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Trump Lost. Vote Suppression Won. (www.gregpalast.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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"If the purges [of potential voters], challenges and ballot rejections were random, it wouldn’t matter. It’s anything but random. For example, an audit by the State of Washington found that a Black voter was 400% more likely than a white voter to have their mail-in ballot rejected. Rejection of Black in-person votes, according to a US Civil Rights Commission study in Florida, ran 14.3% or one in seven ballots cast."

"[...] Democracy can win* despite the 2.3% suppression headwind.

And that’s our job as Americans: to end the purges, the vigilante challenges, the ballot rejections and the attitude that this is all somehow OK."

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[–] 104 points 2 years ago (66 children)

So the new campaign is that the DNC did nothing wrong, they were just thwarted by voter suppression?

Couldn't be they completely fucked up by campaigning to a center that doesn't exist any more. The DLC's triangulation bullshit is dead and needs to stay dead. Every Dem from the Clinton era needs to get that through their damn heads, they should have retired a decade ago anyway.

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  • [–] 94 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    It's a combination of everything, DNC has been spineless and bought out by corps, voter suppression techniques from Republicans skewed votes in their favor, white rural voters came out in droves to vote for trump, the Harris campaign failure to meaningfully address the genocide or get enough messaging out to address people's financial troubles.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    The genocide voters are idiots. Harris spent too much time trying to court “moderate” republicans.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    The voter suppression problem is a symptom of the spineless and bought out DNC problem. Dems should be talking about nationwide voting laws and how red states aren't democratic and don't have legitimate rule of law constantly, but that would be too radical and unpredictable for the corps to feel comfortable with, so instead they focus their legislative efforts on just cutting checks to all the state governments for this infrastructure initiative or that climate bill or whatever, which helps assholes like Ron DeSantis and Brian Kemp run the systems of patronage and oppression that keep them in power (also, those checks are eventually ending up in the corps' accounts, so they're happy too).

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They don't talk about voting laws during the campaign because it loses.

    Contrary to popular belief, they're not idiots.

    If you get all the corporations to turn against you, especially the media companies, you lose. Ask Bernie.

    They're not doing everything right, certainly, but it's also not a simple problem to solve. There are some very fine lines to walk for Dems. Kamala tried to walk those lines and failed.

    She offered a $50k credit towards buying your first house. Does Gen Z remember that?

    Meanwhile Trump could shout "hail Hitler" tomorrow and all the corporate media (and then 50% of the voters) would make excuses for him.

    We need voters to seek out primary sources. We need them to be more resistant to manipulation. The problem isn't getting the information out there; it's getting people to hear it. How many people who didn't vote for Kamala went to KamalaHarris.com? And how many of those seriously considered what she had to say?

    The problem is that saying nothing is more of a winning strategy than saying something. People always want to tear you down, and more words give them more ammo. So every politician's website is filled with fluff and platitudes.

    The problem is Fox News telling people what to think 24/7 in a way that they actually listen.

    Honestly, The Daily Show and Colbert Report of around 2000-2015 were one of the best things this country had going for it, and we were hardly aware of it.

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  • [–] 48 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I'm never gonna stop sharing this

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (40 children)

    The Democrats have plenty of problems, but none of that compares to Republicans who are worse in every conceivable way. Propaganda, foreign interference, and domestic voter suppression won this for Trump and his goons.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (39 children)

    I get the argument, but at this point, nobody is contemplating whether to vote Democrat or Republican. It's between Democrat and apathy.

    Comments like these sound as if during WWII the French were saying "well, the French army has plenty of problems, but Nazi German occupation is worse in every conceivable way, so there is no point criticising the French army".

    Everyone knows the Reps are Nazis. The problem with the Dems is not that they are not less bad than the literal Nazi party, but that they are unable to effectively fight the Nazi party. The problem is that Democrats fail to demonstrate that voting for them is better than not voting at all to a large part of the electorate.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    The problem is that Democrats fail to demonstrate

    And compounding that problem is people being angry at the Dems for this failure instead of trying to help.

    "Clearly you're not worth voting for because you can't convince people to vote for you." Great.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago

    And compounding that problem is people being angry at the Dems for this failure instead of trying to help.

    We should be as happy as you are that the only thing Democrats actually stood for in the past 4 years was Netanyahu.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    “Clearly you’re not worth voting for because you can’t convince people to vote for you.” Great.

    But it's not that. It's "please do something because you're abandoning wide swathes of people and are going to lose, and lose our best chance against the fascists this way".

    The problem is that Dems don't like progressives' help, they would rather get help from Cheney than Sanders.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (13 children)

    Exactly. Democrats ran on "vote for a Democrat to save Democracy!" Millions of voters shrugged and asked, "what good has democracy done for me?"

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    The problem is that a lot of people, also on here equate people saying that "this is going to alienate voters" with saying "this is going to alienate me", and then go into personal attacks of "are Republicans better then?" or "you're the problem because you don't vote".

    No, the problem is and was that large swathes of the population that you don't interact with won't vote if you don't give them something to vote for, as they don't see Trump as the threat he is, since people's opinions are saturated with the 24 hour news cycle. Point is "Trump bad", while true, doesn't win elections. You have to do something more, and the DNC is very much tending to do the bare minimum besides fundraising.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    The problem is that a lot of people, also on here equate people saying that “this is going to alienate voters” with saying “this is going to alienate me”, and then go into personal attacks of “are Republicans better then?” or “you’re the problem because you don’t vote”.

    Centrists only did that because in all cases, they supported the behavior that was alienating voters and didn't want it to change. Even if that meant trump again.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    99% of the times Democrats fail to effect change, it's for losing a vote that comes close to 50/50 - be it for presidents, senate representatives, etc.

    People do not understand that their only quote-unquote "failing" is that we literally don't give them power in any usable, reliable form, and that they don't represent a hive mind.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago*

    I'm not criticising them for not having the votes, I'm criticising them for not writing and standing behind the bills in the first place.

    There are three insane third Trump term bills already in Congress, where were the three Medicare for All or police reform, or anti-price gouging or tax reform bills in Congress days after Biden's win? Or Obama's win?

    The Trump bills won't pass, sure, but we are here and talking about them. Where were the Dems doing this?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (10 children)

    The problem is that Democrats fail to demonstrate that voting for them is better than not voting at all to a large part of the electorate.

    That's where the propaganda and foreign influence come in. Their entire effort centered around muddying the waters so people couldn't be sure what the reality was. And voter suppression certainly makes it easier for people to say fuck it.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    Yes, there was foreign propaganda, influence, psyops, etc.

    Look at Luigi. All of that propaganda failed to contain a very wide, bipartisan swathe of the population who was elated at the CEO's death. Even more moderate people agreed that healthcare sucks even if they don't like people, even murderers, gunned down in the street.

    And Democrats still refuse to run on a platform of complete healthcare reform. And before you say "but Republicans would vote it down", make them! Put it forward every week, every session, make a presidential run on it, make overreaching executive orders that fuck with insurance companies, forcing them to sue, every week. Have random low ranking Democrats make speeches about "well Luigi was in the wrong, but such things are inevitable in this system" to get in the papers with controversy. Just like Reps did it with the wall and other stupid stuff. Make it every week's topic who exactly is standing in the way of establishing a proper healthcare system.

    And there are other issues like that. Cost of living for example.

    Fight, damnit, do something, or you will lose your country.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They didn't campaign to the center, they campaigned to the right. It was incredible obtuse and stupid.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Biden barely squeaked into office on promises it became clear he was never going to even try to keep, and then Democrats proceeded to alienate a bunch of groups that voted for him. Groups that only voted for him reluctantly the last time.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I really hate that this is the top comment. Two things can be true at the same time. Dems messed up in the previous election and narrowly lost against the worst candidate to ever run for president,AND voter suppression is real and will become a much larger problem going forward. Under Trump, nothing is stopping Republicans from enacting voter suppression laws the likes of which you have never seen before. Trump won’t need to steal the election for his third term (yes he will run if he’s still alive!), because the states will do it for him by suppressing the votes.

    Now you may think that you are protected from a third term by the constitution. You may think you are protected against things like poll taxes, tests etc. But do you honestly believe the SC is on your side?

    The Dems messed up this election. Voter suppression will ensure that there will no longer be fair elections in the future.

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  • [+] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Harris was no more of a crap candidate than Biden was in 2020.

    Biden was able to get away with it in 2020 coming off Trump's first term and the shitshow that was COVID's handling under his leadership. Harris didn't have this benefit, being second in command in the incumbent regime, was unable to capitalize on any of the points the Biden administration could claim as wins, while stubbornly refusing to put any distance between him and herself on his unpopular stances. Add in that this was occurring while popular sentiment was clamoring for an inspiring campaign that wasn't the usual DNC paint-by-numbers, march to the right campaign of, "Well, actually, while I can appreciate Hitler's passion for the arts, animal welfare and the health risks of smoking, you'll find that we, uh... disagree about the best way to deal with the Jewish question. Thank you, you're seen and heard, even you Jews out there. Vote for me, 'cause the other guy's Hitler, and I'm not entirely Hitler."

    The entire Democrat effort (or lack thereof) was a massive unforced error on their part. Instead, they keep sidelining any candidate who seems to actually excite people and inspire them with hope for the sort of systemic change they want, unless they find they can eventually drag them into their usual shenanigans.

    Personally, I think they'd also do best to drop their tokenism with candidates that trot out the same means-tested policy drivel. Rather than go harder on the adjectives next time and hope people show up to vote for, "The candidate who would be the country's first female, Chinese, Navajo, amputee, Leprauchan president in history," have policies that don't include the means-testing and would broadly lift up the working class and poor voters, while also addressing historic inequalities for the many groups that have been disadvantaged and/or excluded from US society for its history. You can tick all the diversity boxes you want with the candidates, but it's patronizing to think people will blindly fall in line for such a candidate assuming they'll represent them, when we've seen that it's mere lip-service paid to very real issues impacting the lives of millions of Americans, which will be promptly forgotten upon taking office, if it lasts that long.

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