While I do agree that voting for the lesser evil is the correct thing to do for harm reduction and advocated for people to do so during the campaign (as I did and advocated others to as well), ultimately this points to a much larger issue with our supposedly representative institutions. Unfortunately, the reality is the vast majority of people do not vote on the basis of harm reduction or lesser evil. Most people are too busy working paycheck to paycheck and tuned out of politics. Unless they are offered concessions, they have no interest in politics. That said there any plenty of popular policies that would gain their interest, policies that would improve their material conditions. Good policy, good communication, and good politics are all needed to follow through and deliver those concessions to the American people.

Foreign policy on facilitating genocide, the economic hardships that every working American is experiencing, and immigration were all and still are critical issues for voters. Which is exactly why in order to win an election, a campaign needs to offer concessions to voters to earn as many votes as possible. Something the Democratic Party’s Campaign decisively chose not to do, and in fact did the opposite.

Instead of trying to secure hundreds of thousands to millions of constituents by supporting a permanent ceasefire and weapons embargo, a policy vastly supported by the Democrats own voter base (in addition to the majority of also independent and Republican voters), they instead alienated those voters by more than just ignoring their valid concerns. They instead chose to arrest thousands of student protestors, gave billions of dollars to a genocide at the tax payers expense consistently for 15 months, actively suppressed the voices and representation of the main victims of the genocide, and campaigned with Liz Cheney (who was actively involved with the Bush-Cheney foreign policy in the middle east and enthusiastically pro ethnic cleansing of Palestinians). They chose to do all that instead of represent the view of the majority of their constituents and abide by domestic/international law. And that was just one of the major issues, along with going right-wing on immigration, and continuing neoliberalism economic policies, that tanked the approval of the Democratic Party.

Under the policy spoiler you can find a whole bunch of policies that are overwhelmingly popular with every American and would improve people’s livelyhood (Such as codifying abortion rights, universal healthcare, good public housing, renter’s rights/protections, cracking down on price gouging, trust busting, public infrastructure projects). It would be the best way to fracture the Republican base of support, but it would require going after the bottom line of corporations. What was more important for the Democratic Party during the election? Doing everything possible to gain votes to win against the fascist Donald Trump, or prioritizing monied interests at the expense of public support and the election?