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Bad ending.
Today we learned that America is more sexist than racist.
They will vote for a black man in droves, but not a woman.
What a bad take. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. It has very little to do with race or sex. I’m not going to pretend that it has nothing to do with that, but certainly not enough to change the results in even the tightest of races.
The democrats ran a bad race and they crippled themselves by not having a primary. A primary allows voters to hear more from candidates and Joe all but said he would be a one term president. Him holding onto power like he did while having such a low approval rating really kneecapped any chances for another dem to inject excitement into the base.
Like it or not, a politicians job interview isn’t based on their policy, it’s based on their ability to get votes. Kamala Harris didn’t get enough votes, so she did a bad job. She might not have been given the tools to do better (like having a primary in which to get her views out), but ultimately she failed. If you’re a sheep herder and you can’t herd your sheep where they need to go, you can’t blame the sheep. It’s your job and you’re bad at it. The sheep are what they are. Sure, you can point out that the other shepherd beats his sheep into submission, or slaughters the sheep who misbehave, but ultimately if he manages to get the flock (with or without all the sheep) somewhere, and you can’t get them anywhere, then it’s your fault. Not only are you a bad herder, but the sheep that remain in your flock are worse off because you’re unable to protect them since you’re floundering trying to get the lost sheep. They just sit there picked off by wolves (or whatever I’m not a shepherd) watching you be upset at the lost sheep. They would be better served by a better shepherd. They might not have been better served by the other guy, but that doesn’t mean anything now because you failed and now the wolves are getting them anyway. Blame the sheep if you want, but that doesn’t help you find a better shepherd next time.
The sheep who misbehave MAY be sexist, which statistically is not the reason they stray, but if it was, you should have left them to a different shepherd. It’s your job to protect them and if they’re sexist and won’t follow a woman, it’s in everyone’s (including hers) best interest to just let a man do it. Though, I can’t stress enough how little that probably changed the result of this election.
I’m a woman and I voted Clinton. I voted Harris. If I could choose between never having a female president for the rest of Americas future but having all the presidents align with my issues, or swing between R and D with some women sprinkled in, I’d choose option #1 without question. I don’t need a woman in office, I need someone who can win and make policy changes I support. I don’t care about anything else. Having a female candidate who wants to protect my bodily autonomy does nothing for me if I can get a president who does. Making this about identity politics is a great way to remove pressure from the dems to do better. Before the election you can’t criticize dems. Apparently after the election you can only criticize voters. The dems ran a terrible race and have been failing on both policy and optics for the entirety of her run. I feel bad for her, but I feel worse for us. America is screwed and the dems refuse to take any accountability. (Obviously the Rs are the absolute worst, but telling satan he’s evil just makes him smile, so I don’t bother. In case you want to know why I never really mentioned Rs).
Before the election you can’t criticize dems. Apparently after the election you can only criticize voters.
Best line I’ve read all day.
I agree with your position. It’s how Americans should be thinking.
The problem is a not insignificant portion of blue voting and undecided men, did not pitch up like they did for Biden and Obama.
A good campaign might have helped make those people more comfortable and addressed the issues that matter to those men.
Its time for the Dems to get out of their ivory towers and listen to the socialists and leftists in their party that have been warning against the Dems shift to the right. Hopefully American democracy will still be alive by the time they get their chance.
This is very well written. Ideally, a candidates sex doesn’t matter, their policies do.
Harris was shifting to the right to gain Republicans, Republicans didn’t care and voted for the person who is a Republican.
This was beautifully put. 💜
Democracy dies with thunderous cries of “Well, I didn’t want to reward Senator Amidala for supporting the Clone Wars!”
(please note that this is not purely a metaphor for Gaza - it’s a culmination of all the issues that people beat the “BOTHSIDES” drum on ie all of them)
Hey, Pug? When’s it gonna be the Democrats fault? When are they gonna take responsibility for any of their failures? 'Cause where I’m sitting, I keep seeing them make monumental mistakes, like when they handed an 82 year old man in cognitive decline the nomination, replaced him at the 11th hour when it became clear he couldn’t win, then rerun their strategy of courting moderate Republicans, which already cost them the election in 2016. But no matter how many mistakes they make, it always seems to be everyone else’s fault that they lose. So when’s it going to be the Democrats responsibility to go out and win a fucking election? (AKA the most basic function of a political party.)
He’s right. Pug is also right. These are not mutually exclusive. Most human behavior occurs under the influence of multiple variables and some of those variables have interaction effects.
So shake hands because you both stated two very relevant points.
Yeah, I’m not shaking hands today.
They bear responsibility too, make no mistake. Most of it. But everyone who sat out here on their asses and didn’t bother doing the least goddamn thing to help stave out off fascism, a fucking check mark in a box, also bears some responsibility, and I don’t intend to let those fucks forget that.
I look forward to seeing you holding the former responsible someday, because I only see you talking about the latter.
Consider where the fuck we’re at. Lemmy is filled with leftists, many of whom were utterly uninterested in a ‘united front’ against fascism.
Out in the real world, my critiques are leveled against low-information ‘swing voter’ cunts who were fine with fascism as long as they don’t have to think about it too much.
Dem leadership sucks rocks. The DNC is a constant target for vitriol and deserves the vast majority of it. But elections are ultimately decided by voters in this country, and we have to fucking square with that.
Lemmy is filled with leftists, many of whom were utterly uninterested in a ‘united front’ against fascism.
Hey, I got great news for you Pug; Political Memes is actually full of a lot of centrist Democrats, so this would be a great place to break out those critiques of the Democrats you keep talking about.
Political Memes has a large population of people who were willing to vote for Harris to stop fascism, which many, like you, assumed to mean ‘centrist Democrat’ instead of ‘against fascism’ - you know, against fascism, unlike the kind of people who stood by and couldn’t even be bothered to cast a vote, the easiest political act imaginable, to stop it. If you actually read anything that was said here, you’d find no shortage of criticism of the Dems - but that’s inconvenient, so instead you lot would cry “BLUE MAGA” whenever a “BOTH SIDES ARE THE SAME AKTUALLY” post was rightfully pissed on.
It’ll be their fault when there’s not 70 million nazis knowingly voting for a nazi to push civilization off a cliff.
This is where the fun begins!
“This is Master Obi Wan Kenobi. I regret to report that both our Jedi Order and the Republic, have fallen with a dark shadow of the Empire rising to take their place. This message is a warning and a reminder for any surviving Jedi. Trust in The Force. Do not return to the Temple…that time has past. And our future is uncertain. We will each be challenged. Our trust. Our faith. Our friendships. But we must persevere. And in time, a new hope will emerge. May the Force be with you, always.”
- Obi-wan Kenobi, Star Wars Rebels
Social shout out to bezos not following his own tagline ‘democracy dies in darkness’
Everything going according to plan. Make life on earth so terrible that bad man’s Mars mission starts sounding like an option
And the Democratic Party is fucking Jar-Jar Binks. They literally could have stomped Trump into the ground like 2020 and instead they run an unlikable BayArea black woman last minute with zero chance of winning. Donald trump received 2 million less votes last night than he did in 2020 and still won. Democrats are responsible for this shit show and I can’t believe I wasted money donating to them.
I hope if we’re allowed real opposition parties in the future we can dump the dems and form a real leftist party.
I’d say start organizing for ranked choice now…but Trump definitely won’t listen. Shit, will we even still have FPTP?
More like “Supreme leader appoints a successor at their own discretion”. Or he’ll pronounce himself king and make the title hereditary.
Better start now than a few months before your next election
Maybe she should have gone on Joe Rogan
Oh no, I’m not brave enough for politics
Liberty died when Kamala refused to break from Biden on genocide, paraded around with the Cheney crime family and her supporters gaslit and attacked anyone that pointed it out. Good job Democrats. You got exactly what we told you that you would if you didn’t change.
What confuses me with this take, is that you guys get two options over there, so how was Trump a better choice? In a battle of lesser evils you still pick the lesser evil. Such an unbelievably flawed democratic system the US has.
With 1st past the post and all of the power wielded by the 2 major parties, it is basically two options, which sucks. But we have had this system for a really long time and the major parties know it and support it, so they ought to be able to navigate it (it they and sincere and competent).
So even though I absolutely disagree with leftists who vote for anyone other than the Democratic candidate in the general election, I share their frustration with the DNC who waste resources trying to flip moderate Republicans instead of energizing the base and courting the left. Hillary Clinton was actually rude and dismissive of the left. And the party stance seems to be “bend over backwards for moderate Republicans but harangue and hector leftists for not being enthused and for not turning out to accept whatever corporate scraps they’re given”.
I, like most Democratic voters are well to the left of the candidates and the party. I suspect that they keep moving to the right to keep the donors happy. I guess they’re trying to thread the needle between donors and the base, but they are not winning enough so whatever they’re doing is shit. I’d say that they’re over indexing on donors but part of why Clinton took over in 2016 is because the DNC was broke and needed someone to come in with big donors and make them solvent.
Lemme finish this sloppy rant by saying that I’m also super frustrated with anyone who isn’t voting - especially young people and people on the left. We can say that we’ll vote if they give us something to vote for, but there isn’t much evidence to support that assertion.
You’re missing a very, very key component.
In the U.S., voting is fucking hard. If you’re a low-income working class stiff, it is a serious challenge to set time aside to get registered and go to the polls. You can receive a mail-in ballot, but as many Americans learned this season, there are additional complications that can occur with those regarding registration and delivery. There are a lot of barriers to participating in the democratic process, and if your candidate isn’t willing to motivate people to push through that bullshit and vote anyway, then you can’t be surprised when a bunch of people don’t want to put in the effort to get them elected.
The system is so much more flawed than you’ve even imagined.
Very true, here in Australia we get the day off to go vote, which is the least you’d expect considering voting is mandatory. I’m privileged to live in a country where it is so effortless to vote and I can trust the system to work. Not getting a public holiday or making early voting early easy is a huge barrier to entry.
In a battle of lesser evils you still pick the lesser evil.
Apparently they don’t and thus you end up with the greater evil.
We don’t just get two options and I never said Trump was a better choice. Do you think Trump was a better choice? In a battle of two evils, you don’t pick the other evil. You either move, tear down the system, or do nothing cause you’re fucked if you do and fucked if you don’t.
First past the post is a stupid and terrible system (which we probably won’t have now in favor of something worse) that turns what may have been other options into just two options.
It’s not a false dichotomy, it’s a crap set of board game rules. And because of it, yes it was only just two options.
All in the past now, though.
It sucks to be right.
Gloating does neither you or anyone else any good.
You are right. Multiple players on the left brought up the interview question to Kamala: is there anything in Biden’s administration you would’ve done differently?
Her response: There isn’t anything that comes to mind. Complete with a confused look on her face.
That was a huge opportunity lost that absolutely did cost this election. It’s that wishy washy thing DEMs run on. Ofc I voted for her, Cluster B personality disorders shouldn’t be in charge of the worlds largest military, or, human beings, or, animals.
I’m just tired of seeing Democrats make the same mistakes time and time again, and people that choose to be willfully ignorant that got us here. Will they ever learn?
Because there aren’t really any consequences for the democrats… The ones in safe seats keep their jobs which are basically useless for a few years, what a cushy job. There is no moderating force in a two party system, there’s no external threat. One party can drive the public to outrage, and then lose the election and everyone chills out only for it to be replaced by an equally dysfunctional and regressive government. Voting Dems is only delaying the inevitable collapse, voting R just accelerates it. America needs to realise that a centuries old political system just isn’t cutting it any more. Two party systems are meant to force the sides to converge on the median, so you get two very moderate parties, but now one is moving further and further right and the other seems to being dragged along with it. At least ranked choice voting might be a start.
The mainstream corporate PR machine though is also to blame. That is going to be a hard beast to beat.
They won’t. 2020 was a fluke because Trump was awful. Biden was “Not Trump” and it worked that time.
People want change. Going standard fare doesn’t encourage that vote.
