this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Either you are able to vote on harm reduction alone, knowing that your pick isn't ideal...
Or you are so ideologically locked in that nothing but "your brand" is enough.
Harris sucks but the vote was to keep MORE, NEW people from being at risk.
Republicans always seem to win with shitty candidates because they understand this intrinsically. They do not care that DJT is an utter buffoon, they care that he will enact the shit they want, and now they're getting it because they refused to stay home. As the saying goes: Democrats want to fall in love, Republicans want to fall in line.
So Republicans backed their guy, just like they did the last two elections, and there was no line that could not be crossed that would convince even a fraction of Republicans to not vote. Meanwhile, virtue signaling lefties desperately tried to convince me for months that I shouldn't vote for Biden OR Harris because they were both equally culpable for a genocide that is happening halfway across the world, as if Trump would have been any better.
Yeah, we absolutely deserve to be punished for this. We let this happen. If Dems could actually get a solid trifecta in the government, we might have a shot at actually reversing some of the damage that has been accumulating since Reagan, but that requires people to set aside their purity tests and hold their noses at the ballot box. The real elitists are the Democratic base who feel personally slighted at the idea of compromise or harm reduction.
There were 14 Presidents since FDR. And many of the Democratic ones had ample possibility to enact progressive laws and chose not to.
You keep claiming that people like Clinton, Obama, Clinton, Biden or Harris are "left", but they are center-right, in many aspects far right by European standards.
People don't vote "perfect" also not on the left. They vote "this is current issues, who addresses these issues?" Trump pretending to care about working class people helped him. Biden/Harris made a point of alienating everyone that is against genocide, which should be a nobrainer for progressive politics, and also peddling racist messages with bragging about their deportation numbers.
The idea that the center to far right Democrats would actually bring any leftist solution is laughable. They haven proven time and time again, that they are the party of maintaining the neoliberal and imperial status quo.
The solution is to offer a progressive solution against the reactionary solution, so people can rally around your progressive solution. Providing no solution and denying the problems is a surefire way to demotivate and disengage people. Someone who wants genocide, deportations and neoliberal economics can always vote the Republicans. And the Republicans can succesfully further the image of the Democrats being the billionaire cultural elite party, while the Reps are the billionaire "hard working" party, peddling the lie of the American dream. But it can be peddled to Joe and Jose in the milling plant.
And all of the policies that FDR was credited for were actually drafted by Francis Perkins, his Secretary of Labor and Socialist.
Respectfully, I have to disagree.
How many democratic presidents have had control of all three branches of government? It's easy for Republicans to get shit done because they have the courts essentially in their pocket. If the Dems win the house, senate and presidency, they still have to contend with the openly partisan SCOTUS attempting to obstruct them from passing sweeping reforms that would actually fix things. We're fucked for another generation in that regard.
Also, immigration was the #1 issue at the polls this year, even ahead of economy. There's no way in hell it's a bad strategy to campaign on how good Dems actually are with immigration and border security. If anything, we should have been screaming from every mountaintop about how Trump killed the most comprehensive border security package ever penned by convincing Republican congressmen to oppose it strictly so he could run on the issue. That means the issue is not actually something that Republicans care to solve, despite what they've convinced the American people of.
People who were not motivated or engaged to fight against what could very well be the end of democracy itself certainly won't be motivated by progressive promises, especially knowing that they are very unlikely to be implemented. The people who stayed home this year are the ones to blame for everything that happens next, full stop. We can't even point to the EC as a factor this time. A majority of Americans have bought into fascism.
Just pointing out: this is an insane take.
For example, Obama had control of the House, Senate, and Presidency. He spent that whole time trying to get Republicans to vote for Obamacare and at the end of all that, none of them did. He watered everything down and they refused to vote for it anyway and then Obamacare passed without them. Who would vote for that? Only people who for whom the alternative is an actual catastrophe.
California has a bulletproof Democrat supermajority, They don't have any of the things that the DNC campaigned on. Why would I believe the DNC could get anything accomplished with a trifecta if a bulletproof Democrat super majority in California can't. Democrats are indebted to the same donor class, CEOs and bankers that Republicans are. They are merely controlled opposition to Republicans.
Trump won both times because he departed from GOP ideology, not his voters. Harm reduction doesn't get voters to the polls.
This isn't about you and me. A campaign centered around "stop this person" is just less effective than one centered around "let's start doing this".
Just saying this is a hypothetical reality. As you say, it doesn't get people to the polls.
What it means is folks have to live with a FURTHER candidate because they aren't smart enough to serve their own interests and take the NEARER candidate.
The difference is that expecting the candidate to change was a realistic expectation, while expecting the voters to change was not.
I disagree, especially on Israel. Change would mean deviation from the official position. Imo it is a weakness with running a candidate who is already in the Whitehouse. They can't just say things, weather or not they want to, if that will have strategic/military implications. An outside candidate is free to say whatever. (To be clear, I don't believe Harris wanted to deviate much)
Lastly, I think my whole point is I'm not expecting anything from anyone, I'm observing how voter's inability to accept a good not great candidate results in a much worse candidate, so inaction results in a even less satisfying outcome.
This is the second time in a decade that the liberal establishment expected the US voting public to actually do something about all the fascism they themselves don't seem to actually want or can do anything about.
The "Vote Harder!" brigade was warned about this - at one point or the other, "lesser evilism" is going to hit rock-bottom.
That's fine, my point stands.
If more people need "their brand" then they'll also in the bed they made: the further possible candidate from their brand
Harm reduction does not exist, that's shit that liberals tell themselves because they know that what they are voting for is evil.
Naw dawg you bought a trump by sitting on a pedestal.
It's all fun and games to build the perfect candidate, but it wasn't on the ballot.
Ignoring "harm reduction" just put thousands of trans and millions of immigrants right in front of the bulldozer. Own it from your ivory perch.
I guess you didn't hear anything about Harris throwing trans under the bus last week, did you? I guess you didn't hear anything about Harris having draconian immigration bills as harsh as what came from Republicans. Did you? I suppose you forgot it was Bidens ICE that was chasing down Haitians on horseback.
No matter what you can say about Harris, I don't support any of it. None of it was "as harsh" as trump. Get ready for Muslim ban 2.0, etc.etc.
What I can say is trump, and project 2025 have a whole lot more in store.
So Harris, while distasteful, was harm reduction by comparison
Project 2025 has been around for 40 years, going by various different names. It started out with contract with America and it's been expanding since. much of the legislation that has come out of all variations of project 2025 has been 100% bipartisan. Bipartisan politicians that are voting along with legislation written by the Heritage Foundation is not harm reduction. Somehow liberals seem to have this weird idea that it ban is so much worse than genocide and burning people alive.
Yappin
Truth does that when folks plug their ears and make noise about it.
The answer isn't them. It's us. You. Me. Now. But go rant. That solves everything.