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The temptation to recriminate is strong, and healthy when constructive, but feels more useless than usual right now, especially in these first few shell-shocked hours. Pick your own adventure, and go back as far as you like. Joe Biden could have dropped out earlier. Maybe Joe Biden shouldn’t have run at all in 2020. They could have crammed in a sprint primary. Maybe Kamala Harris could have run as something other than an extension of an unpopular administration. Maybe she could have courted the right more. Maybe she could have courted the left at all. Maybe she could have been tougher on Israel, or maybe being even more deferential would have gained her some votes among the bloodthirsty. Maybe Liz Cheney was not the right person to make her most visible endorser. Maybe she should have chosen a more polished VP pick, or maybe she shouldn’t have muzzled Tim Walz’s seemingly popular early attacks. Maybe no plurality of Americans was ever going to elect a woman, or a black and Indian woman. Maybe the demographics are fundamentally Republican now: second-generation immigrants have gone rightward from four and eight years ago, as did younger voters. Maybe that side’s threats of implicit or actual violence have given it an unsurmountable advantage at the ballot box. Maybe offering more policy specifics would have helped, or maybe they wouldn’t have, given that so many voters cited a crime wave in a time of sharply decreasing crime and inflation at a point where inflation is nosediving. I have my opinions on all of these, as do you, but the point is that there is no “for want of a nail” in this election, no one thing that if addressed could have given Harris the edge. The margins were too wide, in too many places.
This is my feeling, too. This was too systemic and too pervasive to be attributable to a single misplaced platform plank, or a single strategic blunder. This isn’t due to [insert pet peeve here]. This was a nationwide cry for a course correction. It was the tangible manifestation of a disconnected electorate seeking the comforting embrace of a father figure. Even if sometimes they don’t like the way daddy treats them, they still love him, deep down. They still trust him to take care of them. They’re attached to him on an emotional level, and emotions are not rational, nor do they have to be internally consistent with beliefs and ideals.
Immigrants voted to deport immigrants. Black people voted for a loud, unapologetic racist. Women voted for a rapist. They care more about what he’s going to do for them than they do about how he treats or talks about them.
I have several very politically disconnected friends, and a month or so ago a divorced blue collar white guy told me, “I’m fucked either way, and neither of them are going to do anything for me, so I might as well vote for him.” I can’t even fucking argue with that. Dude’s just trying to make ends meet, and he’s grasping on to anyone who says they’re going to help, even if he knows it’s probably a lie.
That shit’s dark.
This was the election that made my mom say she wasn’t going to vote anymore, which was really heartbreaking.
None of us are going to get to vote anymore
I’m sure we’ll get to vote. Will it matter is the bigger question. Elections are a great way to give people the impression they’re not living under tyranny.
With the way Elon and other billionaires threw their money around during this election, it makes voting feel pointless. We have Citizens United to thank for that though.
True enough 😔
No fucking shit.
Everyone had a hardon for some supposed +1 Harris nonsense poll when if you’d just look at history any time Trump is on the ballot a +1 Dem is actually a -4 Dem… But every YouTube asshat and major media fuckwit was acting like there was a chance.
I know people want to try to have some positivity but I felt like I was yelling into the void about what the realistic outcome was going to be if we didn’t change. Of course “we” can’t change, that has to be the Democratic partys choice, but hopefully now we finally dump this useless party.
It’s a lot easier to reshape a political party than to dump them and start afresh.
You can’t reshape a party that refuses to change. How many decades have we had the same complaints about them?
A whole bunch of Sanders supporters got themselves elected to the DNC and changed the rules to make contested primaries easier. The Democratic party isn’t some static thing that we have no control over.
Oh how wonderful, and how many actual primaries has the DNC had since the rule was changed? Y’know, so that change could actually be useful?
I hope you’re right, but in practical results it doesn’t seem like much has changed. Personally I’ll be pushing for 3rd parties now until we get closer to the next election.
I won’t be the same type of obstinate person that sticks with a party with 0% chance as opposed to a worse party with a 40% chance, but I’d much rather they go the way of the dinosaur.
In practice, those rules made it easier to have centrist primary challenges to Democrats in congress, rather than left-wing ones.
The big thing we need to change is the media environment. Much of the US is a news desert, so people are depending on things like YouTube shorts and Xitter for their news.
Honestly, for the most part, I think the videos and talking heads are a symptom of an even bigger issue. The inability to read long form text, comprehend it, and reflect on the text in a logical manner. They want these videos breaking it down for them, and they want those talking heads telling them what to believe. Why? Because reading is “hard”.
On the flip side, they LOVE to read all up on their fave bands, their fave celebrity, fave movie, fave game, or any drama on their little social app. So, they can read of course. Only when it is over something that doesn’t really matter in the long run, or drivel meant to ruin their perception.
Same people who will sit there and read the entire lore of Dark Souls/Elden Right, but can’t even read a website hosted by one of the running candidates that explicitly goes into details of what their platform is.
Hmm…
That was always the Rolling Stone business model — talk about the bands, and throw in a side of serious political news.
Pretty much, yeah. Shit’s just fucked.
