this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
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I've been loudly and proudly critical of the democrats while also voting for Harris and urging others to do so. The democratic presidential campaign in 16 and 24 amounted to: you should vote for us because the other guy sucks. We can get into a lot more details than that, particularly on the shortcomings of the policy plank and messaging, but that's the gist. It didn't work in '16, there was ZERO reason to think it would work in '24, but fuck it, we can always blame the voters.
Unrelated story time, after I got my driver's license, my alcoholic dad would get hammered and then demand that I drive him to the liquor store to buy more liquor, and if I didn't, then I would be responsible when he crashed into someone and killed them while trying to drive himself. It was just a strategy to get me somewhere where I had to listen to him tell me what a piece of shit I was for about an hour, of course, but before I knew any better, I would comply. Eventually I just told him that he was welcome to drive himself, but I'd be letting the state patrol know how to find him.
Dunno why I remembered that story just now. Huh.
It wasn't just the same strategy. It was a lot of the same people who worked on Hillary's campaign, as well a bunch of Obama flunkies pushing the, "demographics are destiny," narrative that keeps convincing the party they can safely ignore the working class and focus on, "moderate," Republicans. A bunch or them went on Pod Save America to explain what happened with the Harris Campaign, and (Spoiler Alert) turns out they did everything right, the campaign was great, and everything that went wrong was someone else's fault.
Anyway, I'm sure the OP is right, and the protest voters are why she lost. It's definitely not the fault of the Democratic Party elites who keep re-hiring the same strategist despite their catastrophic failures. I'm gonna get a head start on making memes blaming the left for Hillary's 2028 loss to Trump because no one learns anything and we live in hell.
Is that sarcastic nonsense at the end of your rhetoric you admitting that your protest was ineffective and a waste of time?
Because if so- then all those non-voters and third party protest votes got trump elected.
I VOTED FOR HER. But thanks for ignoring every substantive argument made about how the Dems fucked this up. It's super fun seeing people like you learn nothing from these defeats! Can't wait to watch this happen again in 2028 because you guys refuse to hold Democrats accountable for campaigns designed to appeal donors and consultants instead of voters! Keep enabling them, it's going great!
You voted for her while explaining how awful you thought she was, which put other voters off voting for her. The election was won for Donald "ethnic cleansing" Trump by people staying home because Harris was so flawed, a point made by republicans and useful left wing idiots alike.
"Yes, you voted for her, but you vocally criticized her. You're not allowed to speak out against the party like that." Do you fucking hear yourself yet? Do you still not understand why people call you Blue MAGA?
Do you not think campaigning has an effect?
If all it took was people on social grumbling about their terrible policy plank to sink the campaign, maybe, just maybe, they ran a shit campaign and there's lessons to be learned.
"The Dems ran a shit campaign" and "Maybe running negative PR campaigns against a candidate reduces a candidate's support" are not mutually exclusive options.
Tl;Dr the election was the only place that we had to have that discussion.
Look, there was a primary in the literal sense, I voted in it, but there wasn't a primary in the practical sense. There were no debates, no discussion of his platform for '24, Biden didn't campaign, and the Democratic party / Biden Campaign worked HARD to shut down questions about Biden's viability or the Mandela effect where everyone seemed to remember him promising to be a single term president. I mean, I could swear I remember it too; I'm still puzzled about where so many folks got the idea. Then, once we were way past the primary, we found out that Biden was nowhere even near viable shape for the campaign trail. He put on the most disastrously bad debate performance in presidential debate history against an opponent that should have been (and was just four years prior) a joke. None of his other "see? He's fine" appearances before or after inspired much faith either. So, we basically ended up with Harris and zero discussion about her platform. At first, I was really excited and eager to see what her platform would be. As time went on, though, I started seeing more and more that reminded me of HRC '16 and less meat to get excited about. If there had been a real primary in a practical sense, I would not have voted for Harris (and didn't vote for Biden, I think I voted Phillips) on the platform she had.
The primaries are a time for the campaigns to work with voters and figure this stuff out, see what appeals to the base and is likely to get them to turn out. We never got to have that conversation with Harris, we barely had it at all with Biden. The only place we could have it is during the election, and my hope was (and remains) that campaigns are agile enough to respond when their base gives them feedback. I don't support the Democrats because they're Democrats, I support them because they offer the closest practical path to policies I want to see enacted. I want to see good policy win, and I think good policy will get the democrats their wins. We can't ever improve if we can't be accept criticism, and when it comes to politics, the appropriate way to criticize is a bit like finding the appropriate way to protest according to Fox News. We need to have these conversations to get better, and I absolutely do blame the Harris and Biden campaigns for putting themselves in such vulnerable positions and failing to respond appropriately to criticism. Their job is to get elected, and they failed.
Shitty as it was, there was no third or fourth option to be had; once Harris was in the driver's seat, it was going to be her or Trump, simply by the way our political system is set up. With that in mind, going forward, all questions would have to boil down to "Is it preferable for Harris to enter into the presidency, or Trump?"
If it's election-time in 1930 Weimar Germany, and my only viable choices in the election district I'm in are the SDP and the Nazis, banging the drum 24/7 on how the SDP is anti-LGBT (true) might not be the greatest choice in the coming election considering that the only other choice are the Nazis, who are MORE anti-LGBT plus a whole host of other horrific things. And if the Nazis themselves are beating that same drum, telling LGBT folk that the SDP is anti-LGBT, I might step back and consider whose electoral victory I'm contributing to by my rhetoric and what consequences it will have - such as on, say, LGBT folk.
We're sitting here with literal fascists in government. "Our aristocrats weren't good enough, or didn't take the correct stance on foreign policy!" isn't the correct answer to why this election turned out the way it did. Or if it is, that reflects such a broken attitude on the part of the American electorate that it's not much better than the actual conclusion - most Americans do not care if fascism comes into power. And that includes everyone who didn't vote, or protest voted. And many of those who didn't vote or protest voted were inspired to do so by rhetoric encouraging apathy from both conservatives and their useful idiots.
Should the Dems have done a whole host of things differently, including having actual primaries? Are the Dems spineless corporate weasels? Are the Dems beholden to Israeli interests even in the face of a divided base? Yes, yes, yes. But none of that justifies "We're going to let or help the literal fascists win."
You're right, Pug, a billion dollars in direct spending was derailed by people pointing out the bad things they were seeing. It definitely wasn't the bad things that cost her the election, just the people acknowledging that the bad things existed and suggesting she do something different. I forgot, if you're in a car with someone who is about to drive or a cliff, the best thing you can do is remain quiet; you wouldn't want to distract the driver with your negativity. Once again, Pug, your brilliant insights have saved the day.
So you don't think that negative campaigning against a candidate has an effect on the electorate?
I think it's not fucking magic, Pug. There was far more negative campaigning coming from the hundreds of millions spent by the Trump campaign. There was even more money spent by Harris to negatively campaign against Trump, for all the good it did. But leftists complaining online threw the election? Everyone needs to shut up and smile, because if they criticize the Democrats too loudly they'll collapse? Is that where we're at?
So?
There are millions of votes other than mine; it doesn't mean that I'm not responsible for my vote, or my other actions.
No. But leftists playing negative PR games online contributed to the loss. I've said elsewhere, I don't think they were the tipping point.
But neither was Iowa, yet everyone who voted for Trump or abstained in Iowa is a fucking contributor to the fascist regime.
Not being the deciding factor does not absolve you of the implications of your choices.
We were going into an election everyone knew was going to be close, against a literal fascist.
Maybe a little of the 'United Front' spirit would've been welcome, instead of playing the usual games of "Undermine the SHITLIBS" when there was a candidate promising fascism, with the necessary background to confirm his intentions as sincere, as the only other choice in the running. It's not even a question of "I oppose all aid to Israel", but "Harris is a genocide supporter!" The issue was not voicing policy concerns; it was attacking the less vile of the only two candidates who could win.
Tell me, if the election had been lost by a few dozen votes, instead of a touch under two million, would your response be different? Or would it still be "Beating the negative PR drum is Just My Opinion"?
Cant believe after all the messaging around this election that "Shut up, give me your vote, and get zero concessions" is still not attractive to people for some reason. I swear I heard it everywhere, from every blue maga shill and self aggrandizing liberal in the internet... but despite it saturating the narrative she still tanked. Strange how that works.
I'm sorry that you didn't get enough 'concessions' to justify trying for less genocide instead of more genocide. We who are on the list for the death camps thank you for your moral fucking purity.
Man there's something there you should try to split test the genocide lite angle for their 2028 campaign. Anything to avoid moving left right?
Once Israel is done murdering all of Palestine with Trump's full support and the Palestinian genocide is no longer an issue that can be addressed, I'm sure you'll find some other excuse to avoid ever having to 'debase' yourself by voting against minorities in the US being rounded up and sent to camps. Nothing is ever pure enough, except letting disadvantaged groups be murdered by conservatives, apparently.
Aside from the fact that it worked in 2020, you mean?
They did do some of it in 20, but Biden actually brought some stuff to the table; two things that spring to mind are student loan forgiveness and national passenger rail revitalization, there's probably some others I can't think of ATM. Yeah, in hindsight, the loan forgiveness ended up not being much to write home about, and the rail revitalization might be getting derailed, but at least he had some actually useful and interesting policy planks besides "not Trump" and "look, it's [celebrity]!"
You're underselling it. They had Bernie Sanders help them write an economically-populist platform in 2020. For all of Biden's many, many faults, he saw which way the wind was blowing in 2020 and leaned into it. Then, in 2024, they decided it was safe to move back to a middle-class centric, moderate economic message, and boy, was that a bad idea.
Well, they were correct that right-wing rhetoric was popular. Diet Republican will just never beat the real thing.
I'm sure if they just go little further right they'll get 'em next time.
Not only that, but many (but not all) of the implementations of those policies were either middling or incomplete, and there was still so much further to go on progressive economic policies, that it was truly baffling to me that they basically rolled out the "mission accomplished" banner on the economy when the 2024 campaigns were asked about it. Democrats seem terminally terrified of casting stones within the party, to the point of refusing to acknowledge the reality that voters are experiencing because it might make the guys not seeking election look bad. It was frustrating to see that while I was financially worse off then when Biden took office, as was almost everyone else I knew, the democrats were crowing about how great the economy was and essentially declaring economic victory for Biden. I remember getting banned by more than one Mastodon account and labelled a Trump supporter when I raised concerns that this messaging was going to fail to resonate.
It's similarly frustrating now to see the Democratic party leadership and presidential campaign staff saying "well, yes, that makes twice we've lost what should have been the easiest election ever, but we made no mistakes and have nothing to learn here except that we need to be more like Republicans." Likewise, it's concerning to see Democrats legitimizing this administration and already announcing that they're eager to work with them where their priorities align. It makes me think a lot about how back in the 30s, the capitalists were all too ready to align with the Nazis, and a big chunk of the democrats are occupied by the crony capitalist block. I really hope the democrats as a party can get their shit together on a national level, but I'm not counting on it. I'm expecting a lot of lip service about resistance as 96% of them fall in line.
100% spot on, although I will say this; it's not that Democrats are too scared of casting stones within their party. It's that they're too terrified of displaying behavior that would displease donors. They're happy to throw Jamaal Bowman or Rashida Tlaib under the bus if AIPAC is displeased. They'll sideline AOC if her rhetoric makes one of their, "good," billionaires nervous. They've been trying to find a balance between making their wealthy benefactors and their working class base happy for years now, and they still haven't figured out that those goals are antithetical.
Great analogy.
Not really.
If you wanna compare, the Trump version would be the alcoholic father purposely running into people on the way to the liquor store. While blaming it on somebody else.
A "state patrol" would be nice about now. Know where to find one?
Georgia State Patrol
https://dps.georgia.gov/divisions/georgia-state-patrol
Hope this helps
I was alluding to a higher jurisdictional authority which could help in this particular instance.
Ahhh, okay! Got it. Well, in this case, we might not be able to go to the authorities, given that the authorities are kinda the problem. There's really only two things you can do when that's the case: give up, or organize within your community to build resilience. I mean, for all the jokes about violence, Trump and Elon are symptoms as well as causes. If someone redacted them, we'd still be stuck in the same causes and conditions that led us here, so it's not a fix. The best cure for what we have is building resilience as much as we can where we can.