Democrats in denial over Trump defeat, voters say: ‘Haven’t learned the lessons’

While that's true, choosing to vote for Trump, a third-party, or not at all is like saying, "I don't like this ham sandwich and I don't like my sandwich choices... so I'm going to eat this dog-turds-and-radioactive-glass-shards sandwich instead!"

This country is fucked.

Edit: Rather than respond below to every comment, thought I'd clarify a few things here.

I never said Democrats didn't fuck up. They certainly did.
But - and this is important - we can't ignore the roles that racism, sexism, and above all misinformation played. To pretend there was none, and that vast swaths of the electorate didn't fall for it, would be disingenuous.

Democrats have moved to the right, and hurt themselves doing so. That is true. But they are still objectively superior to Republicans in every conceivable way. People who voted Republican voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces party because they were angry about Democrats being imperfect, and their faces will be eaten.

You're missing the lesson too, ironically.
The voters didn't like what the Democrats were offering them, they wanted change, and they wanted it badly enough that they went ahead and ate that dog-turd-and-glass-sandwich.
You're saying "they shouldn't have eaten that, the sandwich the Democrats were offering was better." Okay, well, they did it anyway. So you're wrong. The Democrats were wrong. They've been wrong multiple times now. They're doing the "Am I so out of touch? No. It's the voters who are wrong." Meme.
America's a democracy. The voters aren't wrong, as much as you might personally disagree with their choice. If you want a different government you have to offer them one that they'll vote for. That may require some compromises, but that's part of democracy.
I hope that they get it this time. This is the second time in recent memory that they've made this mistake. Even Biden's election was closer than it should have been. I really hope that the DNC gets its head out of its ass and cleans house, but articles like this are disheartening.
- I live in a deep blue state. Family is all very blue. They have learned absolutely nothing. They all think what the Democrats did was perfect. Kamala was flawless. She didn't get elected because America is racist AND sexist.
  They genuinely believe that there was nothing they could have done to improve.
  I think they are gonna have to learn this lesson a few more times before they pull their heads outta their ass finally. I hope.
- Well they don't even have to decide they wanna eat a shit sandwich- they just have to not be motivated enough to go to the polls and say "I'd like the snot sandwich instead of the shit sandwich, please". Which is what seems to have happened this election as best I'm aware
  A lot of democratic voters weren't motivated, and didn't show up. And I agree with the statement made by the person quoted in the post, a huge part of that feels like it's the democratic party's complete unwillingness to criticize moneyed interests and figure out how to actually appeal to their constituency, and so they're loosing people. And now we're all stuck with that shit sandwich.
- My concern with statements like this is that I don't think your considering the impact that misinformation had on this election.
  There were massive disinformation campaigns that had sizable effects on the dialogue that people had with their friends and neighbors. I'm worried that we could have actually put someone like Bernie as our nominee and that we still would have lost because of exactly this misinformation.
  The Democrat message wasn't making it to people and I think that it really shows...
- the voters aren’t wrong
  CITATION NEEDED
  Don’t worry though, we won’t have to worry about voters soon, right?
- Don't deny voters their agency by saying they can't make wrong choices. They can and did. They made a stupid choice for idiotic reasons, and will get nothing but suffering for it. There are situations in life where feeling deeply and unconditionally ashamed of your own idiocy is the correct course of action, and this is one of them.
- The voters aren't wrong, as much as you might personally disagree with their choice.
  BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
- This is a bad take that I keep seeing.
  Yes, the DNC fucked up massively. They should definitely have done more to convince voters.
  But the voters who voted Trump/3rd party/abstained because of that are also morons who fucked up massively.
  Both things are true. The DNC's glaring mistakes do not absolve the voters of their agency. The lesson isn't that the dog-turd sandwich eaters are rational actors, it's that the DNC needs to take into consideration people being irrational morons if they want to win. But at the end of the day, they're not the ones eating the sandwich. Voters have their own lesson to learn.
If only someone, or a group of like minded thinkers, had predicted this exact social course and offered another course that actually has ideological solutions for capital interests fucking over everything in their quest for more money and power!
I think a lot of the core of the Kamala base is just as out of touch as the Democratic establishment. The fact that the establishment can't understand this outcome just demonstrates their ineptitude.
People are hurting, a lot. Real wage growth has been stagnant, people are having trouble making ends meet, the wealthy are richer than ever leaving the working class with less and less.
What do the Democrats do to actually improve peoples material conditions? Absolutely nothing. The CHIPS act and IRA are great for longer term problems, but does nothing to put more food on people table. Kamala had the gall to ignore the problem all together. The economy is great, look at the stock market! And her big economic plan? Tax breaks for small businesses and your first home purchase. That's it. That's their fucking cornerstone economic policy. That's not gonna help the vast majority of people.
Then on the other hand you have trump. He tells everyone it's the brown peoples fault everything sucks, so we will get rid of them (and, by implication, your problems). It's their fault egg prices are high, just get rid of them and things will go back to the way things were. Of course the rich are the real problem, not immigrants or trans people or any other conservative boogie man, but Trump acknowledged the pain many working class Americans are under.
Now you can think to yourself, how would anyone believe that? Think about someone who's working two jobs to make ends meet, they're surrounded by Fox news, all their family is Republican. They were raised in the public education system (half the country can't read at a 6th grade level) and can't parse the details of domestic economic policy, but Trump says it's the brown peoples fault. Finally they felt seen and acknowledged. They remember the Trump stimulus checks. They remember the tax break (even if it's temporary, they won't look too closely and notice it's permeant for the rich).
You know how Democrats win? By bringing back the party of FDR and really championing the working class. Thanks to citizens united we will never see that again, but it's quite easy to understand their loss against trump. There's only one issue, and thats class conflict. Until the Democrats stop serving their corporate donors they will never win again as it's too easy for Republicans to acknowledge working class pain and scapegoat marginalized people.
- You know how Democrats win? By bringing back the party of FDR
  At this point, I'd expect them to bring back Japanese internment camps and nothing else. I'd say redlining too, but that would involve having a housing program to be discriminatory with.
- Not reading all that. I’m apart of Kamala’s base of 75 million. I guess I’m out of touch and super wealthy according to you.
Too bad RCV is moving so slowly
- Oh man that would be incredible. I’d actually be vaguely satisfied with my choices on the ballot.
- Can't imagine why politicians would be hesitant to mess with a system that put them in power.
Democrats have moved to the right, and hurt themselves doing so. That is true. But they are still objectively superior to Republicans in every conceivable way. People who voted Republican voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces party because they were angry about Democrats being imperfect, and their faces will be eaten.
The problem you (people blaming voters) don't seem to understand is, the Democrats moving right DIRECTLY demotivated voters and they stayed home because they were going to get right wing policy either way. They literally had no choice in multiple different avenues of how the country would be run so they said "fuck it if I got no choice for x y AND z, why vote?" maybe they still had a choice for a-w but maybe those specific policies didn't matter to them personally and wouldn't have affected their life.
This is A) the problem with having a shitty party platform and B) the problem with hyper-individualism that our country loves.
- See, this is where you're wrong. By every measure, the Democratic party platform was objectively better for humans living on planet Earth. Its problems were in degree (not being nearly progressive enough), not in focus (such as screaming incoherently about trans people).
  But people didn't know, because of the aforementioned misinformation and disinformation. Seriously, did you know that the party platform contains an entire section on protecting LGBTQI+ people and rights? Most progressive voters who sat this one out never read it. Here, see for yourself.
  But because the Democratic party wasn't progressive enough (in some people's eyes), they sat out the election, and someone who is a thousand times worse in every respect is going to be president tomorrow.
  I take that personally. I have a trans son and a gay daughter, and their lives will be so much worse, starting tomorrow. And to protect them, I'm actively trying to figure out how to leave this country, because a lot of people didn't care enough to protect my kids.
  In 1930's Germany, the Jewish people (and Gypsies, and - again - gay and trans people, and so on) who survived when that country descended into fascism are the ones who got the fuck out first. That is the reality that this purity bullshit has created for people like my kids.
Doesn't matter anymore. I was gonna type "but genocide Joe" every time trump fucks over in some way the people who had a chance to vote for Kamala. But in the end, unity is far more important, division is how putin disarticulated his opposition.
- I was gonna type “but genocide Joe” every time trump fucks over in some way the people who had a chance to vote for Kamala.
  That would be a great demonstration that you have learned nothing.
DISINFORMATION, not misinformation.

People want real fucking change. One man stood up against a massive evil health insurance company and regular people from all sides of the political spectrum support him.

Dems could have won if they were willing to do the same and no one would even need to be hurt to do it.

Naturally, there are a host of other problems mentioned in this thread. The trouble is that there is too much free $peech from the ruling class in politics.

I think for people like me, the biggest fuck you was from Obama. He ran on hope and change. He ran on at least a public option. And he went into the office and literally shut down the ground operation that swept him into his position and then basically spent 8 years appeasing Republicans despite the fact that people wanted transformational change. That's why they picked him over Clinton. He delivered Romneycare, bank bailouts, and drone wars.
- And when people wonder why it’s so hard to get out the vote, I think this is a key reason why. I’m old enough to have gone to Obama’s rallies, knock on doors for his campaign as a volunteer, vote for him and watch with joy as he won.
  Hope and change. After the George W Bush presidency and the war on terror, it finally seemed like it was time for the pendulum to swing back.
  And then every issue they came to the table with a position already in the center in hopes of appealing to the republicans who would then hold their breath and kick their feet and then it would slide further and further to the right until they were holding up romneycare as a progressive victory while also getting completely destroyed in the court of public opinion for passing romneycare.
  I knew a lot of people that were very excited for Obama the candidate and completely disillusioned by Obama the president.
  And I await the apologists to come out and tell me how he had to do it this way, they only had a super majority for a few weeks. Sure if the republicans have the slimmest majority they rewrite the tax codes and give away trillions to the wealthiest, and if they are in the minority they still somehow get their policies passed. But when democrats have power, well you see, government takes time. They can’t possibly just have the bill ready and call for a vote, you see, that’s just not how it works.
  You can only tell people so many times. Vote blue and we promise this time, this time, we will make it better. I know last time we didn’t, but it was because of the blue dogs, or Joe Lieberman, or Joe Manchin. Sure, we have no plan to get rid of those people or other spoilers and we will doggedly support them in every primary… but somehow this time will be different.
- Kamala was running on "Isn't Trump a weirdo?", but that was working so she stopped.
  The DNC does not want to win if it means causing actual change.
- Y’all stay on Obama’s dick.
They want us to think real change is impossible.
People want real fucking change.
So they helped to elect Trump for a non-consecutive term lol

Trump pretty much won on optics alone and positioning himself once again as looking out for people despite not being true at all. Dems didn't want to address people's issues with the economy and did the weird thing of tap dancing for right Dick Cheney voters who don't exist.

Just stand for something, even if the risk of loss is high. It pays off in the end.

Trump won on optics because the optics on the ground matched what he was saying. Democrats insisted the economy was fine when people were hurting, and lost because of that.
I am convinced that the assassination attempt secured him the win. I'm not American so maybe I'm way off, but over here that felt like the pivotal moment. It's still annoying how GOOD that picture is.
- As a democrat who still voted for Harris, i think it was the fact that Biden promised to be a 1 ter president, but the DNC didn't want to run another primary because that would show how unpopular the neolibs in control of the party are, and they risk losing control of the party.
- It helped bounce back with momentum. Harris was actually doing good when she was on the attack and pointing out how weird modern republicans are. Trump is the text book example of failing upwards.
- Nah. At the moment it seemed like a really big deal but then it just kinda faded into the background after a news cycle. Nobody can tell you what day it happened on without googling.
The slimy bullshit artist politician that lies about everything seems to be what people expect, like it's the devil they know.

Every breakdown and postmortem i see make it pretty clear:

If you paid close attention and were well-informed, you voted for Kamala.

If you believe things aren't true or didn't pay close attention, you voted for Trump as a sort of totem for wealth and success, not because of a specific policy of his you like. He just represents making lots of money to you.

Any grappling with what went wrong or improvements needed within the DNC first needs to reckon with the reality that people aren't seeing left-wing messaging and are instead exposed to a fake version of leftism pushed constantly by right-wing actors on social media.

Everyone complains about poor Democratic messaging but when are we going to admit that as long as Republicans own all major media platforms, any messaging by Democrats is going to be distorted into nonsense by the media?
I think a lot of people have problems with the Democratic Party being bought by the billionaires as well ...and supporting genocidal regimes.
I voted for Harris but you boiled it down to a few lines and missed a lot of reasons why I think a significant amount of Americans didn't vote at all.
- I voted for Harris, but I think that they're missing the point. They needed to win over more people with their candidate. You still have to be popular and you don't have a divine mandate because your opposition is intolerable.
  I am a demographic Dems claim to champion, but I haven't ever seen that support materialize. Somehow they never help me. I vote Dem because I like Rep less. I get not liking Dem as a party. I don't like them either. This is very prevalent within my communities. It drives voter apathy and pushes moderates to the right. They're viewed as incompetent in addition to being just bought and paid for as Reps.
  They haven't had a genuine primary in decades. They haven't tried to connect with small-midsize cities in decades. They've completely failed to communicate with their average voters and that is THEIR job to do that. The last minimum wage increase was signed into law by Bush and then Dems sat on their thumbs for three terms. I do not accept "I tried." I need a party that can win those battles. I've tried engaging with my local Democrats, but I get boilerplate responses. I'm fairly sure they're all chatbots at this point.
  And most importantly, it's hard to root for a perpetual loser. Even when they win they still lose and can't do anything. It's never their fault. They just never do anything. I need someone intelligent enough to win. Dems don't provide that.
  They'll get my vote until anyone else who isn't a Rep/Fascist has a chance of winning and not a moment longer. It's so wholly undemocratic that I have to choice between a Kleptocrat or a Fascist.
- Nobody cares about genocide, man. Nobody is even talking about it anymore. Trump wasn't the "ANTI-GeNoCIdE" candidate, and anyone with half a brain knew that ensuring Trump's candidacy was not going to stop GENOCIDAL REGIMES.
  Now we have President Pump n Dump promoting a shitcoin for his inauguration, because the SCOTUS wrote Trump a blank check for corruption. Anyone idiot enough to believe Trump was gonna stop genocide should go long on his memecoin.
Left wing messaging is all focused on logic and targeted to the well-informed. They have no emotional message for the poorly educated, and that's a stupid mistake. I thought these were supposed to be the smart people? Zero EQ.
We also need to consider that a massive swathe of the electorate is ignorant and for that includes a lot of people who have college degrees.
the key breakdown here is: people concerned for the health of the country either voted for trump or kamala. Everybody else didn't vote because they either don't care, or would rather bitch about other things for no particular reason.
It truly is the biggest shitpost of the century.

We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests

Evergreen quote-

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

Honestly I think this article is completely wrong. I'm convinced modern elections are 100% based on vibes and so better messaging and a better candidate would have meant a great deal.

But to add to that - Trump and his idiot base had been messaging and memeing for four years starting with Covid and masks and then inflation and 'I did that' stickers of Biden at the gas pump. Biden had barely done any messaging even up until the point he dropped out which, in the social media era, should be obviously big fucking warning signs of a losing campaign.

EDIT - which is not to say I don't think the Dems need to change in other ways because they absolutely do.

Seriously those gas station "I did that" stickers were an actual grass roots movement, and it's part of why Trump won.
A lot of people vote based on their wallets. If you're worse off after 4 years, then why vote for the incumbent?
The Dems need to learn. Cheap food/gas/essentials, less outsourcing, less importing cheap labor, and lose the smugness. That's what they need to do to win, and I don't think that would mean abandoning much.
- Less importing cheap labor means higher prices. Welcome to math. Americans expect no effort and lives of luxury because they're at the center of an empire - except of course the ruling class increasingly reaps the rewards, and the money doesn't recirculate into the economy due to how it's structured, so we just slip into poverty. Neither major party will fix this, by design.
- Except we weren't worse off after 4 years because 4 years ago we had Covid, and now we don't.
Yes, Biden lost because of stickers, not because the economy of the average voter is in shambles
- No, you're missing the point - the Dems lost because Biden hadn't built up any trust with average voters regarding the economy over the last four years.
  Any informed voter would know the Dems will be better for them than the GOP who has never been more interested in funneling money to their rich benefactors. But the average voter is not informed.

In a capitalist society, the role of government should be to protect citizens from corporations.

If nobody is willing to do that, what use are they?

- Yeah well fuck all came because of that action.
- yes please.
Three things are needed for this to work: labor, capital, and ~~government~~ authorized violence.
The first got destroyed, and the second used the third to get bigger than ever.
So we went from a tricycle to a penny farthing and now we’re falling over.
That's not how capitalism works... capitalists uses the state to secure, and concentrate power in their hands....
The government is a tool of the capitalist class in a capitalist society. Democracy was originally for the capitalists and their allies and now is a hedge against revolution.
- Democracy means "rule by the people as equals".
  It doesn't mean " western power".
  To be against democracy as an ideology or concept is to be against having humans rights: to be able to decide how you will live and die and for what purpose the fruits of your labor is used.

I don't know what all these comments are about he said it perfectly.

They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs

And they won't. Which is why they are a sunk cost. Ameicans will keep investing in it because it's, "the only othe choice" and the party will lose again and again.

2016 was 8 years ago people and the DNC has not evolved in the least.

i would love for the centre voters that didn't vote for the Dems to be more explicit about these "lessons" and "beliefs" and "needs" that the Dems are not addressing.
- How about liberals be more explicit about "too big to fail", "the economy", "keeping the nation safe", etc.
  It's no mystery that working class people can't afford housing. It's no mystery that the minimum wage has been stagnant for decades. It's no mystery that democrats rely just as heavily as republicans on coorporate lobbiest and they let them set the agenda.
  The status quo is a vicious machine that eats low income families alive and you sit and wonder why you can't run on defending it.

Left vs right or democrat vs republican — that framing is a distraction in this political reality. The war is between the 99% and the 1%. It’s the working class vs the billionaire class. Your republican neighbor may be a MAGA religious crazy, voting against his financial interests, but he’s been successfully manipulated by a corrupt party controlled by billionaires. Your other neighbor may ‘vote blue no matter who’, ignoring or ignorant to the fact that most democrats at the state and federal level are also influenced or bought by corporate interests and the 1%. These neighbors are clearly not the same, but they are both supporting the interests and agenda of a billionaire class that is oppressing them.

That is not to say that republicans or religious extremism are not threats — they very much are — but they have been allowed to gain power due to a broken and corrupt system of government.

The system is broken because unlimited money gets funneled into politics. It’s destroyed our checks and balances, as well as the incentive structure for our judges and our representatives — most of whom no longer have a primary interest in representing the 99% of us. We are being taxed, robbed, poisoned, oppressed and enslaved by our own government, without even proper representation to show for it.

We cannot expect that our elected representatives will act in our best interests; they require our constant input and scrutiny of their actions. Either we as a people become more involved with politics at all levels of government, or we start a revolution. The problem of corruption in all levels of our government will not be solved by the corrupted. A continuation and increase of wealth inequality will destroy this country.

The corporate-backed fascist MAGA-America regime starts tomorrow, but we are not powerless. The 99% has power. We must come together, organize, educate, exercise empathy and patience with one another, and take action; we can take back control. We have to.

Nothing will happen until there is a major crisis of some kind. Life is way too easy for most people. Occupy was a failure for this reason. You need Great Depression style suffering or better yet early 20th century labor conditions in order to get any ball rolling. Great Society was nothing really.

Speaking of the Democrats setting themselves up for failure, if the Gaza ceasefire holds Trump will take care for it and Michigan will likely be solid red for at least a generation, not unlike Florida after Obama improved relations with Cuba.

Maybe that will happen. But I think it’s far more likely that Trump will end the genocide by letting Netanyahu finish it. And I don’t really see his administration doing anything other than alienating American Muslims, since he’s certainly not going to protect them from his followers. He’ll probably egg them on.
That said, Biden could have at least pretended to care about Gaza, and didn’t, so a lot of Michigan voters are pretty fed up with the Democrats, and maybe they’ll throw their support wholeheartedly behind the Republicans. I don’t see how that will get them anything they want, but they wouldn’t be the first, and they won’t be the last, group of voters who steadfastly vote against their own self interest.
- I think we're at or close to the point where people just don't want another fucking corporate neoliberal in charge, and most of them don't have enough to lose to justify holding their nose to vote for more of the same. Unless the DNC does something different I expect it's just going to go to the Republicans for the foreseeable future.
  Trump has so many problems. But he can at least claim he's going to be something different, which Harris and Clinton did not.
- And I don’t really see his administration doing anything other than alienating American Muslims
  Unlike last time, Democrats aren't going to be able to credibly pretend that they have American Muslims' backs.
- I'm referring to this. Trump surprisingly had a lot with this most recent ceasefire, and even if he didn't he'd take credit for it. I don't see him forging good relations with American Muslims, but in the future I think we'll see the GOP campaigning based on the (real or otherwise) accomplishment of bringing peace to Gaza. And when the alternative is the DNC... Yeah.
- by letting Netanyahu finish it
  That seems kinda unrealistic, no?
  Roughly 50,000 (perhaps upwards of 70k) Palestinians have been killed in a little over a year, and if anything, the rate is slowing. The population of Gaza and the West Bank sums to about 5,000,000. The growth rate in 2022 was conservatively 1.75%. That amounts to 87,500 new people every year.
  Even when you factor in Israel targeting hospitals and food to try to hurry the genocide along, it'd still take decades, if ever.
To think that trump orchestrated or built that ceasefire is complete bullshit
Y’all give those arabs too much credit in Michigan
Americans do think foreign politics are controlled completely by the American president.
- When in reality, the president can only do as he pleases when there's a genocide to outfit.

I think that the Liberal ideology, with a capital L, is what is being revolted and rebelled against at a very fundamental level by a majority of America. But the Democrats can’t see it,

The average American has no idea what Liberalism actually is. Half the country believe the lie that the lifelong neoliberal / "traditional conservative" Joe Biden is "leftist" ffs.
Americans are the most heavily propagandized, and poorly educated, population in the developed world.

The small concession is that Trump is almost undoubtedly going to trip over his dick, so we'll probably end up with a blue wave of some sort in 2028. Nothing will change for the DNC and no lessons will be learned, so 2032 looks bleak as shit.

We need to understand that Dems are not going to fight for anyone besides their donors. They'd rather lose than take pointers from someone like Bernie

I've been hearing blue wave since 2016, it's almost 10 years now. Where is this blue wave, democrats barely got majorities, but hardly what I would call a wave. It's not going to happen in the next midterms, just another razor thin majority where some of the supposed Democrats vote alongside republicams to fuck over the people.
- tbf, the majorities might have been thin but don't sniff at the fact that the Dems toppled an incumbent president AND got the house AND got the senate in 2020.
  That is pretty unusual for American politics
- Lol @ the people who think they can vote themselves back out of this mess. Trump made it quite clear that "You won't have to vote anymore" after this term. I for one believe him. Even if he dies you'll just get saddled with one of his sons, daughter, son-in-law, ...
we’ll probably end up with a blue wave of some sort in 2028
Don't worry, that will get fucked up, too. A bunch of blue dogs who the DNC supports will win and they'll claim that it's a evidence that progressives can't win.
I've been through this bullshit enough times to have learned the pattern
- I’ve been through this bullshit enough times to have learned the pattern
  Started paying attenion since 2012, could vote in 2016. I know the pattern too well, the gaslighting doesn't work anymore.
don't worry, we can severely underestimate the enemy with no repercussions as the Democrats will be automatically winners next time without having to change tactics at all.
- Ah. Yes. It is my fault and I'll be the one fucking us as if I have any say in the DNC's policy since they listened to the concerns of people like me except not at all. At this point the democrats are the enemy too, dingus
  I'm just editorilizing and am along for the shitty ride, homey. I don't have control of the train and there are no brakes even if I did...

“The things Harris said, like she was going to give $25,000 for people to buy their first home, there were a lot of people said she was giving their money away to people who didn’t deserve it. It cost her votes. We were trying to tell her that.”

What's the answer to that? On the face of it, this says that the electorate don't want public money spent on helping other people who need help. How do you achieve anything other than conservatism with such an electorate? The only thing I can think is that you have to promise to help more of the electorate, and that the money will be come from the very rich. In other words, the only counter to conservatism is a commitment to actual wealth redistribution, and to going up against the selfish interests of the super-rich. That's not yet even socialism, but it's still further to the left that the Democratic Party is willing to go. For now, its leadership would rather lose elections to fascists than challenge billionaires.

A few conservative pundits attacked it from the "undeserving" angle. The actual base didn't give a damn. The actual base thought it was a useless and tone-deaf figleaf of a policy. It was a wonkish policy only a milquetoast centrist could love - a market subsidy that had a long litany of provisos and qualifications. And one that economists stated would just serve to bid house prices up even higher.
The voters didn't reject progressive wealth redistribution. They rejected half-baked meaningless gestures.
Giving everyone 25K means housing prices go up by 25K. It was a very bad idea and would benefit the billionaire class.
What should have been done was capping rent and building more houses.
- It wasn't "give everyone 25k"
  Be more disingenuous.
- Capping rent makes more housing less likely. Are you suggesting government built housing?
  Not allowing one or two private equity firms to own a lions share of the market would help.

Well, I'm not in denial. This country is full of fucking idiots. The next Democratic presidential candidate should be a celebrity that promises to achieve world peace and full gay space communism. Apparently empty promises and celebrity are what win elections.

I think you may have missed the point a bit. It's exactly these 'empty promises' which have been the democrats issue over the past 30 years.
They get elected on messages like 'make the economy work work everyday americans' and then once in office they prioritize the status quo and making sure that nothing major changes. This benefits the wealth and damages everyday people, many of whom voted for them in the hopes that the democrats would improve their situation.
As awful as much of their platform is, the Republicans have proven that they aren't scared to break things and make big changes. This appeals to many voters who feel let down by empty promises.
- Democrats say good things for the people. Democrats win = Republicans just block everything and embarrass Democrats for it. Republican voters also go without understanding.... The main thing is against the "enemy" (i.e. against America...)
  Of course the Republicans only build shit and destroy America besides blocking everything good that would benefit the American citizen (you). But it was the Democrats... who accept a democratic election and after defeat. NOT block everything from Republicans. How deluded can you be.
- Name one of those empty promises and let's review how they were voted on in congress. If the Democrats voted against it then your comment has merit, if Republicans blocked it your comment has no merit
Next? I'm sorry, but democracy continues to be dismantled. The train has left the station. Trump already had 4 years of training and now with direct support from Musk.... Hate fear and more hate mongering...and Trump is using it.... So are accusations of election meddling etc.... fuck why hasn't there been that accusation even from Democrats? That's it.. Its game over.
All those highly secured nuclear secrets or files in the restroom at the golf club... anyone who steals something like that... also steals/cheats in the election. But not 1 accusation... Republicans as well as Democrats don't want democracy anymore. A convicted highly criminal traitor to the country and enemy of the state becomes president without riots etc.... The Democrats who are now just pointing at the Republicans with "I told you so" but not doing a riot or anything else are just as hostile to democracy.

Neoliberalism is done, it's fucked. The liberals wanted and thought they could pull another Bernie and people would just go with it, fuck that.

- Reading comprehension is hard, but I believe you can get there someday.
The left is fucked overall, they have splintered and hate each other more than they hate trump. Meanwhile the right is united.
This election in particular, the American left has become toxic. If you’re even slightly left or right of any other leftist and you may as well be a nazi to them. No leftist was left enough for the other leftists. “No, I’m the true left, and fuck the rest of you, you’re fascists!” Was basically what every leftists was yelling at each other while not voting, and allowing trump to win. If you’re left and you stood aside and didn’t vote, fuck you.
- The left doesnt exist in America my dude. Read what the other commenters that replied to you said, I agree with them. There is neoliberalism and fascism. Thats why Bernie was and is still popular.
  Run on healthcare, stopping the genocide, run on raising wages, and anything really to help workers and people and you win easily.
- Bullshit. Run on healthcare and ending genocide in Palestine. Those two issue alone would catapult a candidate into office. The Left has a lot of unfortunate infighting. That doesn't mean we would reject a good candidate over small differences.
- There was no leftist candidate running for POTUS...
- Neoliberals will say the most racist things and then act like you have a moral imperative to never criticize their policies.
  I think it's just a vocal minority that is overrepresented online causing the issues, but I promise that's why most of my extended family votes for Trump.

Just look at the responses, complete denial. The american people overwhelmingly didn't want kamala, the democrats thought they could pull another Bernie and we would just do what they wanted. No, it doesn't work that way, and no they haven't learned their lesson. They won't so long as they retain a modicum of power. Democrats and Republicans are the problem.

In a 2-party system why should Dems even bother trying to change themselves or how the party operates? I mean they are (or used to be anyway) guaranteed to be voted in again at some point in the future.

As for the last election imo they just didn't look far enough ahead to see the danger of Trump 2.0. They dilly dallied around with dumb shit, only paying attention to billionaires, completely ignored Americans' views on Isreal, showed almost zero interest in reigning in food/housing conglomerates' profits, etc.

Trump got massive gains in several key demographics that are key to long term party success. Most notably Hispanics, which are closing in on the predominant demographic. The wins for men and non college educated people are also a problem, they aren't as important, but you can't afford to lose such large demographics by such a large margin.
While no Republicans have really shown to be able to maintain the a fervent base like Trump's, it's extremely risky to just trust that people will flock back to the Democrats in a future Trumpless election. A more palatable republican with 75% of Trump's base could easily see a Reagan level landslide victory.
- Along this vein, something I don't see people talking about is that if the current Gaza ceasefire holds Trump will (justifiably or not) take credit for it and at least Michigan will become a solid red state not unlike Florida. Maybe Arizona too if that one popp is to be believed.

The Democrat aristocracy do not care about winning.

They only care about marketing the disaster of their losses so that they can launder billions of dollars in "vote blue" spam campaigns.

All those donations are going somewhere - to "consultancy firms". To "ad agencies". And then they get to enjoy kickbacks from this mutual relationship.

THEY DON'T NEED TO WIN TO RAKE IN BILLIONS.

and so they don't even try.

I admit I just don't see a path forward.

Is inflation the reason they're upset at Democrats? The US had one of the lowest rates of inflation amongst the G7 (especially with food). Corporate greed drove much of the increase. Republicans are intent on removing any possible regulation that protects consumers, Democrats did what they could via the FTC, since they didn't have enough senate seats to pass any meaningful regulatory laws.

Is wage inequality the reason? Reaganomics is the primary reason for that, Republicans have been blocking every possible improvement for it via control of the senate and the filibuster.

Is it Israel? Certainly I can see that one, but Republicans have been responsible for devastating Iraq and Afghanistan, and will probably walk us into a conflict with Iran.

What messaging can the democrats do that would overcome the unrelenting right wing propaganda machines? What policies can they adopt that they don't already have? I just don't see a way to reach voters like the ones in this article.

This whole comment is amazing, honestly
It's like you're completely out of touch on politics and haven't read any of the other comments jere
Nothing mf, this is presidential politics. You just get lucky at the right time with the right circumstances. Obama is literally the only president in the 21st Century to have a legit election victory in 2012. No Close margins like 00 or 24, no Iraq War Patriotism, no recession, no Bernie Bros hiring his campaign, no Covid. 2012 was just straight up policy.
Other than that, the parties just have to wait their turn for this polarized country to swing their direction again.

Corporations and Republicans control the media. Putin deployed psyops on the social media of the bar room and bowling alley crowd. They controlled the narrative and will continue to control it until people wake up and realize they have become wage slaves who have a shit-hole standard of living.

If Democrats hadn't made a bunch of unnecessary and unforced errors, then we could blame it on the corpos and the Russians.
And what are you going to do about it next time? Otherwise the same thing will happen again.
- Same thing they do every cycle. Move as far to the right as possible and tell anyone who doesn't like it that they will be voting as instructed because the alternative isn't second worst.
  It doesn't matter that they have seen that strategy fail twice against the same guy. Centrists would rather have fascism than move to the left for any reason on any issue.
The funniest part of it is that republicans took control of the media under the pretense that it was under the control of liberals and that was a bad thing. Now tge Sinclair media group pumps flagrant right wing propaganda directly through local news affiliates
and until lefties learn that bitching about whether it was actually the DNC that made them lose or the fact that it was actually just minorities not voting hard enough or whatever cope people are using these days. This will keep working, that's the problem.
Everybody loves to shit on the left and the DNC when it's convenient, and then leech off of them when possible, while ignoring all the positives that have been gained through even an admittedly flawed institution.
Unfortunately none of this matters if the republicans psyop everybody in america, at the end of the day we have to win not winning, IS losing, and losing is simply not sustainable.
- Are you aware you're on an anarchist instance?

To the Left, to the LEFT!

Pivot, PIVOT!

Hear me out, what if they try running an even more genocidal candidate.

Well, the more genocidal candidate won I guess.
- Marginally.
They just need to run an even older candidate, but it can't be Bernie.
- It's not really the age itself, it's not a competence issue, there's just so many old people because that's a demographic that's overrepresented in the few people whose soul has completely rotted out and are willing to sell out humanity for some marginal personal benefit, and having the skill set to be able to do it.
- What you guys need is vintage candidates
Oh shit this might just work, GenoSanders when

Winning is detrimental to the party.

At a certain point, they realized that they make more money when they lose. The end goal of both parties isn't to win, it's to make the most money for their members. The democrats just happen to have stumbled into a situation where they have a perverse incentive to fuck things up just enough to barely lose so that they can keep their funding up.

Dems have won every national election except for 2 in the past 10 years.
Who upvotes this shit? Jesus Christ this is idiotic.
You drank the Kool aid.

You're overestimating the power of foreign propaganda. Harris lost because she refused to break with Biden on Gaza, offered a middle-class economic policy instead of working-class economic populism, and spent the campaign pursuing moderate Republicans as her base abandoned her. Foreign influence campaigns certainly played a part, but they're not magic; they didn't force the Democrats to run an out of touch, centrist campaign, and they didn't create the economic crises facing the working class. If the Democrats had run a campaign that credibly addressed the issues of their base, no amount of foreign propaganda would have kept them from winning.

What funny is everyone knows for a fact what lesson they should've learned, and if you ask 3 people they will give you 5 contradicting answers, every single one of which will be the most important strategy advice that stupid dems don't see. It will usually can be boiled into "They need to focus on this specific issue and only on it, to the detriment of all the others".

All voters say Democrats should cut ties with big corporations and focus on economic populism. Taxing big corporations not identity politics whilst giving corporations a tax break.
Bernie Sanders is what people would have voted for. There is no confusion. The Democratic party does not "understand" this because they do not want to understand it.
- In this political environment, when the corporations are the kingmakers, you can't afford to not be a corporatist. Democrats and Republicans are both very pro-business, but big business likes the Republicans better because they are completely mask-off about letting them do whatever they like, while the Dems have to pretend they care about stuff like regulations to appease their voters.
  Bernie, or someone like him, is essentially fighting an uphill battle. You can't take money from corporations, while simultaneously having to defend yourself from far-right extremist slander and the DNC actively trying to sabotage you so they can replace you with a corporatist. Meanwhile, Trump can be the big tent and get everybody in bed with him because the right will clearly stoop to any level to win and businesses have no scruples about who sits in the chair as long as they get a return on their investment.
  It's frustrating. Maddening. We are completely screwed for the foreseeable future unless Trump manages to fuck up even worse than he did in his first term or a grassroots left wing movement really gets going in time for the next election, presuming the institution of voting isn't completely ratfucked or dismantled by then.
- Doesn’t really seem like America really wants to cut ties with big corporations, seeing how people are voting. Nor identity politics for that matter, seems more important than ever among the right wing. Just that their identity politics is of a different kind.
  I’m not saying I know wether it would be a good idea to actually do what you’re proposing. But I think people are way to quick to know the solution. Because it resonates with their own beliefs.
- Well, Bernie participated in two primaries, and in both cases he demonstrably, objectively lost the popular vote, which means that people did not vote for him.
  Which is exactly what I am talking about, your idea sounds good to you, but you base it on your vibes, and numbers tell the different story apparently.

The only lesson to be learnt from this is that forgiving debts, pardoning marijuana offences, wanting fair elections, etc don't work.

The only lesson they could learn from this is that they weren't conservative enough.

Fuck that lesson.

They don't learn the lesson, because they don't want to. And your examples imo show the problem.
forgiving debts, pardoning marinuana offences
These are not solutions, they are bandaids that like a drug keep you dependent on politicians repeating them again and again. Which of course is nice when your only goal is to get relected, but longterm that magic wears off.
- The majority of the US voting population ignores the long term.
- Biden rescheduled marijuna and Kamala promised to completely legalize it. Making medicine free requires 60 senate votes.
  People turned down the solutions even after receiving the bandaids.
  The people who aren't learning are voters.
- They have also been legalizing marijuana and pressured the DEA to reschedule it, those are lasting solutions.
  Democrats also support tuition free college, but haven't been able to get the bill passed yet. Student loan forgiveness can be passed with executive orders, but tuition free college would require a bill passed by Congress.
The only lesson they could learn from this is that they weren’t conservative enough.
I don't think this is even remotely the lesson.
The right wingers already go on social media spouting that "the libs" are socialist, sure, but that's just because it's what their media tells them.
The lesson should be that propaganda wins elections, not logical answers. You have to appeal to quick witty replies with even more quick witty replies. You have to use loads of smoke and mirrors to promise outcomes without any tangible methodologies.
The democrats should promise to fund the military... and then use the military funding for humanitarian ends like we did with covid vaccines. The line item looks great to dummy middle america voters to say "wow the democrats want a strong military" even though the spending really is to build homes for the poor or provide subsidized healthcare through federal military pop up hospitals (with contracted civilian doctors.)
You have to literally provide handouts about a year out from election time to subsidize a topic like gas prices leading up to the election. The day the elections are over you can remove all of those things and start replenishing it... so release that strategic reserve big time. Focus on extra subsidies in places where you can actually win the vote, so fuck deep red and deep blue. Hate to say it... the battleground is all that matters.
If you want to appeal to the common voter it can't be by pushing for educational values or refunds for people with degrees. It has to be refunds for people with high grocery bills, high utility costs. Hell, remove the SALT deduction entirely in the name of "small government" because that's one thing even lower class republicans think would be a bad move to raise... but this is still way too detailed for the ignorant voting masses to grasp... so you should probably say you are going to lower taxes rather than say you're upping it for billionaires. The latter is always assumed even though it never actually happens.
Bring out all the news about how republicans are actually raising taxes. How they actually result in higher gas costs, higher housing costs, higher grocery costs. Why the fuck "Tariffs" weren't brought out as MASSIVE tax increases for the common working person is bewildering to me! Dumpy loves tariffs but describe it in simple terms as a tax - IMPORT TAX - and suddenly it will be very unpopular. "Dumpy says tariffs are good!!!!" but the news is plastered with "import taxes called tariffs"... why are they raising taxes again? for common hard working people? "You mean i'm gonna have to pay more money at the grocery store AND the pump??!?!?!?"
Campaigning on city values isn't working because the battleground states aren't uber dense. You have to appeal to the rural people with promises that can be delivered in the short term and that will cost them in the long term, because they are HORRIBLE at gauging long term impact. They can only remember what just happened and what is happening now. Dumpy is promising that the future will be great, why are you promising that things are gonna be tough? Things are tough right now for most people, why are you saying that the economy is great? I know by many metrics we are succeeding but the complexity of economics goes over almost everyone's head. Instead you should have been campaigning on the fact that dumpy lowered taxes on the rich and that the rich didn't fulfill their end of the bargain and are stealing all the money from the hard working middle americans.
No die hard blue state is going to vote red so it's time to abandon intelligent values for dummy propaganda. Let's fucking go.
Oh and on the sidelines talk about the real policy you want to implement akin to project2025 which actually has the real DNC agenda, just like how P2025 is the GOP agenda.
- Say you will lower taxes for the working and middle class. Everyone knows what that means.
If that's the lesson Democrats take from this then they deserve to keep losing.

If liberals could learn they wouldn't be liberals.

If leftist could learn, they leave the Dems alone and support the socialist party.
- As if it's not the dems throwing a tantrum every time someone on Lemmy promoted a third party. Clearly you people don't even know what you want.
- I learned when they ratfucked Bernie out of the race in 2020. I live in Iowa, they destroyed my caucus!

Fetterman kissed the ring on tv because of the demographics of his district made it more profitable to do it in public. The rest of the centrist dems will do it in private. There will always be symbolic pushback on things, but when dem votes are needed by corporate or aipac they will magically materialize as if out of thin air. They always do.
When the repubs do their promised constitutional changes, watch, the dems will get in line behind them, bellyaching the whole time about how outraged they are. There will be symbolic responsible senator, to blame the entire dem "collapse" on. Probably Fetterman.

AFAICT, this is the story of centre left politics over the past recent years (decades? Since Reagan/thatcher?).

There’s likely a whole story to be told, but I personally suspect modern academia is actually a big but easy to ignore component.

The voters are going to learn a lesson.

They didn't last time. Maybe they're getting what they wanted, and it's the DNC that should be trying something different?
- Or the voters can start voting better. They make their own decisions.

There are actually people in here that say idiotic shit like “until democrats learn that they need to go low to win”.

Stop submitting to brainwashing that has you thinking the democrats are virtuous. It’s bullshit and you are ignorant and naive if you believe that.

"Go low to win". Then Biden decided to die on the hill of support for genocide.

Let's see:

Democrat voter base is steadily more and more changing from the blue collar worker to the more educated, college/university citizen.

Problem: there are more blue collar workers than university/college educated citizens

Part of the democrat campaign zeitgeist is that if you don't vote for them, then you are [EXPLETIVE].

Problem: most people don't like to vote for the party with members that calls them slurs

Democrats think that Kamala lost because she is a woman

Problem: for the average voter, gender doesn't matter in any of the key areas a president has to manage

For the collectivists, the average male voter is assumed to be privileged, racist, bigoted, homophobic, millionaire, uneducated, emotionally stunted, a rapist, a Nazi, not people, and so on

Problem: assuming this is true for every male voter in the sweeping criticism of the patriarchy has left the male voter disenchanted and being pushed into the only people who are listening to them and their problems of unemployment, lack of financial security, health issues, and so on.

There is much more but yeah you guys tried to PIVOT the entirety of your message from the key 4 years like 2 months before the end of the campaign and you couldn't even do that correctly.

No such thing as a "Patriarchy" when you can falsely accuse a man & get them fired & especially when you have several welfare programs that are for women only
OH boy here come those downvoters (See, you leftists will never win like this)
- Do you actually believe this?
- You're so full of shit.
- Patriarchy is not a binary issue. Even at the height of Patriarchy, there will still be issues where women have the upper hand. In today's world, Patriarchy has steadily been weakened by people's efforts, but that doesn't mean your system is no longer based on Patriarchy.
  In order to uproot Patriarchy, you need to destroy the whole system and rebuild from the ground up, which is of course, impractical and clearly haven't been done.
  If you strongly believe you no longer have a Patriarchy in the US, please show me when did this over turning event that uprooted Patriarchy from your system occurred.

Don't worry too much, it's the same in France. A whole side of the politic is in denial.

Related.

- Pretty much
It's not a zero sum game, you can court LGBT and other demographics as well at the same time.
- Yep, like Trump does it. Just change your message depending on the exact crowd you're talking to. It just requires a level of cynicism that the Democrats (and civilized people in general) seem to find distasteful.

Yep: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/391-the-reckoning

Until the Democrats learn to stop trying to go high when the bar has already been stapled to the floor, they will never win an election again.

voters aren't swayed by morals, "presidential" energy, or formality, they're swayed by fucking podcasts...

Until the Democrats learn to stop trying to go high
Or at least stop pretending that "we're enabling a genocide. Shut up. You will be voting for us" is "going high."
- They're trying to say they're the good guys because they aren't the bad guys...
  Which isn't true if they're not going to stop the bad guys

There are Democratic Party people and aligned people who are realistic about why they lost and who they lost. They have contacts within the Party. Hopefully they'll be listened to.

We'll probably get a sense of what if any changes we will see in the upcoming special elections to fill House seats Trump is looting for his Cabinet. Then I believe Florida law requires an election pretty soon to replace Rubio, so that will be a national race we can watch.

Presumably whoever DeSantis appoints will have a pretty big advantage, but we should watch the message and the votes. It will be too early to be a full reaction against Trump, so we can learn a lot about what resonates with voters.

After the Democrats recently scoffed AOC for house oversight committee I severely doubt there will be any lessons learned. Depending on how poor Trump does in the coming years the Democrats might just sell out as hard as they can thinking their 2028 election is guaranteed.
- If most voters were tuned in to politics to the point they cared about the outcome of a party committee ranking member vote, we wouldn't be in the 2nd Trump administration, and MAGA probably wouldn't exist.
  The Oversight leadership vote is the product of the bad 2024 messaging and bad outreach.
  That's why I mentioned upcoming elections: they will show us what the Democrats learned about messaging to voters they need to win.

The only lesson is that unreliable voters can be ignored.

People only ever emulate the winning individual, side, or group.

There is no "They lost so next time they will cater to me." There is a "I didn't vote, so next time they will ignore me."

Edit: Don't put words in my mouth. It makes uou sound stupider than your words do.

What you call unreliable voters, the rest of us call the American people. If you think you can rely on a voter, you've already lost. You are taking your supporters for granted, just as Hillary did, just as Kamala did. Didn't work out well for either of them.
'I'm not Trump' is not a winning strategy. Not for Hillary, not for Kamala, not for the DNC.
If you want to win elections, you have to look at what VOTERS actually WANT. And voters want radical reform. The unfortunately aren't informed enough to realize they'll get more reform for their vote in congressional, state, and local elections than in a presidential vote. But they still want radical reform from their presidential candidate, for better or for worse.
There are an awful lot of valid reasons not to like Donald Trump, but lack of reform in his messages not one of them. His very slogan, 'Make America Great Again', implies change.
People are angry. People see a system that works very well for the 1% and tolerable at best for the rest of the country, and they want that to change. They want a country that works for them. It's a reasonable ask. And since they aren't getting it, they want reform.
If DNC wants to win elections, they need to put forward some new ideas, which won't necessarily be popular with big business but will be popular with voters. Bernie would have mopped the floor with Trump had he not been squeezed out. There's a few younger more charismatic Democrats who could bring about some real positive change. They always get sidelined in favor of the milquetoast boring status quo candidate.
Look at Obama as an example. Young, charismatic, and a campaign based on reform. He didn't deliver nearly enough reform but he generally left things better. It was enough to get Biden elected...
- Biden was really the only one that ran on a campaign of "I'm not Trump". Both Harris and Clinton had independent platforms that had nothing to do with saying they are not Trump. They weren't coming into the mess Trump had made so their policies didn't have to focus on reversing what he had done (which is essentially all Biden ran on and did). I don't think this argument is that strong because the 2 candidates that lost actually had a fair bit of reform in their platforms with much more fleshed out plans and details than anything Trump was offering to do.

Dems lost, because Americans are idiots. There's no deeper meaning. Americans elected a con man for the second time. Con man, second fucking time. They knew how bad he is, because he already was president, yet they still voted for him. It blows my mind. No other explanation is needed, Americans are literally the dumbest pieces of shit on the face of the planet. I wish them the worst. They deserve what's coming to them.

- The fact that he won the popular vote this time makes most of those irrelevant. Not the voter suppression and felon disenfranchisement.
  Although one felon is super-duper enfranchised!
If they were such idiots and so easy to manipulate then the responsibility still falls on the democrats for fumbling and such a supposedly easy demographic
- The problem with the democrats is that they are too honest and don’t play dirty.
  They should have lied and told the public what they wanted to hear with no intention of actually honoring their promises, just like the republicans.

demorats coping hard

yes, so much progress being made.

“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”

Still one step lacking to understand what Republicans already do.

Moneyed interests are the leaders you get. Money is just one of the kinds of power, but a lot of other kinds are applied in the form of money. You can't seriously expect to contribute energy of a negligible cost into expressing your opinion and even casting your vote, and even donating a dollar or two, and for that to somehow give real power to your side, even multiplied by millions. You are already choosing from a limited pool of people and positions to support. Defined by parties with real power before your choice. Together with a lot of other conditions of an election.

This is why the perfect, logical, supposedly honest system the more classical kind of Democrats dream about would not result into a honest democracy.

This is why the well-meaning kind of Republicans talk about checks and balances, and interpersonal connections between people having power, and gun ownership and in tech it would seem sometimes that they want to get into dystopian future faster.

That is because dystopian future may be better than dystopian past. Every day of your life is unlike any before it. It's the same in history and good tall states with institutions and good democracies are devolving into something a bit more "1704 anno domini" all over the world. This is not anything new. The world is always changing. Unfortunately what progressives today consider progress is not the direction in which the humanity is, well, progressing.

But that dissonance is a clue for us to see. It's not Bronze Age anymore, but humans are still eating each other. Progress is meaningful on such a scale, and so little affected by someone's personal decisions, that any party or ideology calling itself "progressive" seems arrogant to the degree of madness.

So, voters vote even HARDER for moneyed interests by voting for the qons, or by sitting out or voting third party?

That's some real nine dimensional chess there.

They only have 2 real options, it’s either more of the same or the guy who’s promising to tear down the system. There’s really no nine dimensional chess, it’s pretty clear cut to me.
To think otherwise is, once more, a failure to learn the lesson.
- The guy promising to take down the system?
  He advertised everything but that including lying, broken promises, and corruption in using the system to his benefit.
  That’s what voters chose.
- After that same guy didn't tear down the system the first time, rather giving into lobbyist interests far more than any other 'career politician' in modern American history, such as in beating the record for inaugural bribe collection he himself set eight years ago, you'd think more people would at least recognize that Trump's promises are either smoke in the wind or just a means for private interests to enrichen themselves at the expense of the American people.

SHE HAS A VAGINA. THAT'S ALL IT TOOK. DEMOCRATS DIDN'T MISS THE MARK. SHE JUST HAS A VAGINA AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC WONT PUT ANYONE WITH A VAGINA IN THE WHITEHOUSE.

People stayed home because of Gaza and the economy but yeah it's definitely because Harris is a woman.
- It's a combination of all of those factors, plus others. People try to point to one thing, but a whole bunch of people didn't vote for her for a whole bunch of reasons.
- Gaza holds no water, kushner and Jr were on record for seeking to build condos in gaza once it was "cleared out"
- How many voters do you think can find Gaza on a map?
  But they sure can see that Harris is a woman.
- They did-fucking-not. They stayed home because she's a woman. Just like they did in 2016. End of fucking story. The rest is just political writers needing clicks to survive.
You're literally doing exactly what this post complains about. The overwhelming sentiment of Harris replacing Biden was change - her campaign ran on that - yet she had basically all the same stances/policies a Biden, especially where it mattered to the voterbase (I.e. Gaza). She had an opportunity to diverge from Biden's less popular platform, but chose not to, and it cost her the election. That's the rub.
As for 2016 - people did turn out for Hilary. She won the popular vote by a significantly higher margin than Harris.
And as for 2020, Biden only won so easily because Trump's woefully incompetent response to Covid19 was still in recent memory - and even that still resulted in a smaller margin than Obama's first term.
- Biden got 81 million votes, hasn’t been done since.
Not really. Even Hillary won the popular vote (only didn't become president due to the outdated electoral college), Harris just sucks.
I mean, Hillary also had a lot of baggage, decade of being attacked by the media, still won popular vote. The media didn't really have a decade to trash Harris' reputation, but she still did worse than Hillary.
- Hillary did have the Clinton name. Whether that helped or hurt, we don't know, but it was a factor
yeah funny how the dems can turn out for a joe biden who sucks in 2020 but not for a hillary clinton or a kamala harris who suck in 2016 and 2024. like yes, people sat out for a wide host of reasons, but there's a very glaring pattern that's very easy to see
- Biden ran on progressive economic policy and a generally satisfactory platform. People had a problem with his age, but he didn't suck, not in the same way Harris and Hillary did.
This is bait haha no way it's real
Fucking sigh.
You're wrong: the biggest cunt is going into the Whitehouse

There needs to be a culture change in how Democrats and progressivea raise their children politically.

Conservatives raise their children to vote, every time. Local, state, national. Every time. They actually show up on election day and they vote even when they have to hold their noses and they don't like their candidate. Democrats find some excuse as to why their candidate is not worthy their vote and many stay home because they are mad about something in their own party.

That's how Republicans can win again and again even when they are a minority of the population.

I don't think it's about how people raise their kids. It's the propaganda fed to people. It's easier to hate and fear than it is to work for change. If I tell you that you are struggling because you are being invaded and people are raping your neighbors and stealing your jobs and I'll fix it, vs someone saying times are tough and we need to work on solutions to make us better for the future, a good many people choose the easy route. The number of people in their 20s and 30s that don't vote the same as their parents is vast.
- Nah, for Conservatives, raising a conservative voter begins at birth. I've lived in that culture for a very long time.
You are what the article is talking about...
- Yes, I'm pointing out what Democrats fail to understand about conservatives.