[alt text: a screenshot of a tweet by @delaney_nolan, which says, “Biden/Harris saw this polling and decided to keep unconditionally arming Israel”. Below the tweet is a screenshot from an article, which states: “In Pennsylvania, 34% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for the Democratic nominee if the nominee vowed to withold weapons to Israel, compared to 7% who said they would be less likely. The rest said it would make no difference. In Arizona, 35% said they’d be more likely, while 5% would be less likely. And in Georgia, 39% said they’d be more likely, also compared to 5% who would be less likely.”]
Nah. I’m blaming our American people for this shit. Isreal or not, it was absolutely stupid and embarrassing to let that senile dumbass back into the white house. I would have rather had a slice of buttered bread running the country than this embarrassment.
No, it can be more than one person’s fault. It’s Harris’s fault, and it’s also the fault of the people who decided fascism was an acceptable alternative to capitalist liberalism.
I mean, you could try to understand what led people to that POV, and then build a coalition with those people so we can win next time. Or, we could just sit here and point fingers at each other til the end of time while the GOP continues to court more and more voters to their corner.
I’m all for being angry about this. It’s the day after the election, I’ve been anxious all day. It sucks. But let’s point our ire at the correct people: the Republicans that voted for Trump, and the Harris Campaign that did a piss poor job of courting undecided voters.
so we can win next time
Assuming we get a next time. There’s a non-zero chance we never get anything beyond sham federal elections from now on. They own the supreme court, and the supreme court has shown it doesn’t give a fuck.
There is no next time. Don’t you understand? The people who hated Harris more than they hated fascism, voted in a dictatorship. The goal from here isn’t to win the next election, it’s to get our trans friends out and start a revolution. Trump’s reign will only be ended by violence. We aren’t getting centrists’ and moderates’ help with that. They are the enemy. They are the complicit citizens of a nation we are going to war with. Some of them will try to stop us, and we need to be prepared to kill them.
Source please? I’d like to share the poll stats with a friend
Sure thing. This the source for this report: https://www.imeupolicyproject.org/memos/joint-resolutions-of-disapproval-needed-to-block-record-weapons-sales-to-israel?rq=yougov
Here’s another one from around the same time: https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-arms-embargo-israel
Gentle reminder: changing her stance on the Gaza genocide was the “damned if you do” side of the trap that she didn’t go for.
Gentle idea: maybe think a few moves ahead. Even the conservatives were.
I’ll remember how this was all Kamala’s fault when Trump starts rounding people up. I’m sure it will bring me great comfort. I’m also sure it will bring great comfort to the people of Palesine because Trump DEFINITELY isn’t going to keep arming Israel, and we know he’s way more susceptible to public pressure than Harris would have been.
I’ll also accept cursing Trump voters, as it is obvious that they will never be allies.
So so so many people keep pointing at Trump and saying “But he’s the worst/we’re all doomed/holy shit you need to vote blue no matter who” and comments about “perfect being the enemy of the good” so we should hold our nose and support Democrats.
I feel like I’m the only person who remembers how hyperbolic we all were about Mitt Romney or John McCain being existential threats to democracy. South Park literally made fun of everybody at the time pointing at how running such a divisive campaign let them distract the public from their real goal of stealing the Hope Diamond (obviously). How many of us would BEG for Romney at the top of the Republican ticket at this point?
So sure, Trump is the threat now. When are we supposed to stop rewarding mediocre neoliberalism then? If it wasn’t 2016 or 2020 or 2024 then when? Trump will eventually die and some new Republican will take his place as the leader of the party. EVERY Republican will be the next existential threat and we’ll be scolded and told to hold our nose yet again and vote for the Democrat. If someone can tell me the “end date” where I don’t have to choose between the lesser of two evils, I’d love to know when that is.
I don’t blame other citizens for voting how they do. Everyone has to decide for themselves their red lines for support and in the privacy of the voting booth who they want to support. I do blame Democratic leadership for not learning a single lesson from 2016 about hand picking candidates and browbeating everyone into thinking that’s OK.
You’re exactly right, and this is my point. I’d bet damn near everyone commenting in this thread voted for Harris. It doesn’t matter, we aren’t the swing voters. And the swing voters are the ones that decided this election. There is nothing we can really do to convince swing voters, unless they are already our friends or family. It was Harris’s job to come out with bold policy proposals and messages that would convince those swing voters. Instead, she peddled the same milquetoast neolib shit that has been losing Dems elections since the 90s.
When are we supposed to stop rewarding mediocre neoliberalism then?
When neoliberalism is consistently beating fascism.
So until failed neoliberalism stops failing, we have to keep supporting it? Seems a little backwards. If mediocre neoliberalism was beating fascism, I’d be more okay with getting behind it.
Why keep supporting the losers and thinking they’ll miraculously turn into winners?
After Biden dropped out, I was cheerleading for Harris. I didn’t like her policies, but she had much better chances than Biden, and it seemed like she understood what pitfalls to avoid.
Didn’t matter. The DNC doesn’t understand what is needed to win. They’re still running a playbook from 1996. They think the undecideds are in between them and the GOP, when in actuality they’re to the Left.
Instead, the DNC has now absorbed a bunch of “never Trumper” repubs who clearly aren’t willing to vote for a woman, but will let a geriatric white guy eke out a win if you promise not to do the social justice.
I think the DNC being a “big tent” party has allowed it to accept a large number of very questionable supporters, who for instance won’t vote for women, and who think that Cop City and broken windows policing is totally fine akshually, and whose jaws don’t drop when someone says to “send social workers into the homes” of black parents…
Ultimately, we probably will never know exactly which demo(s) sat out, and everyone will end up just interpreting their own side as the right path forwards. Depressing stuff.
Neoliberalism doesn’t beat fascism though and that’s the point.
Fascism is capitalism’s immune system to eliminate dissent and critical ideas.
And then when everyone is united against the fascists who’ve rounded up the socialists, the students, the ethnic and sexual minorities, Neoliberalism steps back in, wipes the blood off of its hands, and says “wow, wasn’t that bad. Let’s stick with me from now on”.
OK, how do we know we’re “beating fascism” and can back off? What stops Democratic leadership from arguing that the most boring ass middle of the road fiscal conservative Republican on the planet is “Trump 2.0” and must be stopped?
I don’t disagree on what you said at all, but so much of this is a war of messaging and marketing. If an amorphous “leadership” just keeps arguing the Republicans are all fascists regardless of what their actions/deeds/etc…actually suggest, how then do we push back on that narrative without being called a Russian plant or Republican sympathizer? In an age of clickbait, outrage manufacturing and people isolating in their own news spheres, it’s super easy for those with power to just lie and stay in power.
It was obvious in 2012 and 2016 that we needed somebody further left than Obama and Clinton. It was obvious in 2020 that Bernie was the best choice of Democratic candidate. We weren’t rewarding neoliberalism then. But when Biden won the primary, we put our feelings aside and rewarded neoliberalism, and we bought our trans comrades 4 more years of life. Then, in 2024, we stopped rewarding neoliberalism.
If Kamala had won yesterday, then you and drag would currently be talking about AOC 2028. We would be able to stop rewarding neoliberalism. Drag would be posting clips of Harris saying that she’s overseen the greatest growth in oil production in history, and calling her a genocidal maniac. It would be clear.
But Trump won, and it’s equally clear what we have to do in this timeline.
It was obvious in 2012 and 2016 that we needed somebody further left than Obama and Clinton.
When Republicans win, the Overton window doesn’t slide to the left. It’s slides to the right. Expecting it to go even further left is a misunderstanding of politics.
Good thing Republicans didn’t control the white house in those years, then.
Trump wasn’t elected in 2016?
He was elected at the end of 2016. Drag is talking about the rest of that year, when America had just had 8 years of Obama. Bernie could have beat Trump in 2016, if we had pushed hard enough. The will to choose a progressive candidate finally came… In 2024 when it was useless. Some people just don’t adapt fast enough, even when the stakes are clear.
They made their decisions and you made yours. If you decided that we’d be better off with Trump, that’s on you. Own it.
Putting Trump in office makes Gaza worse. He’s promised us as much. Maybe you proved a point to the Democrats, and maybe you didn’t. Maybe now they’ll lean even harder to the center. Who knows. That’s a gamble you took, and you made steep sacrifices to make that gamble.
Gambling with someone’s life to make a political point does not make you their ally.
I’m sorry, did you personally count my ballot? Or are you just making assumptions about me?
I’m sure the trans people whose lives are now in danger will sleep much better tonight knowing that the blood of those Palestinian children who are going to continue dying because Donald Trump has promised not to even try for a ceasefire isn’t on your hands, because you didn’t vote for Kamala Harris.
I hope you’re fucking happy.
I’m sorry, did you personally check my ballot?
I blame the people who voted for trump, personally. I’d be happy to watch the leopards eat their faces, but unfortunately we’re all stuck with them.
Also a fair response. How the hell did a rapist and convicted felon win the popular vote?
People are stupid and value in group solidarity more than anything else.
The only way forward is to make them feel like a member of a better group, or violence.
Instead they opted to air opposing views in Michigan and Pennsylvania
Everyone here missing the point…
I want to build a broad-based coalition that marginalizes these fascists so we never again have to choose between a fascist and a genocide-enabler. But nah, let’s just stay in our echo chambers and tear each other to shreds while society crumbles outside.
Just want to clarify I was referring to the comments and not your post. I will be right there with you.
I know I got that! I was just adding to the sentiment. If anything, I’m getting the sense that more here agree with us than disagree, and I find that heartening.
Fuck that, I’m blaming every single person that didn’t vote for Harris
No number of additional blue votes in Massachusetts or Hawaii was ever going to matter.
You’re going to have a busy day.
I mean, if you’re referring to the people that voted for Trump, I’m right there with you. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that a rapist and convicted felon won the popular vote.
The majority of population aren’t the ones who voted for Trump. The majority of the population didn’t vote at all.
Yeah, they are just as guilty as the ones that voted for Trump (and the ones that voted third party) in my book
I’m blaming those who didn’t vote the most.
Having trouble seeing those who (non-)voted for ending democracy, women’s rights, and oppression of LGBTQ+ and non-christians as allies. Not enthusiastic about the candidate? I don’t care. If they’re going to do less harm, they’re the only ethical choice. The basic numbers showed that one of two candidates would win. Ignoring that and the suffering that would be caused to vulnerable groups by one candidate for ideological purity is a hard thing to forgive.
The people you want to blame aren’t here in a politics community. Maybe a few posters here did a protest vote, probably in a safe state where it didn’t matter, but most people here voted. The people who didn’t vote (in numbers meaningful to winning) weren’t sitting down to think about what the world would be like in each outcome and then saying “eh, it’s fine either way”, they were marginal voters who just didn’t really think it was important because politicians either don’t care about them or don’t follow through on promises. They’re just going to check out when you call them or the other politician names, because it’s a tiring endeavor that they don’t care about. You definitely have people in your life that say “they’re not political” and check out as soon as politics is brought up. You’re never going to reach those voters by expressing your disdain in a forum for politically engaged people, the only way to get to them is to actually motivate them to vote en masse with legit campaigns to inspire them that their lives will get better if they take this action.
Then get used to losing elections, I guess. You generally can’t change a person’s mind unless they already respect you.
And I can’t respect those that are willing to selfishly sacrifice others for their own sense of moral purity, rather than pragmatically save as many as possible. Actions and choices speak louder than any philosophical statement and allowing fascism, all-out genocide of the Palestinian and Ukrainian peoples, and oppression of women and LGBTQ+ to win speaks loudly of one’s character.
“Don’t blame your allies.”
Proceeds to blame his allies, picking out the one wedge issue which the opponents used to greatest effect to split the left in this election.
Nothing in particular that would help anyone pick up the pieces, or figure out what happens now or what to do.
Fair point. It’s the day after the election. Anger is a valid emotion. Today, I’m choosing to direct my anger at the Harris campaign for doing fuck-all to court undecided voters. Not the people in this thread; I suspect almost every American here went to the ballot box and voted for Harris/Walz, regardless of their opinions about Israel.
When I say “undecided voters”, I mean the single mothers in Pennsylvania that are so completely underwater because they have two jobs and everything is so expensive now and they probably have medical debt and other bills weighing them down. The people that don’t have time to watch every Harris interview and decide whether or not they are “coconut-pilled”. Those people saw what Harris was selling, and the message they received was “more of Biden, who did fuck all for me”. In the face of that, and when you have to move heaven and earth just to get the time to go vote, why would you bother?
I’ve spent enough of my arguing about politics energy for today, especially now that the horse has left the barn.
https://ponder.cat/comment/839212
https://ponder.cat/comment/837488
https://ponder.cat/comment/835981
That’s my response. There’s some good stuff in there. I do not require any kind of response on any of it.
Sorry but is there a source for this poll? I’m curious how this data was collected? (And am always skeptical of data cited in a toot without a source).
Edit: Just saw it was a YouGov survey from June with a small sample size. Interesting.
