Most people said that Kamala went right due to her and Biden capitulation of the border topic, that she attempted to outflank the GOP from the right, which polls show was a losing strategy. This is very different from the accused left wing purity testing, which barely happend this election cycle, because most outspoken people on the left absolutely supported voting for Harris despite not agreeing with her. I don’t know how tuned in you were on this side of the media landscape, but the messaging from the left was that Trump is hitlerian and will most likely want to imprison or kill people from the left, as all fascists in the past did once they took the power. The left in USA was never this alarmist and geared up to fight for their continued existence, so the idea that they instead stayed in homes as a show of protest is frankly unrealistic.
What I saw on lemmy past those few months was a shit ton of posts like this one - antagonizing the left and claiming that they won’t vote because of the Gaza genocide. Also a lot of other kinds of voter shaming or blackmail. I don’t know if it was maliciously botted or if DNC strategists actually thought it was a good idea - which I doubt - but continously mentioning the worst looking aspect of potential Harris presidency worked in Dems favour. And there, again, leftists argued that it was a losing strategy and that it will cost Harris voters more. They wanted some pressure to be put on Harris, so she would divert from this cataclysmic collision course. Barely anyone even spoke against voting for her at all. If your analysis of the sentiment in months leading to the elections pointed to that, you most likely had your head up your ass.
The left had everything to lose in those elections. They went and canvased for Harris despite not agreeing with her message. They tried to course correct the disastrous campaign she led, and often was met with unrelenting arrogance of the center claiming that nothing can or should be done with Dems messaging about Israel or the border. Topics of price gouging or feeding children, despite being popular with voters across the line were dropped almost immediately, and instead pro-corporate and business-as-usual messaging went out. The left repeatedly said that Dems would lose if they wont change, and now they did lose because they refused to do that.
I’m not even from the USA, so I wasn’t that exposed to the mainstream USA media, but I know this anti-leftist propaganda was also constantly droned in TV. I know however how the internet side of left wing media looked like, and it was almost unanonymous that everyone needed to go vote for Harris or else the democracy will die. And that’s why I’m fairly sure that your accusations of the left causing the Harris loss are bullshit - if anything, they were the people most concerned about it.
As for anyone actually calling to vote 3rd party, you surely do realise those were bots or paid shills, right? They never even went beyond in explaining the Jizz Stain policy the point of “unlike Harris she hates Jews”, and overall their attempts to convice anyone were very uninspiring. She did get 0.4% iirc, so someone did fall for that, but come on, you know that’s bullshit. The left absolutely did not support or endorse her.
The voices of “you should not vote for Harris” were very sparse, so you would be hard pressed to claim that they represented a significant portion of left wing users on lemmy. Those people complained instead about Harris fucking up, which she did, and now you’re blaming her loss on the left based on those aformentioned sparse voices instead of learning from the criticism of the vast majority of the people from the left. What you’re basicially claiming is that those 14% missing voters were result of leftist activism against Harris instead of the ineffective campaign, but I bet you also believe at the same time it would be dumb to listen to the left (that had apparently this much political power to sway so many voters) because listening to their advice at any point would weaken the DMC. So even if I was somehow wrong with my assesment of the internet left willingness to vote, your point that Dems lost because of the left would still be wrong, because if they could have possibly bridged the gap of 14%, then they absolutely should have been the target audience of the campaign, and Harris should have instead done everything the left asked of her instead of alienating them. I don’t believe that was the case, as again, the left was very motivated to vote for Harris, but if it was, it would only show how bad the Dems campaign was.
My legs got numb and I’m long done pooping so cheers, sorry for the long comment, I need to eat more fiber.
So you’re basically telling me to not believe my own eyes and that the leftist spreading FUD about Biden/Kamala leading up to the election and afterwards don’t exists.
Don’t mistake criticism for spreading fear, leftists did commonly and openly agree that Trump would be far worse. Dems had time to change their messaging in accordance with that critique and they didn’t. Claiming that their campaign that leftists critiqued for being ineffective failed because leftists pleaded for Dems to change it is trying to have the cake and eat it. Again, if leftists proposing different campaign direction could possibly have enough political momentum to actually discourage 14% of voters from voting, then it would absolutely be a critical error from the Harris side not to listen to them. As “the left” isn’t unified block that speaks in unified voice, while the DMC is, the fault in that case would lie on the Dems side. And again again, assuming that was the case would be very naive. The wide consensus on the left was that voting for Harris was absolutely the only option to stop fascism from taking hold. People who failed to show up were people that didn’t care about politics enough and partialy believed Trump lies, or assumed “he wouldn’t be so bad”, or didn’t care which of those 2 parties would win because they assumed nothing would have changed. Trump agenda is extremely conservative, and vast majority of people on the left recognised that as a threat. Claiming they didn’t show up to vote despite all the clamour about Trump being Hitler from the left is a weak attempt at scapegoating them.
Don’t mistake FUD for criticism. The difference is timing.
Propaganda is at its peak right before an election. At that point in the election cycle it is too late to change most things. “Criticism” only serves to discourage people from voting in order to tip the scales.
No one is saying that the difference in voters in 2020 (largest turnout ever) and 2024 is entirely because of leftists.
If anything, most leftists tuned down their criticism of the Biden/Harris administration in the few past months leading to the election, especially since Harris was announced as replacement. Critique of USA letting the Gaza genocide happen was absolutely going on strong all the way since Israel started bombing hospitals in retaliation for October 7, and critique of Biden’s capitulation to the right on the border issue was going strong ever since Texas started putting barbed wire in water crossings and Biden decided he’d rather double down on xenophobia and “strong border” instead of dismantling the lies from the right. I would say the critique got strongest when those protests on campuses happened and the government started to crack down on dissidents and banning people for being against Israel. To be fair, with the critique also came some praise, since Biden’s administration did some neat things for working class, and when Minnesota democrats won the slim majority and started voting as united block to put in place progressive legislation they were celebrated by the internet left as the example to follow… Which also was a critique of the federal dems, who failed to act that way.
I’d wager you just tuned that out and it only started to be an issue to you, once the elections got closer. The left got ignored for the entire 4 years, despite ceaselessly clamoring about changes that need to happen, and now they got singled out as the reason why dems lost. Also, what was mostly critiqued wasn’t the government to be, but the campaign messaging, which absolutely could have been changed for more persuasive instead of borderline threatening and legitimizing the lies of the GOP. It was a shitty campaign, and Dems should have course corrected instead of, well, losing.
Your original point was that it was somehow the left that failed to show up for elections, and you put blame on them for dems losing. Now you switched gear to claiming that there was some conspiracy from the left to spread anti-harris propaganda, to get Trump to win, which is completely nonsensical keeping in mind what goals the left in USA has. Unless that’s what you’re suggesting, that the left united with the right to bring down the center, or something like that? I’d love to hear how you think that came down. And following that logic, I guess you’d want Dems to “cut ties” with the left even further and look for allies on the right? Because if so, it would be picture perfect example of what the post depicts, and it would be very funny if not for being very tragic.
There is also the issue of Jill Stein and her army of bots, but I feel like it would be too much of an undeserved insult to you to assume you think those people were from the left and not from the right. She was an obvious spoiler candidate put forward by GOP, I’ve never heard any praise of her in the leftist media bubble. Trump did praise her, Cornell West and RFK though, and she did pop up relatively recently, as she does every 4 years when it’s time to promote a book and fall of democracy. It would be a failure of basic political literacy to consider her as anything else than a right wing spoiler candidate, especially after almost 4 years of silence from her side, so I’m just getting that out of the way unless you want to challenge that point in some way for some reason.
Most people said that Kamala went right due to her and Biden capitulation of the border topic, that she attempted to outflank the GOP from the right, which polls show was a losing strategy. This is very different from the accused left wing purity testing, which barely happend this election cycle, because most outspoken people on the left absolutely supported voting for Harris despite not agreeing with her. I don’t know how tuned in you were on this side of the media landscape, but the messaging from the left was that Trump is hitlerian and will most likely want to imprison or kill people from the left, as all fascists in the past did once they took the power. The left in USA was never this alarmist and geared up to fight for their continued existence, so the idea that they instead stayed in homes as a show of protest is frankly unrealistic.
What I saw on lemmy past those few months was a shit ton of posts like this one - antagonizing the left and claiming that they won’t vote because of the Gaza genocide. Also a lot of other kinds of voter shaming or blackmail. I don’t know if it was maliciously botted or if DNC strategists actually thought it was a good idea - which I doubt - but continously mentioning the worst looking aspect of potential Harris presidency worked in Dems favour. And there, again, leftists argued that it was a losing strategy and that it will cost Harris voters more. They wanted some pressure to be put on Harris, so she would divert from this cataclysmic collision course. Barely anyone even spoke against voting for her at all. If your analysis of the sentiment in months leading to the elections pointed to that, you most likely had your head up your ass.
The left had everything to lose in those elections. They went and canvased for Harris despite not agreeing with her message. They tried to course correct the disastrous campaign she led, and often was met with unrelenting arrogance of the center claiming that nothing can or should be done with Dems messaging about Israel or the border. Topics of price gouging or feeding children, despite being popular with voters across the line were dropped almost immediately, and instead pro-corporate and business-as-usual messaging went out. The left repeatedly said that Dems would lose if they wont change, and now they did lose because they refused to do that.
I’m not even from the USA, so I wasn’t that exposed to the mainstream USA media, but I know this anti-leftist propaganda was also constantly droned in TV. I know however how the internet side of left wing media looked like, and it was almost unanonymous that everyone needed to go vote for Harris or else the democracy will die. And that’s why I’m fairly sure that your accusations of the left causing the Harris loss are bullshit - if anything, they were the people most concerned about it.
As for anyone actually calling to vote 3rd party, you surely do realise those were bots or paid shills, right? They never even went beyond in explaining the Jizz Stain policy the point of “unlike Harris she hates Jews”, and overall their attempts to convice anyone were very uninspiring. She did get 0.4% iirc, so someone did fall for that, but come on, you know that’s bullshit. The left absolutely did not support or endorse her.
The voices of “you should not vote for Harris” were very sparse, so you would be hard pressed to claim that they represented a significant portion of left wing users on lemmy. Those people complained instead about Harris fucking up, which she did, and now you’re blaming her loss on the left based on those aformentioned sparse voices instead of learning from the criticism of the vast majority of the people from the left. What you’re basicially claiming is that those 14% missing voters were result of leftist activism against Harris instead of the ineffective campaign, but I bet you also believe at the same time it would be dumb to listen to the left (that had apparently this much political power to sway so many voters) because listening to their advice at any point would weaken the DMC. So even if I was somehow wrong with my assesment of the internet left willingness to vote, your point that Dems lost because of the left would still be wrong, because if they could have possibly bridged the gap of 14%, then they absolutely should have been the target audience of the campaign, and Harris should have instead done everything the left asked of her instead of alienating them. I don’t believe that was the case, as again, the left was very motivated to vote for Harris, but if it was, it would only show how bad the Dems campaign was.
My legs got numb and I’m long done pooping so cheers, sorry for the long comment, I need to eat more fiber.
So you’re basically telling me to not believe my own eyes and that the leftist spreading FUD about Biden/Kamala leading up to the election and afterwards don’t exists.
Don’t mistake criticism for spreading fear, leftists did commonly and openly agree that Trump would be far worse. Dems had time to change their messaging in accordance with that critique and they didn’t. Claiming that their campaign that leftists critiqued for being ineffective failed because leftists pleaded for Dems to change it is trying to have the cake and eat it. Again, if leftists proposing different campaign direction could possibly have enough political momentum to actually discourage 14% of voters from voting, then it would absolutely be a critical error from the Harris side not to listen to them. As “the left” isn’t unified block that speaks in unified voice, while the DMC is, the fault in that case would lie on the Dems side. And again again, assuming that was the case would be very naive. The wide consensus on the left was that voting for Harris was absolutely the only option to stop fascism from taking hold. People who failed to show up were people that didn’t care about politics enough and partialy believed Trump lies, or assumed “he wouldn’t be so bad”, or didn’t care which of those 2 parties would win because they assumed nothing would have changed. Trump agenda is extremely conservative, and vast majority of people on the left recognised that as a threat. Claiming they didn’t show up to vote despite all the clamour about Trump being Hitler from the left is a weak attempt at scapegoating them.
Don’t mistake FUD for criticism. The difference is timing.
Propaganda is at its peak right before an election. At that point in the election cycle it is too late to change most things. “Criticism” only serves to discourage people from voting in order to tip the scales.
No one is saying that the difference in voters in 2020 (largest turnout ever) and 2024 is entirely because of leftists.
If anything, most leftists tuned down their criticism of the Biden/Harris administration in the few past months leading to the election, especially since Harris was announced as replacement. Critique of USA letting the Gaza genocide happen was absolutely going on strong all the way since Israel started bombing hospitals in retaliation for October 7, and critique of Biden’s capitulation to the right on the border issue was going strong ever since Texas started putting barbed wire in water crossings and Biden decided he’d rather double down on xenophobia and “strong border” instead of dismantling the lies from the right. I would say the critique got strongest when those protests on campuses happened and the government started to crack down on dissidents and banning people for being against Israel. To be fair, with the critique also came some praise, since Biden’s administration did some neat things for working class, and when Minnesota democrats won the slim majority and started voting as united block to put in place progressive legislation they were celebrated by the internet left as the example to follow… Which also was a critique of the federal dems, who failed to act that way.
I’d wager you just tuned that out and it only started to be an issue to you, once the elections got closer. The left got ignored for the entire 4 years, despite ceaselessly clamoring about changes that need to happen, and now they got singled out as the reason why dems lost. Also, what was mostly critiqued wasn’t the government to be, but the campaign messaging, which absolutely could have been changed for more persuasive instead of borderline threatening and legitimizing the lies of the GOP. It was a shitty campaign, and Dems should have course corrected instead of, well, losing.
Your original point was that it was somehow the left that failed to show up for elections, and you put blame on them for dems losing. Now you switched gear to claiming that there was some conspiracy from the left to spread anti-harris propaganda, to get Trump to win, which is completely nonsensical keeping in mind what goals the left in USA has. Unless that’s what you’re suggesting, that the left united with the right to bring down the center, or something like that? I’d love to hear how you think that came down. And following that logic, I guess you’d want Dems to “cut ties” with the left even further and look for allies on the right? Because if so, it would be picture perfect example of what the post depicts, and it would be very funny if not for being very tragic.
There is also the issue of Jill Stein and her army of bots, but I feel like it would be too much of an undeserved insult to you to assume you think those people were from the left and not from the right. She was an obvious spoiler candidate put forward by GOP, I’ve never heard any praise of her in the leftist media bubble. Trump did praise her, Cornell West and RFK though, and she did pop up relatively recently, as she does every 4 years when it’s time to promote a book and fall of democracy. It would be a failure of basic political literacy to consider her as anything else than a right wing spoiler candidate, especially after almost 4 years of silence from her side, so I’m just getting that out of the way unless you want to challenge that point in some way for some reason.