. Just fucking stupid. We all know the democrats policy on minority rights and protections. Talk about the economy and how you’ll make individuals wealthier.
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Some exit polls asked what emotions voters felt when they voted. The bi-partisan answer was overwhelmingly anger. (I think it was a cnn poll and a smaller website poll.) Guess which candidate plays into that emotion and guess which ran on “good vibes and joy.”
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In 2020, Harris wasn’t well liked and didn’t primary well. She may have done her job well as VP, but the public didn’t know about it. She and her campaign didn’t even communicate what she was doing. When she was “anointed,” that turned off many democrats. Most of the excitement came from relatively few. The relatively many democrats or people who could be persuaded to vote democrat were not motivated. At current count, Trump has lost about 6 million votes from 2020. Harris has about 14 million less votes than Biden in 2020.
TLDR The DNC are master fuckups
The economy is ALWAYS, FUCKING ALWAYS, the driving force behind the general public’s vote.
this is probably the best answer, but then this would primarily apply among righties, and centrists, not lefties, who simply didn’t really turn out in any significant number. Which would be weird, i think they would be far more galvanized to vote for the leftist in that scenario but idk. Also trumps policy is just, unironically terrible, if any of these people are informed even a little bit, this should be so incredibly obvious to them.
Some exit polls asked what emotions voters felt when they voted. The bi-partisan answer was overwhelmingly anger.
makes sense honestly, but i don’t see why this would kill turnout, unless it implies that dems would literally just seethe in a pile of their own shit instead of like, vote.
In 2020, Harris wasn’t well liked and didn’t primary well. She may have done her job well as VP, but the public didn’t know about it.
the 2020 campaign is an interesting, one, and it probably didn’t help. Certainly not with the rhetoric.
She and her campaign didn’t even communicate what she was doing. When she was “anointed,” that turned off many democrats.
i think this makes sense, but again i’m having trouble figuring out how “apathy towards the candidate” and ferocious anger against the alternative, somehow leads to the outcome of not voting at all. Maybe moderate lefties are sympathetic to trump, but i genuinely don’t think that’s possible.
TLDR The DNC are master fuckups
i broadly agree, but i include the democrats as well. I’ve had a few stints with people who are mad at the system, and then put no responsibility or blame on themselves, which is incredibly rich. I think the dem party has a significant problem with entitlement over votes. We’re like the rich white kid that gets whatever he wants, we just pout when things don’t go our way and and expect it to change, and then it doesnt. I think we need a reality check as a party (we just got it, hopefully) and a restructuring, and most importantly we all need to suck it up, and get over ourselves, and do what we need to do to protect the values of democracy (mostly liberalism)
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I’d wager a fuck ton of them moved far left and stayed home.
unless you have significant polling data that shows like at least 30% of the left being socialist or commie or something, i really doubt this was significant.
Did you not see the meme? It was obviously because of REPUBLICANS!!!
Those darned Republicans made you not vote!! It’s always the REPUBLICANS!!!
Yeah we know trump is awful, but in the end we could buy more stuff under trump than we can now and that’s all we really care about so we voted for him anyway.
Yeah we know trump is awful, but in the end we could buy more stuff under trump than we can now and that’s all we really care about so we voted for him anyway.
if this is true, and this is how you vote, you deserve whatever happens to you in life.
If someone lures you under a bridge, and then kills you, i won’t care, you lacked any critical thought processing to be able to stop it.
It’s harsh, but true.
(hi mods, this isn’t a personal attack, i’m making a point through satire)
They are in for a rude awakening this time around. They are going to find They can’t buy nearly as much
The dumbest most selfish motherfuckers on the planet.
America simply feels like they can “Sit this one out” if it means putting a woman in a position of authority over a man.
If Kamela was VP and Walz was the top of the ticket and nothing else changed…
Walz would have won in a landslide.
honestly idk, that might have lead to increased turnout, but i think primarily because it’s “not the biden admin”
it would’ve also helped if they got out earlier, i think.
Its only been 24hrs and this post aged like milk.
Aged like fine wine my dude, ~14mill less dems showed up to vote
And the fault for that lies squarely with Democrat politicians.
it’s absolutely not politicians, it’s the people.
This is like being presented with “would you rather stick a nail in your arm, or in your eye” and then doing nothing, only to have the nail get stuck in your eye by a third party.
The fault lies squarely with people who make assinine claims without any evidence, pretending they hold some deep wisdom when they really don’t know shit.
You are the evidence to support my claim, Poopster, in case that wasn’t obvious.
What’s a politicians job during the campaign?
To convince people that they’re worth electing.
If they could understand that you need to appeal to voters to win an election, they’d be very upset.
I love this, you made me smile on a very shit day, so thank you for that.
If I don’t laugh, I cry. I have to make comedy out of a shit situation or I’ll wonder how far I need to jump.
and it’s the peoples job to vote for the best candidate…
Weird that donald trump WON the election, that’s real curious.
When did voting become mandatory?
The only obligation to voting is your right to exercise it how you choose, full stop. It is not anyone’s “job” to vote any specific way, this is the entitlement Democratic voters need to get over.
Yeah, Trump won because he convinced his base he was worth voting for. Harris couldn’t convince her base that he was a threat and that she was worth voting for.
She did try to win over Republican voters instead of her own, though. 94% of them voted Republican anyway, just like they did in 2020.
But I’m sure you’ll tell me that was the voter’s fault too. 🙄
Edit: I brought up mandatory voting because it could be legislated that way, just as voting day could be made a federal holiday. And laws could be passed to mandate paid time off to allow essential workers to vote on voting day if absentee/early voting are unavailable. Or what if you were automatically registered to vote on your 18th birthday, none of this registering nonsense.
Damn, those are all great policy ideas that the Democrats could run on, or even implement, since they have been outwardly more supportive of people voting. Funny that they haven’t done that in the last couple decades…
… It’s almost like the Dems don’t want that roughly 60% of people who don’t vote to start voting. Wonder why that is…
When did voting become mandatory?
i didn’t say it did.
Fact of the matter is, if you don’t exercise your vote, and the result is worse, you exercised your vote badly. There is no difference between not voting, and having a bad outcome, and voting (for the wrong thing) and having a bad outcome. They are the same.
It is not anyone’s “job” to vote any specific way, this is the entitlement Democratic voters need to get over.
i don’t disagree, and in fact, i agree, this is an entitlement that democrats need to get over, because if they did get over it, we would start fucking winning. The republicans are literally an abusive partner right now, and we’re just sitting here like “well maybe if i close my eyes he won’t hit me” and then being really fucking confused when it doesn’t do anything.
As a party, we’re literally cannibalizing ourselves over this issue. It’s not that deep, just vote for the least bad candidate, and get over it, go do local political lobbying, go vote in primaries, go vote in local elections, whatever the fuck, nobody cares, just do something
She did try to win over Republican voters instead of her own, though. 94% of them voted Republican anyway, just like they did in 2020.
she didn’t try to win over republican voters, she tried to win over moderate voters. I would say it worked to some degree. But obviously since we got like a 50% turnout, it’s really hard to say if anything worked, and frankly, i think the democratic institution is failing right now. If we don’t get up and do something about it in the next 4 years, the republicans are going to run uncontested.
it’s funny that the image says moderate republicans, and while that’s partially true, it’s also pushing for support from the moderate left. Which is the vast majority of the party. She was also appealing to the moderate left (most of the dem party)
Damn, those are all great policy ideas that the Democrats could run on, or even implement, since they have been outwardly more supportive of people voting. Funny that they haven’t done that in the last couple decades…
maybe they should, but in defense of them, running on voting policy, in a federal election is pretty fucking silly. You can’t really do much about it on a federal level.
It’s almost like the Dems don’t want that roughly 60% of people who don’t vote to start voting. Wonder why that is…
so they can lose repeatedly to the republican party? ok.
Do you think these people stayed home?
I know that they didn’t vote
You know there was 14 million less people this time l than last. You don’t know if they were Democrats. Literally low information, high opinion person. And we know what happens to them.
(Hell, you don’t even know that 14 million didn’t show because we don’t have the final vote total.)
Trump also has less votes than last time and almost all votes are tallied at this point, there isn’t millions left. Voters in general didn’t show up as much for this election.
Lowest turnout since 2020. Second highest since 1920.
I think both Dems and Republicans suck in very different and not proportionate ways, but I am also a very big proponent of voting. Go vote! It’s your duty.
I find that the thing people need to remember is that the general election is purely damage control time. For actual change, and getting candidates that don’t suck, the work needs to already be done by the time the election rolls around.
Politics is marketing. Governing is the slow boring of hard boards. You only get there with dilligence, conviction, and commitment to the idea that you are planting the trees that will shade your grandchildren.
I find OP’s post functionally defeatest. It hinges on this theory that there really is only one choice every election season. You must vote Democrat - whether it’s Sherrod Brown or Eric Adams - and you can never question how these officials behave during an election season.
The Dems don’t have any real duty towards their voters, or even an obligation to do a particularly good job of governing. They can just point at Republicans, say “Worse! Vote for us or that’s who you get”, then blast people with anxiety-inducing advertisement until folks panic.
The end result of this system is one in which Dems win by maximizing anxiety, rather than improving quality of life for anyone.
Which is why they lose. People literally tune them out. Unless they’re morons like myself who keep trying to help the Democrats.see their nonsense.
And thus, instead of fighting the actual enemy, the republicans, you’re antagonising the people who are more reasonable. Next time you can do it like France and call leftist crazy extremists so you’ll seem less hypocritical about it.
Been saying this the whole time. Libs were shaming and harassing undecided voters for weeks instead of acknowledging that the dems were running a god awful campaign and pivoting towards nazi policies.
What are you talking about?!?! The Dems ran a flawless campaign, it’s all the voters who are wrong!!! Don’t know they know what the Dems tell them is right is right?!? Don’t you know you’re fucking stupid if you have any qualms about not voting for Harris?!?
- 90% of Lemmy users right now trying to find any reason to blame anyone but the DNC for their hubris and entitlement
Which policies are nazi-like?
The trump 2020 border agenda that the dems adopted as their own campaign promise this time around
Also, “most lethal military in the world”.
please explain to me in what world, not voting for dems who are “tending towards nazi ideology” compared to someone who openly espouses nazi ideology is somehow the better choice.
I fail to see how, maybe i’m too intelligent and smart, but to me it seems like a really fucking simple choice.
I’m not commenting on the ethics of voting for Harris. I’m commenting on the hordes of people on lemmy and other social networks who were actively insulting anyone who expressed uncertainty in voting for Kamala. Actively insulting people who want to be on your side but are finding it difficult to support someone who is part of an administration that is actively funding a genocide.
Those people, in my opinion, pushed voters away by completely ignoring their concerns and telling them they are fucking stupid if they don’t vote democrat. It’s a brain dead strategy and mirrors the democrats campaign strategy, which categorically failed.
the problem here is not that they’re criticizing the candidate, nobody cares. The problem here is that they have rather minor inconsequential issues with the candidate, and they’re not pledging to vote, hoping that candidate 2 electric boogaloo magically shows up and solves all of their problems or something.
if you have problems with the harris admin, sure that’s fine, but you can’t sit there and go “idk if i should vote for her” knowing that trumps admin is going to be 10x worse in literally every aspect.
People hate it, but it’s just true. You would rather elect some drunkard homeless dude than hitler, if given the chance.
Actively insulting people who want to be on your side but are finding it difficult to support someone who is part of an administration that is actively funding a genocide.
ok to be clear, this is an extremely charitable statement. They don’t want to be on our side, they want us to be on their side. That’s why they aren’t voting. If they wanted to be on our side, they would just vote, because that’s all they would have to do.
Those people, in my opinion, pushed voters away by completely ignoring their concerns and telling them they are fucking stupid if they don’t vote democrat.
these people are what we call single issues voters, now say it with me, single issues voters are fucking useless.
to be clear, if you cut off you finger while making food or something (can be literally any example) and you ask me to take you to the hospital (on account of no longer having a finger) and i hand you a towel on the way out to the car, you aren’t going to stand there and go “well, hold on a minute now, why did you hand me a towel? I didn’t get wet, i just cut off my finger?” To which i would respond with “because you’re bleeding everywhere.”
and to be clear, i’m a political nihilist, if you don’t want to vote because you don’t care, that’s fine, whatever, just don’t come crying to me when the grim reaper shows up on your doorstep asking for a moment to chat. Either you accept the outcome of the election as is, or you fucking vote. Those are your options.
When you run to the right, and the people who like right-wing policies already have a party giving them the policies they want, they’re not gonna switch parties, and you’re just going to alienate the parts of your base/coalition that are affected by those policies.
Campaigning primarily on being the lesser evil and maintaining status quo failed, you can tell people 1 choice is slightly better all you want but on election day we found out that you can’t win that way. If the dem politicians actually want to win they’ll try a different strategy next time
When you run to the right, and the people who like right-wing policies already have a party giving them the policies they want, they’re not gonna switch parties, and you’re just going to alienate the parts of your base/coalition that are affected by those policies.
the harris campaign was not right wing, idk why you’re just making this shit up, there are more political ideologies aside from socialism and communism you know this right?
It was so right wing that it got endorsed by evil warmonger dick cheney.
and so did putin? Who gives a fuck who endorses what.
Clearly the campaign cared because they publicized Cheneys endorsement
Some of us are actually not Democrats or Republicans because we really think both sides are bad in different ways. I still voted though.
If third parties wanted to actually do some good in the country, you’d see them running locally and encouraging either ranked-choice voting or STAR voting (Score, then automatic runoff).
The fact that you only ever hear of third parties every four years really illustrates what their true objectives are.
The fact that you only ever hear about ranked choice voting when you tell Democrat you’re thinking of voting third part illustrates what their true objectives are.
(Also, I see third candidate parties in every midterm and local election I vote in at all levels of government. I have no idea what you’re talking about).
(Also also, anyone reading this who lives in a swing state and hasn’t voted yet, please, just votes for Harris. She sucks, but Trump is even more dangerous now that he has a staff full of enablers and an actual plan. We have to beat him.)
Not having RCV doesn’t make anything worse.
Promoting third-parties without RCV in place does.
Well, third parties have always existed and will always exist, so it sounds like the Democrats need to get cracking on RCV. That is, unless they don’t actually want RCV because it might disrupt the duopoly that empowers them, and they’d prefer that third-parties remain a boogeyman they can use to bully people I to voting for them (or a scapegoat for their losses).
You Americans are really weird in that regard. As a foreigner, both your parties are fucking horrible. To demonstrate what I mean: one party wants to ban abortions, the other party says that unless you vote for them, the bad guys will take away your abortions and then they proceed to do absolutely nothing about it.
So yeah, one of your parties is almost cartoonishly evil, the other is plain old adult-level evil.
It’s not that democrats are any better than republicans, they’re just smarter about pretending they’re not evil.
This is not only incredibly reductionist, it’s just flatout wrong. How can people still tout this “both parties are the same” bullshit?
It’s gonna get real hard to keep it up in a few months when we start to see the real world implications of a second Trump regime.
Again, this is a foreigner view. Maybe it’s different when you actually live there, though I doubt it. But from my point of view, both parties suck extremely and unless you somehow manage to get a 3rd party to win, you’re fucked for eternity. Both parties have no reason to make anything better if they know you’ll vote for one of them anyway.
I wish that I wasn’t correct. But I guess all I can say is, get some popcorn and watch the insanity unfold. And do everything you can to stop it from infecting your own country.
I wonder at what point you will realize that everything you just said in that comment could not have been more wrong. Will it be the the federal ban on abortion and birth control? The mass deportations (that include some US citizens, “whoops”)? Concentration camps? Political prisoners and executions?
Yeah, concentration camps and executions would probably be up there.
Not abortions, though, that’s exactly what I was talking about: democrats are saying that republicans will take away your abortion rights for 20 years (probably more). Why didn’t they actually do something about it? As I said, republicans want to take away abortions and democrats want to blackmail you into voting for them because otherwise abortions will be banned.
Well, let’s see how it unfolds, I still think democrats are the lesser evil, so I’m not very happy about Trump being elected because, like it or not, the US is too big to ignore wherever in the world you live.
Yup, they know they’re outnumbered so they try every trick in the book to stop the Democrat bloc surplus from voting.
