Why do you think the turnout was so low? Millions of idiots were pressuring people to withhold their vote over Palestine in a colossal self-fuck. That is if you assume these people spreading that are really that stupid. Some were, but I think a large percentage were paid trolls. And their campaigning worked. Russia owns the United States now
Comment on True Story
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
It really isn’t leftists’ fault, though. Trump easily won the popular vote and flipped georgia, pennsylvania, and wisconsin from their dem vote in 2020. Low voter turnout/voter suppression are the real culprits - along with dems failing to do almost any of the things that could’ve changed this outcome.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 1 month ago
Yeah there are only so many times Biden can go “hey isreal, you’d better stop that genocide or else!” While doing nothing whatsoever and even giving them the weapons to continue the genocide before people go “well they aren’t going to do a damn thing about this”
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
and that’s why I voted trump! /s
drcobaltjedi@programming.dev 1 month ago
I’m not supporting that idea nor voter apathy. But i can certainly understand why Kamala lost Michigan, Dearborn has the largest muslim population in the country. I can understand why so many people there might be apathetic or uninterested in voting for a party that has put forth no pushback or even plans to stop an ongoing genocide against people of their faith.
Again, Trump will absolutely be far worse by just greenlighting isreal.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It can’t possibly be because that’s a real concern. They had to be paid actors. You sound like Infowars after a school shooting.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
yeah because cambridge analytica was also a hoax
Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Are you seriously comparing a fucking genocide to an info op?
normal_user@lemmy.one 1 month ago
I see, so in order to save “democracy” people should have supported Genocide.
Honeslty maybe the Democrats should have seen this coming to themselves for supporting, and I will repeat it once more in case you don’t understand, GENOCIDE.
Imagine voting for 100% Hitler because another guy could be 150% Hitler.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 1 month ago
I’m on this kick of pointing out that the utilitarian ethical calculation still works with 100% Hitler and 100.1% Hitler. Harm minimization, baby!
jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
yeah its why no some takes utilitarian’s seriously. Hi friend I have this new policy where you give me your left arm and I don’t take your legs!
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
[deleted]normal_user@lemmy.one 1 month ago
So by your logic, in Nazi Germany, you would have supported Hitler if there was another guy that was even worse than him ?
Do you even have a red line or can politicians just screw you over indefinitely for as long as there is someone worse !?
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 1 month ago
Only 10% of the electorate even cared about Gaza. You’re giving the American people entirely too much credit.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I don’t know what point you think you’re making, but after yesterday I give the American people zero credit. Millions of voters stayed home pretending it was about gaza. It’s not my job to psychoanalyze them but I do know their actions contradicted their stated goal and that makes them frauds.
futatorius@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Another contributor to low turnout was massive voter suppression. It’d be interesting to see that quantified. Hundreds of thousands of voters were being purged in each of several states. The single-issue Gaza vote was lost in the noise of those gross examples of electoral manipulation.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m sure you’re right. It’s hard to know where to focus the blame most, but I am livid that this country is worse than my worst fears. On a certain level I am losing any desire to even care specifically how/why. I wouldn’t have considered not voting before this but now I honestly am 99.9% of the way to saying fuck it all.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I distinctly remember hearing about unusually high voter turnout.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It just wasn’t blue voters.
zerog_bandit@lemmy.world 1 month ago
toasteecup@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You forgot about PISSING AWAY THE EMCUMBANT ADVANTAGE
I was saying that before Joe step down and oh look, I was right. Now I having crippling depression and I need to put myself on suicide watch.
WraithGear@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Do you remember the number on this encumbant advantage? The establishment didn’t just switch out Biden on a whim. Biden literally fucked his chances at winning at the debate. You are barking up the wrong tree
toasteecup@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Shut the fuck up. When you have advantages you fucking use all of win and ensure the win. We didn’t use all of them and we lost. Simple as so instead of giving your fucking useless opinion to me, go hunker down like everyone else and tell your trans and ltgbq+ “I’m sorry”
Lyricism6055@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Biden was never going to win. He is actively losing his marbles. It was so painfully obvious even Democrats had to accept it.
Yes incumbent advantage is real, but Biden had so many other disadvantages that he’d have never won.
It sucks but it is what it is.
WraithGear@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It is an advantage useful when it’s not enough to win? Do you not remember the numbers at the time?! For all the pro genocide and ignoring of his base, going on TV and having a senior moment for an hour ended all discussion on the matter. The fact that the internal fighting in its aftermath is proof that Biden did not have the confidence of his base. Harris is the current vice president, if you wanted an incumbent advantage that it’s what you had. And to argue that “burden would have won i told you so!” Is to argue from ignorance. You don’t know, and all evidence pointed to it not being so.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Hey, I know you don’t know me, but I want you to know that depriving us of what you can bring will only make it worse. I’ve found that I can keep myself alive by living for the people around me. Right now what’s keeping me going is touching base with everyone, seeing how they’re doing, asking them if they’ve made any plans, and telling them about my plans to move forward. Direct action just got a whole lot harder and more dangerous, but giving up now only makes the problem worse. One foot in front of the other, until you get the rhythm, Then follow it. I believe in you.
toasteecup@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I appreciate it.
Fortunately I’m recognizing the signs and taking early measures. Trying to find a shrink and decide if I should move.
Lyricism6055@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If you’re able to move and see a Dr you’re doing better than most.
I was suicidal for other reasons and found my way out of the hole I dug myself in. I honestly hope you can too. It sounds like you’re a passionate person and you can place that passion somewhere that does good for the world.
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 1 month ago
Please don’t kill yourself. We need you for the revolution. Doesn’t matter who you are, what your skills are. If you can hold a gun or make soup, we need you.
toasteecup@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Just say the word
dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 1 month ago
Communism?
rsuri@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think the key is to stop trying to explain why. There’s a million reasons people have given me for voting Trump, none of them rational. But the classic tropes of fear and disgust won out again. I’m old enough to remember the 2004 election, then it was gay people. Now it’s trans people and dark-skinned migrants. I really didn’t think those old tropes would work this time, but it just keeps working. Americans will just keep falling for it, apparently.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 1 month ago
To continue this thought, you might be interested to know how neuroscience tells us the brain works: In short, the unconscious mind decides and acts, and the conscious mind makes up stories about why. Quite often, the story is just wrong, or at least misguided. Those voters have a real reason that they don’t understand or won’t admit to themselves, and a million reasons that they give instead to explain it.
Yes, we need to drop the misconception that people rationally decide about much of anything, and learn about their real reasons.
Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It wasn’t ‘voter apathy’ it was a misplaced sense of voter moral superiority. It’s the thing leftist rhetoric has been weak to for a very long time. That love of withholding support except for perfection. The idea that compromise or chosing a lesser evil from two bad options dirties you. It doesn’t matter what you lost if you personally took “the high ground”.
This cutting of our noses to spite our face was exploited all to shit this election. They lulled people by appealing to the same zeal of righteousness that they know divides us fundamentally knowing that when push comes to shove people will turn up their noses on principle of not being personally catered to and forget that their ability to help at all is contingent on the freedoms that one party was explicitly putting on the chopping block.
It will be a while before people can admit that they were duped and there’s a lot of fault to go around, particularly in those funded astroturf campaigns designed to bait the hook… The right have been watching us for the past decade they knew how to divide us and it is on US that so many of us fell for it.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 1 month ago
You really think the 15 million people who voted for Biden but not Kamala was “misplaced sense of moral superiority”? Why?
archomrade@midwest.social 1 month ago
Because that explanation makes them feel better
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Because the alternative involves accepting that moving to the right has failed as a strategy, and they don’t want to do anything else.
Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Yes I do. Because The situation in Gaza was not an election issue for Biden. There was a fantastic amount of campaigning, a lot of it bought and paid for, that turned that genocide into a single issue vote with tis holier than thou reaction of withdrawal from the entire system toted as the answer. It is political suicide to run a mainstream Pro-Palistine presidential campaign in the US. A candidate of one of the two main parties need unilateral support from their donation streams and encumbant systems and the Republicans knew that. They know that’s the devil’s bargain every DNC candidate has to sign to even get a shot.
Republican money supported Jill Stein to serve as a spoiler candidate to engage those with a naive veiw of the system but still wanted to vote and then they helped pipe that message through all manner of socials that if enough people withold their vote then Kamala would have shift her position… Because they knew how enticing that is. The idea that you don’t have to compromise your integrity and that that will be rewarded. They turned this into a single issue campaign for so many people knowing that they didn’t need to shift their position even a little. They could let their Red capped demogogues talk about literally beheading people and those high on this intoxication of absolute righteousness would ONLY care about an issue that Republicans can flaunt their support in favor of.
It was misplaced moral superiority in part that got us here because if you were lulled into not voting or voting third party because one candidate wasn’t “leftist enough” when the alternative is someone popular with an entrenched imobile base of support who wants to make sure leftistism dies dead then you failed to get the assignment.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 1 month ago
This is just astoundingly out of touch. When I asked “why”, I was looking for evidence. What evidence do you have to support your supposition? Nothing.
To the contrary, polling says that only 10% of people cared about Gaza. The American people are largely tuned out of politics. Democrats’ first instinct is to always blame leftists, but the problem is that people don’t want to vote for more of the same.
Sooperstition@lemmy.one 1 month ago
Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about
jatone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Dude, wow okay. let me inform you how voting works.
- a person (or group) has ideas, and says 'hey friends, support me so I can implement these ideas’
- people then look at your ideas and say ‘oh that sounds grand!’ or 'No thanks, pass’
- the person who gets the most people to say ‘oh that sounds grand!’ wins.
now here is the thing. harris ‘grand idea’ was a fucking genocide, and no support for labor. this isn’t about fucking moral superiority. its about a complete fucking lack of morals by harris across the board.
If you walk into a fucking room of people and tell them to ‘join you for some genocide’ dear fucking god do I hope they tell you to fuck right off. Now unfortunately 30% of the population is down for genocide. Why the democrats thought it would be good policy to try to out compete genocidal fucks at their own game for votes is beyond me.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If Harris had campaigned on the issues she would have had so many Republican women jump ship. Just look at how many of them voted for abortion in Missouri.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m not necessarily attributing blame here, but I’m pretty sure that OP is suggesting that leftist memes helped lead to this apathy. Say what you will, Trump voters were excited for their candidate… somehow, despite the list of reasons not to being far too long to be listed here. But many on the left either were just lukewarm on her, just considered her the lesser of two evils, or were protest voting third party or abstaining for one reason or another, mostly over Palestine. And there were memes galore to make clear to everyone what the general mood was. It doesn’t exactly inspire enthusiasm to those that need that a lot of enthusiasm to even bother (those people are frustrating, btw). I don’t know how much it actually contributed to or propogated the apathy versus how much it just reflected the apathy already there, but a case could be made either way.
Bertuccio@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They didn’t lead to the apathy - they pointed out the existing apathy would cost Dems the election.
You’re exactly right about people being excited for Trump and lukewarm on Harris, but that’s entirely on the Democrats for picking the platform and strategy that lost to Trump in 2016.
Harris had a notable and surprising lead when they announced Biden was out - then they changed nothing else. People didn’t just not like the candidate, they didn’t like the policies. They only changed the candidate and thought Trump was a big enough cudgel to bully people into voting even though that demonstrably doesn’t work.
Tyr_Raidho_Othala@reddthat.com 1 month ago
What kinda ass country is this?
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 1 month ago
Oh boy, if you haven’t, read its history. Its real history. Wild stuff.
Sooperstition@lemmy.one 1 month ago
Kamala isn’t on the left. The democrats aren’t on the left. This is a false dichotomy. They’re all capitalists. You can’t be on the left and be a capitalist, so leftists had many more disagreements with Kamala than Palestine.
Now, if you want to look at a great analysis of fascism and the false dichotomy in American politics, read Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti.
Dragonstaff@leminal.space 1 month ago
It is on the candidate to inspire people. Yeah, the left was lukewarm to a candidate that was trying her best to court Republicans. How else could you expect that to play out?