would someone like to explain to me why dem turnouts were SO FUCKING ASS this cycle?
Did you guys just like, forget to vote? What the fuck happened?
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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Its only been 24hrs and this post aged like milk.
Aged like fine wine my dude, ~14mill less dems showed up to vote
And the fault for that lies squarely with Democrat politicians.
The fault lies squarely with people who make assinine claims without any evidence, pretending they hold some deep wisdom when they really don't know shit.
You are the evidence to support my claim, Poopster, in case that wasn't obvious.
What's a politicians job during the campaign?
To convince people that they're worth electing.
If they could understand that you need to appeal to voters to win an election, they'd be very upset.
I love this, you made me smile on a very shit day, so thank you for that.
If I don't laugh, I cry. I have to make comedy out of a shit situation or I'll wonder how far I need to jump.
and it's the peoples job to vote for the best candidate...
Weird that donald trump WON the election, that's real curious.
When did voting become mandatory?
The only obligation to voting is your right to exercise it how you choose, full stop. It is not anyone's "job" to vote any specific way, this is the entitlement Democratic voters need to get over.
Yeah, Trump won because he convinced his base he was worth voting for. Harris couldn't convince her base that he was a threat and that she was worth voting for.
She did try to win over Republican voters instead of her own, though. 94% of them voted Republican anyway, just like they did in 2020.
But I'm sure you'll tell me that was the voter's fault too. 🙄
Edit: I brought up mandatory voting because it could be legislated that way, just as voting day could be made a federal holiday. And laws could be passed to mandate paid time off to allow essential workers to vote on voting day if absentee/early voting are unavailable. Or what if you were automatically registered to vote on your 18th birthday, none of this registering nonsense.
Damn, those are all great policy ideas that the Democrats could run on, or even implement, since they have been outwardly more supportive of people voting. Funny that they haven't done that in the last couple decades...
... It's almost like the Dems don't want that roughly 60% of people who don't vote to start voting. Wonder why that is...
When did voting become mandatory?
i didn't say it did.
Fact of the matter is, if you don't exercise your vote, and the result is worse, you exercised your vote badly. There is no difference between not voting, and having a bad outcome, and voting (for the wrong thing) and having a bad outcome. They are the same.
It is not anyone’s “job” to vote any specific way, this is the entitlement Democratic voters need to get over.
i don't disagree, and in fact, i agree, this is an entitlement that democrats need to get over, because if they did get over it, we would start fucking winning. The republicans are literally an abusive partner right now, and we're just sitting here like "well maybe if i close my eyes he won't hit me" and then being really fucking confused when it doesn't do anything.
As a party, we're literally cannibalizing ourselves over this issue. It's not that deep, just vote for the least bad candidate, and get over it, go do local political lobbying, go vote in primaries, go vote in local elections, whatever the fuck, nobody cares, just do something
She did try to win over Republican voters instead of her own, though. 94% of them voted Republican anyway, just like they did in 2020.
she didn't try to win over republican voters, she tried to win over moderate voters. I would say it worked to some degree. But obviously since we got like a 50% turnout, it's really hard to say if anything worked, and frankly, i think the democratic institution is failing right now. If we don't get up and do something about it in the next 4 years, the republicans are going to run uncontested.
it's funny that the image says moderate republicans, and while that's partially true, it's also pushing for support from the moderate left. Which is the vast majority of the party. She was also appealing to the moderate left (most of the dem party)
Damn, those are all great policy ideas that the Democrats could run on, or even implement, since they have been outwardly more supportive of people voting. Funny that they haven’t done that in the last couple decades…
maybe they should, but in defense of them, running on voting policy, in a federal election is pretty fucking silly. You can't really do much about it on a federal level.
It’s almost like the Dems don’t want that roughly 60% of people who don’t vote to start voting. Wonder why that is…
so they can lose repeatedly to the republican party? ok.
Fact of the matter is, if you don't exercise your vote, and the result is worse, you exercised your vote badly.
I disagree, it's their right to cast (or not cast) their vote how they choose. If someone chose not to vote for Harris because they didn't want even their small part in the Genocide, I don't blame the voter for having a conscience. I blame the Democrats for not giving them a different option, especially considering their opponent.
I don't understand why the voters have to always sacrifice their concerns and wants, but the party doesn't. All Harris had to do was not basically mirror Biden's policy on Israel, and she couldn't do it. That's a failure on the Democrats, not the voters.
It's not that deep, just vote for the least bad candidate, and get over it
This is what a lot of the voting base is tired of hearing. Through their inaction (whether it's justified or not), Democrats have made the majority of voters apathetic. I say this because the voters aren't often represented in the candidates forced on them (Hillary and Bernie, pushing Biden in 2020, trying to push Biden through for 2024 and hiding his declining mental health).
So every election season, almost nothing has improved for the average person, but we're inundated with requests for money from the same party that won't listen to its constituents. You can't just spend decades telling people "vote and get over it," and expect them to keep giving a fuck.
i think the democratic institution is failing right now
We definitely agree on this part.
She was also appealing to the moderate left (most of the dem party)
And how did that pan out for her? The Democrats keep trying this centrist-moderate policy, and they keep losing, and instead of trying to go left, they just go further right.
Like I said, 60% of eligible voters don't vote, and you can't win with just the majority of your base (since you call them most of the dem party, and I don't disagree), so why are you trying to win over moderates instead of rally new support? Why not give a voice to those who may not be voting because they don't feel represented? (Not saying everyone who doesn't vote does so because of this reason, just picked one at random).
maybe they should, but in defense of them, running on voting policy, in a federal election is pretty fucking silly. You can't really do much about it on a federal level.
I meant more why haven't they done this at any point during the last few decades? But even then, why not now? How is promising Americans another paid federal holiday a bad idea during a campaign?
Voting rights have been a major topic over the last few years, where were her policies on enshrining the right to vote and stop these voter purges we've been seeing?
And all of this is to say, it can just be lip service. Trump lies constantly, and he does it to hurt people, so why can't Democrats lie to try to help people? No, instead they just try to return to the status quo at the first opportunity they can, while convincing their voters that being centrist is the only way to be a progressive.
so they can lose repeatedly to the republican party? ok.
Cause they're two sides of the same coin, boss. They have the same donors, they go to the same bars and clubs and restaurants and country clubs together. And miraculously, every time Democrats get power, we hold the status quo, and then the Republicans shove us right, and the Dems hold until we're shifted right again.
The Dems never seem to make any meaningful attempt to move us forward, and if they do, it's handicapped because they have to compromise and work across the aisle.
Trump/Republicans weren't wrong when they said people's perception of reality is more important than actual reality. People keep saying as a country, quantifiably, we are doing better under Biden than we did under Trump.
But polls and articles leading up to the election showed Americans did not feel better off, they did not feel like the economy was working for them, etc.
And Democrats ignored it and kept trying to shove their figures and metrics down our throat, completely disregarding how people felt, and just expecting them to get over it.
it's absolutely not politicians, it's the people.
This is like being presented with "would you rather stick a nail in your arm, or in your eye" and then doing nothing, only to have the nail get stuck in your eye by a third party.
Do you think these people stayed home?
I know that they didn't vote
You know there was 14 million less people this time l than last. You don't know if they were Democrats. Literally low information, high opinion person. And we know what happens to them.
(Hell, you don't even know that 14 million didn't show because we don't have the final vote total.)
Trump also has less votes than last time and almost all votes are tallied at this point, there isn't millions left. Voters in general didn't show up as much for this election.
Exactly. Trump got less votes than he did last election (which he lost).
What definitely didn't happen is people changed their mind. That's impossible!
And thus, instead of fighting the actual enemy, the republicans, you're antagonising the people who are more reasonable. Next time you can do it like France and call leftist crazy extremists so you'll seem less hypocritical about it.
Been saying this the whole time. Libs were shaming and harassing undecided voters for weeks instead of acknowledging that the dems were running a god awful campaign and pivoting towards nazi policies.
What are you talking about?!?! The Dems ran a flawless campaign, it's all the voters who are wrong!!! Don't know they know what the Dems tell them is right is right?!? Don't you know you're fucking stupid if you have any qualms about not voting for Harris?!?
- 90% of Lemmy users right now trying to find any reason to blame anyone but the DNC for their hubris and entitlement
please explain to me in what world, not voting for dems who are "tending towards nazi ideology" compared to someone who openly espouses nazi ideology is somehow the better choice.
I fail to see how, maybe i'm too intelligent and smart, but to me it seems like a really fucking simple choice.
I'm not commenting on the ethics of voting for Harris. I'm commenting on the hordes of people on lemmy and other social networks who were actively insulting anyone who expressed uncertainty in voting for Kamala. Actively insulting people who want to be on your side but are finding it difficult to support someone who is part of an administration that is actively funding a genocide.
Those people, in my opinion, pushed voters away by completely ignoring their concerns and telling them they are fucking stupid if they don't vote democrat. It's a brain dead strategy and mirrors the democrats campaign strategy, which categorically failed.
When you run to the right, and the people who like right-wing policies already have a party giving them the policies they want, they're not gonna switch parties, and you're just going to alienate the parts of your base/coalition that are affected by those policies.
Campaigning primarily on being the lesser evil and maintaining status quo failed, you can tell people 1 choice is slightly better all you want but on election day we found out that you can't win that way. If the dem politicians actually want to win they'll try a different strategy next time
Which policies are nazi-like?
The trump 2020 border agenda that the dems adopted as their own campaign promise this time around
Also, "most lethal military in the world".
You Americans are really weird in that regard. As a foreigner, both your parties are fucking horrible. To demonstrate what I mean: one party wants to ban abortions, the other party says that unless you vote for them, the bad guys will take away your abortions and then they proceed to do absolutely nothing about it.
So yeah, one of your parties is almost cartoonishly evil, the other is plain old adult-level evil.
It's not that democrats are any better than republicans, they're just smarter about pretending they're not evil.
This is not only incredibly reductionist, it's just flatout wrong. How can people still tout this "both parties are the same" bullshit?
It's gonna get real hard to keep it up in a few months when we start to see the real world implications of a second Trump regime.
Some of us are actually not Democrats or Republicans because we really think both sides are bad in different ways. I still voted though.
It's still worth it to register for one of the major parties to vote in their primary and push them towards your actual politics. For example, I wouldn't consider myself "a Democrat", but I am registered to the party and I vote as progressive as I can in primaries.
In a lot of places, you pretty much have to register for a party to have any say in the local elections. Where I live if there is a primary for an office it is guaranteed whoever wins the Republican primary is going to win the office, so if you want to have a vote in that election you have to register Republican.
I think everyone should get a vote in every primary. If there is a Republican and Democratic primary then you should get to cast a vote for a Republican candidate and a Democrat candidate. I think this would result in a better selection of nominees for offices.
From what I've read, the two times Trump won, many Democrats felt that they were denied this choice, which left them disillusioned, and they didn't vote. I don't think that's the main reason for Trump's victory, but what you touched on was definitely a factor in the Democrats' loss.
I wonder how many times we need this to happen for people to learn that letting others make your choices for you will often lead to your worst possible option.
Not all states work the same. In Ohio I can just show up and tell them which one I want to vote in each time. I always vote in the Democrat or Republican primary, I get a voice without committing to one or the other.
But then you don't get to brag about your enlightened centrism.
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I think both Dems and Republicans suck in very different and not proportionate ways, but I am also a very big proponent of voting. Go vote! It's your duty.
I find that the thing people need to remember is that the general election is purely damage control time. For actual change, and getting candidates that don't suck, the work needs to already be done by the time the election rolls around.
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I find OP's post functionally defeatest. It hinges on this theory that there really is only one choice every election season. You must vote Democrat - whether it's Sherrod Brown or Eric Adams - and you can never question how these officials behave during an election season.
The Dems don't have any real duty towards their voters, or even an obligation to do a particularly good job of governing. They can just point at Republicans, say "Worse! Vote for us or that's who you get", then blast people with anxiety-inducing advertisement until folks panic.
The end result of this system is one in which Dems win by maximizing anxiety, rather than improving quality of life for anyone.
Which is why they lose. People literally tune them out. Unless they're morons like myself who keep trying to help the Democrats.see their nonsense.
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If third parties wanted to actually do some good in the country, you'd see them running locally and encouraging either ranked-choice voting or STAR voting (Score, then automatic runoff).
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Yup, they know they’re outnumbered so they try every trick in the book to stop the Democrat bloc surplus from voting.
Making wild leaps of interpretation and assumption is the only way Democrats have any points.
brother, republicans thrive on making shit up
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