And I’m being serious. I feel like there might be an argument there, I just don’t understand it. Can someone please “steelman” that argument for me?
Before I start let me note that in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election. Harris is on the way to losing all swing states. Her failure is much deeper than Gaza policy. Blaming anti-genocide voters for this is just copium.
With that out of the way, you can divide people with this position into two groups: Arab Americans and everyone else. Arab Americans are people who are feeling the genocide firsthand. So, obviously, they tried to appeal to the Harris campaign and get them to move from Biden’s position on the topic. The result: They were either ignored or antagonized by Harris. That led to the abandon Harris campaign in Michigan and elsewhere. Harris considered those people acceptable casualties in her failure of a campaign, and so they were burnt out and the momentum behind the Uncommitted movement and others turned from “let’s save our Palestinian brothers” to “fuck us and Palestine (because let’s face it, that’s basically what Harris was saying)? Then fuck you too”. Harris thew them under the bus and was thrown under the bus in turn. Maybe not very logical, but a very predictable reaction. Harris treated Arab Americans with just that much contempt, and then she and her enablers had the gall to tell the people attending a funeral every other day to “shut up and vote for her”.
Now as for everyone else, it’s a more simple instance of taking a stand against a politician for doing something you cannot accept. Now there is a pragmatic idea here that if you allow the DNC to get away with this they’ll think supporting genocide actually wins elections, or that their electorate are such pussies that it doesn’t matter what they think. Add in the goal of pressuring Harris to drop that policy that was important at the start of the Harris campaign and of course the idea of not wanting to vote for genocide and this was the result.
Of course it’s not all 100% logical, but there is logic here beyond “omg bad guy I no vote”.
Now that the election is out of the way, maybe I can continue talking about this. I held my tongue during the past months, but I think now is a good time to think about this result.
While the result is unfortunate and disappointing, there are sides to it that aren’t all that bad. They pushed towards the right, pandering, and now the voters told them that this isn’t a winning strategy. I think it helps setting them straight for the future.
I think you put it very aptly. Of course it would’ve been best if Harris had won, but at least now we can think about it from a neutral perspective: Had she won despite all the right-pandering and genocide-enabling stances, it would either send the message that pandering to the right works, and the progressives are, indeed, either too small a group to listen to in the future too, or too much of pussies to listen to in the future, too — they’ll toe the line no matter what kind of shitty positions you take.
At least now they know that a change is needed. It’s almost unthinkable to lose to such a weird fascist populist that barely behaves cohesively. They did, by ignoring the progressives. That means something. At least it ought to.
Things don’t often change unless things hurt. If doing shitty things keeps working, nothing changes. But when things hurt, it opens some eyes at least. Forces re-evaluation on everyone’s part.
But that being said, this fucking sucks. Despite all the reasoning we can do to make it feel a bit better, this really should not have happened.
They played this exact same game in 2016 and lost and yet they learned nothing. What makes anyone think they’re going to learn something this time? The DNC needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up to be a proper left party instead of this bullshit center-right garbage that they pretend is progressive or left.
I’m not hopeful. I’ve already seen centrists and pundits saying that Harris lost because she’s “too progressive” and that Dems need to move further right.
Given Dems’ track record, I’m dreading 2028 is going to be JD Vance versus fucking RFK Jr. or Joe Manchin. At least the only silver lining out of THAT shitshow will be seeing the Democratic Party completely implode after completely alienating their voter base to become a carbon copy of the Republican Party (while Repub voters just keep voting R) and hopefully pave ground for an actual progressive party replace them, but that will hardly offset the horrors of 8 years of unrestrained fascism (assuming the left wins in 2032 🥲)
There will be no more elections, do you guys not listen to what Trump says? The only way to have elections again would be a civil war and guess what, the fascists are the majority so fat chance of that happening
do you guys not listen to what Trump says?
Yes that was one of the many outrageous claims he made.
Who knows which things he will actually try to do, let alone what he’ll succeed at doing.
Even with the house, senate and supreme court tilted right, I don’t see them succeeding on abolishing elections.
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement. Slotkin won the senate race, but Trump won by a narrow margin. Independent votes and low turn out siphoned off enough to make that happen. Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
You’re wrong that it didn’t impact the outcome. MI flipped to Trump directly because of the uncommitted movement.
I mean maybe (I haven’t seen the turnout numbers as opposed to protest/non-voters) but the point is that Harris lost before Michigan even finished counting. She could’ve won Michigan and she still wasn’t winning this, is the point.
Low turn out also directly impacted the results. PA is a different story, but low turn out was true there, too
I mean yeah, because the DNC pushed an unelectable candidate whose position was a mix of “nothing will fundamentally change”, wishy washy non-promises and right wing positions. I doubt even 10% of the 15 million in reduced turnout came from Uncommitted and similar movements. The DNC blew it; it’s that simple.
Michigan and Wisconsin, 25 electoral points. You can’t just lose swing states like she did.
Pennsylvania absolutely over biden economic policies. Screaming the economy is doing great! I wouldnt change a thing! While people struggle to afford groceries isnt going to win you an election.
in the end this particular group of people didn’t affect the election.
Source for that statement?
Kamala got 20 million fewer votes than Biden. You don’t think a significant amount of those weren’t related?
So, I’d say that looking at the votes means that it did have an effect.
I don’t understand your point. I’m not talking about Michigan. I’m talking about the country.
