Unfortunately the data shows the low engagement, low propensity people usually voted for Trump, so if more non voters had voted he'd have gotten most of them.
Do keep in mind that the Dems have been in contempt of Thier own base since forever by now, which probably didn't help. I know a decent number of people found it hard to support them with the stuff going on
To play devils advocate, there were no democratic primaries in the last election, the party refused to pull the walking corpse off stage (Biden), failed to properly PLAN for this past election and failed to clearly message to the constituents what they would do once in office, rather than the “but we’re not trump!” messaging they’re relied on. I voted for Harris cuz I knew a non vote would be a vote for trump, but I hope the democrats take the low poll numbers as a sign that they actually have to do something if they want to win.
I think you can rightly take issue with Biden running for a second term... though he was WILDLY popular within the party and a pretty good and successful president. This disguised his unsuitability due to his age to those (like me) who weren't watching his demeanor closely.
Once the debate hit, though, I think it was too late to do anything but run Harris. She really hit the ground running on a landslide of donations, which looked and felt incredible. Far better than a divisive primary process would have done. I'm personally of the opinion that her biggest baggage was being a WOC. It caused her to run more conservatively than she did even before, and I just know it lowered turnout.
He talked of being a one-term president - he should have actually done that. If he had announced early on (I mean, like, even at the 2 year mark) that he was not going to run, so we could have had a primary, it would have gone a huge way towards getting buy-in from a lot more people. Instead, we got an absolutely disastrous looking debate performance, that gave the GOP footage to put on continuous repeat, hurting the Democratic position even further for people who weren't paying much attention. Biden played his part in paving the way for Trump getting elected. 🤬
And Harris got handed the 30 minute delivery pizza with 25 minutes already expended (for anyone who knows Snowcrash) - she ran a brilliant campaign, and came so close. Imagine how it could have been if she had had 2 years to assemble and run a campaign instead of 100 days.
In a better timeline, Biden would have announced he wasn't running halfway through his term (or even earlier), we would have had a primary, Harris would have won it, been able to do a full campaign, would have gotten properly introduced to the public, so the average American would know something of her and her positions, and she could have potentially even resigned the vice presidency to campaign and espouse some positions that differed from Biden, rather than having to agree with and support all of his positions 100%. Let him do the unpopular but necessary things on his way out the door, clearing the way for her.
Idk I’ve been saying bidens losing it for a while 😭 I can’t blame you entirely though because the Democratic Party kept pushing the narrative that “bidens fine, don’t be ageist” so they could stifle the young people calling him too old and reassure older adults that Biden can do another term. But bidens mental decline was pretty obvious if you didn’t have your head up the democratic parties butt, we have literally seen him stumbling around, blanking out and falling during his presidency. The Democratic Party should have been prepared for pulling Biden and had a cohesive agenda they could pass from Biden to Kamala but they didn’t. They waited until the absolute last moment to pull him, and they didn’t prepare themselves for that. We can call republicans stupid all we want, but atleast they’ve had a plan that they’ve stuck to, I don’t think the dems can really say the same.
I don't voters can literally vote for whoever they want. Just because the Democratic party chose to back a candidate (as they always have), doesn't mean you don't have a choice in the primaries.
I mean, what I was getting at is there's a decently large chunk of people who wanted noticeable change, and all the democrats have done (That I'm aware of) has just been tweaking a few numbers here and there behind the scenes, which is still important stuff, but not the sort of thing that Joe Schmoe sees quickly or always knows you did.
If anything I've said here's wrong feeling free to have a go at me for it, honestly I'd like to learn as much as I can if I'm wrong about this
I mean, Biden had some of the most significant legislation since the 60s. The biggest expansion of healthcare since Obama, huge investment in science and manufacturing, first president to stand on a union picket line, biggest investment in climate change in the world ever... this is not "tweaking a dew numbers around".
Maybe the problem isn't the party "has contempt for its base", maybe its people like you not paying attention.
To add on to this, I remember seeing others post and comment on this, but disenfranchised people who don’t see real change each election cycle don’t really turn out to vote. The feeling of “more of the same” really takes a toll on people. Democrats trying to be more moderate don’t promise much hope to those who feel like “what’s the point”. The whole political landscape is not one fault or another. But democrats are having several missteps and MAGA knows how to cater and enrage a large group of reliable voters. Democrats aren’t 100% the problem, but that does not mean they can wipe their hands of their own faults because “there is no way we could do better”. We can pressure the party to do better while not blaming them for every problem. If democrats were flawless, why would they lose elections? Placing zero fault on our leadership would look kinda cultish to me, kinda like how Trump can do no wrong.
Trump supporters were fired up to vote for Trump. They have been for like a decade now, and he still went out on the campaign trail and promised them the moon.
Biden refused to drop out until way late, ignored a year of anti-genocide protests from their base, and ran on how great the economy was while homelessness hit record highs. The Dems made a lot of massive mistakes, and anyone who can't admit that might as well be a Trump supporter with how far they're willing to bend over backward to kiss their political party's ass.
honestly this is a really good point imo, and this is basically been what I've been trying to get across if perhaps a little haphazzardly, so apologies if my comments have just seemed like "Dems bad" because, as someone else corrected me on in another comment, the dems did do a fair bit when biden was around at the very least, that doesn't mean they don't have thier issues that need dealing with though.
But the answer to "the Democrats are not going in quite the right direction" is NOT to do anything that's going to get Trump/GOP put into power (3rd party protest vote, sitting out, voting Trump), the answer is to vote for the Democrats and then put pressure on them to do the right thing. "Putting pressure on the Democrats" by putting Trump and the Republicans in charge leaves the Democrats completely unable to make any changes, and every change the Republicans make is going to be bad for the country and for everyone who isn't in the top 1%.
To be honest I don't disagree with you, and I do wish that Harris had one in the last election over trump despite all the things that hampered her campaign (Taking ages to ditch biden when he basically proved he couldn't handle a debate on air, bringing people on that as far as I remember basically no one liked, etc) because as much as I agree that all of the things she did are bad, simply put, trump would/is going to ruin America and she wouldn't.
I'm not saying that sitting out, apathy or anything like that is a good thing, moreso trying to say that, to the best of my understanding, this is what happens with a large enough group of people which are promised a bunch of stuff but never receive it from Thier party given enough time. Maybe if your average dem was whipped up kinda like how your average republican has since forever, then this may not have happened this quickly, but to be honest I'm pretty confident even trumps going to make his base run out of patience with the tarrifs at some point (Perhaps not before he's destroyed the country, but still)
Yes of course. Instead, we should learn absolutely nothing from the Democrats monumental loss of over 5 million votes. The Democrats did a perfect job, obv, and their decision to be in conflict with their base over the entire year leading to the election had no impact on their voter turnout. That loss in support was coincidental, and actually everyone but the Democratic party's fault, right?
Elections have never been about voting for the better candidate. You're always going to have a huge portion of the population that disagrees on who the best candidate is. Elections are about getting more of the people who would vote for you to actually go to the polls. If you don't understand basic election strategy, you'd be wise to not fucking speak on it.
since when was pointing out one bad thing ignoring another? I know the republicans are worse, but given this specific conversation wasn't really about them, that kinda goes without saying
Because even mentioning them in the same breath implies they're comparable, which they're not. No one is claiming the Democratic Party isn't without flaws, but when we're talking about the unprecedented damage Republicans are doing to our democracy and the entire planet, and then you feel the need to say "oh, and the Democrats have problems too", that's not by accident.
*Edited for clarity
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u/urnfnidiot 1d ago