Harris Tried to Win Over Republicans. Democratic Support Collapsed Instead.
Harris Tried to Win Over Republicans. Democratic Support Collapsed Instead.
Kamala Harris did not pull Republicans from Trump, and the percentage of voters identifying as Democrat declined, according to exit polls.
Harris only received five percent of Republican votes — less than the six percent Joe Biden won in 2020 when he beat Trump, as well as the seven percent won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she lost to him. While Harris won independents and moderates, she did so by smaller margins than Biden did in 2020.
Meanwhile, Harris lost households earning under $100,000, while Democratic turnout collapsed. Votes are still being counted, but Harris is on pace to underperform Biden’s 2020 totals by millions of votes.
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In 2016, Democrats didn't vote for Hillary because she just didn't "do it" for them. We got Trump thanks to their adorable little protest vote.
2024 14 million registered Democrats didn't vote in this election because Harris just didn't "do it" for them. But since they HAD registered, they were prepared to vote.
I'm starting to detect a really stupid, petty pattern, here.
Dems said to the left. "We offer you nothing and you owe us everything".
Why are they surprised their entitled demand failed?
you owe them everything? You owe them a vote bro. It's not that deep.
If I owe them a vote, they owe me some policies.
yeah, and those polices weren't global tariffs, deleting the DOE, and fucking over most of the federal government.
That sounds like they were offering the status quo. I.e nothing as nothing would change.
I am dissatisfied with that deal.
Sorry dems, but you only get nothing for nothing.
I am dissatisfied with that deal.
and you prefer a second trump deal?
Like you can pretend like you aren't satisfied here, but you're being presented with a would you rather of, would you rather cut your arm a little bit, or stick a needle into your eye. And you sit there and go "yeah no i dont think i want any of these options" except you forgot to read the fine print where the second option is the default result.
I'm dissatisfied with either. One actively repels me but the other isn't appealing either.
Neither is th default here because neither is the incumbent, though Kamala is closer.
So if neither is asking for my vote or bringing anything i want, why would I show up?
Blame me if you like, but the truth is they failed because they were not appealing enough. And that's simply all there is to it.
Guess you didn't listen either, since you thought they offer you nothing
I'd wait to hear what they offer me that I'm concerned with that they couldn't have done already. They demonstrated they didn't want my vote.
Let me rephrase that a way you can understand.
If things were as dire as they wanted us to believe, why were they ignoring us and brining on Liz and dick Cheney?
Why did they ignore us whenever we asked for something? Because they believed they had our vote no matter what.
I don't want to sign off on another genocide.
Or, maybe it's the fault of the campaign for doing nothing to appeal to those people. Like, I wish that we could of voted to not have trump today. But we didn't and have shown historically that it won't happen. At that point it's on the campaign. Spent the whole time trying to become the new Republican party and it backfired. Fucking stupid DNC don't learn shit and still bitch at the end.
it's not the "new republican party" i dont know why people keep saying this, nobody seems to understand ANYTHING about politics and it's starting to annoy me lmao.
How would you describe the Democrats immigration policy as of this year? Because they voted yes literally on a Republican immigration bill. They continued to champion that "hard border" bill throughout the election. The concept of a hard border was a Republican one that the Dems took and now the Republicans have gone to ethnic cleansing.
"Don't know anything about politics when you dont even got a 4 year memory. Remember the border wall? Dems are pro border wall now. Israel committing a genocide? Dems are on isreals side, the Republicans are just even more blood thirsty.
Please. I don't know how to not be pedantic when I say this. Please go read up on the Democrats policy proposals from previous elections and compare to now. Check it against Republicans. Please I beg of you to read.
To top it all off, the Dems are a neo liberal org. A ideology that became popular in the US from Ronald fucking Regan. They are at their core an ideologically right wing org with a left wing base they hate and occasionally have to give concessions on.
No better example of this than the fact they literally championed how many Republicans they were getting endorsements from, campaigned with Liz Cheney, and talked about how lethal our fucking army is while decrying the evil college students for protesting a genocide.
Like. Idk what else to tell you. Idk what else I could show you. This is the reality you live in. The Dems concede to the left or they die to fascists. The left doesn't have its own party and yet it's the base of the Dems by virtue of no other option. That base has made it as clear as physically possible. Concede or die. That's politics baby.
How would you describe the Democrats immigration policy as of this year? Because they voted yes literally on a Republican immigration bill. They continued to champion that “hard border” bill throughout the election. The concept of a hard border was a Republican one that the Dems took and now the Republicans have gone to ethnic cleansing.
to be clear the "hard border bill" you're talking about isn't that hard. The two primary things it did were increase funding to the border patrol, ICE and the immigration judges. The primary issue at hand is twofold, massive influx of immigration to an unprecedented level. And the lack of infrastructure to handle it. When people come to america to claim asylum, they are by law, required to have an asylum trial. There are currently not enough judges to hold all of the trials that need to happen, thus people end up with multi year court dates, and stays in sanctuary cities. Some of these people will get through and become citizens, some of them wont, but for now, they're under temporary status citizenship.
If you consider "funding the courts so people can get citizenship" to be a hard border bill, i question what a relaxed border policy for you would be.
Now to be fully transparent here, it does also constitute shutting down the border if more than 5000 migrants pass through in one day. Doesn't require it, just allows for it to happen. There are arguments around this being unethical or even illegal immigration law. but a temporary shutdown likely beats the current mess we have right now (surrounding wait dates and what not)
If you're talking about HR2, than that's not a dem bill. Idk why we're talking about it.
Dems are pro border wall now.
some of them are, but this is probably due to republican and conservative propaganda, they understand nothing about the border either.
Dems are on isreals side
do you have any stats on this? I recall seeing that support for israel is mostly in the older population. And republican leaning, as far as popular sentiment goes, it seems the majority of people agree that israel is probably being too aggressive and that we should do something about it. Unless your minimum buy in here is genocide in which case this is an untenable conversation and i can't go any further.
Please go read up on the Democrats policy proposals from previous elections and compare to now.
i mean if we're talking about the obama admin, they did a shit ton of deportation and bombing of the middle east. Idk what that's worth to you. But it's one of the admins of all time so. Policy proposal is a moot point anyway, so i won't engage on those grounds.
A ideology that became popular in the US from Ronald fucking Regan. They are at their core an ideologically right wing org with a left wing base they hate and occasionally have to give concessions on.
i'm unsure what you mean by this, but it is my understanding that most of the US voting base in the dem party is moderate or generally liberal (soft left). And that a minority of it is left leaning (moderate left), or far left (hard left). Lemmy is a good example of the far left. And voter turnout seems to agree with this, considering that like 70 million people turned out to vote for kamala. If the majority of the population were as principled as people on lemmy i would expect maybe 50 million.
while decrying the evil college students
do you have an actual example of this? I know that trump has said that he would deport them, but i havent heard the harris campaign say anything of that nature yet.
The Dems concede to the left or they die to fascists.
i really don't think it needs to. Maybe i'm wrong, but everything i understand about politics and sociology leads me to believe otherwise.
it is in fact politics, i will give you that one. Now if only the voting population was more capable of doing literally anything smarter than being ok at guessing sometimes...
2024 14 million registered Democrats didn’t vote in this election because Harris just didn’t “do it” for them. But since they HAD registered, they were prepared to vote.
As an outsider, if the democratic candidate has to do anything to "appeal to you" for your vote, to prevent a fascist party from taking over, then democracy is obviously not for you. That's just being a fucking dumb moron. "You didn't ask nicely enough, so let's hand over the country to the Nazis"
This mentality is what the Dems keep applying and it doesn't work. Trying to shame people into voting isn't an effective message. You can argue that it should be, but what matters is how things actually are and how a party can act most effectively based on that. It's either adapt or keep railing against reality and lose.
they aren't "shaming" people. They're expecting them to do the bare minimum. That's pretty commendable i would say.
Alright, well "expecting them to do the bare minimum" isn't a winning strategy either. Expecting people to do things they've demonstrated they won't do doesn't make any sense.
well if you don't consider upholding the values of the people within the government structure worth voting for, than maybe democracy isn't the thing for you.
That's completely upside down. Democracy means the people within the government structure are supposed to uphold the values of the broader population. If you think the people in the government structure should be the ones to set the values, then maybe democracy isn't for you.
i mean sure, if you thought i was defining democracy, that's one of the ways you can define it.
I was just making the argument that you shouldn't give a fuck at all if you don't even care to uphold the values of such democracy, yourself.
Also if we're being semantically pedantic here, a democracy is technically just a form of collective enrollment in governance. The people collectively as a unit decide who best represents their values, and then they elect that person to a position they see fit for those values.
fun fact, we call people who are represented by politicians, constituents.
If you're a politician who doesn't appeal to your base then democracy is not for you. That's just how democracy works.
Ah yes, you must vote for the one party every time in order to save democracy. Democracy is the thing where you only vote for them Dems right?
Trump said he'd be dictator on day one and Harris didn't. It's like choosing a surgeon who said they would only rape your unconscious body for only the first ten minutes of the surgery over one who would just perform the operation as usual. The first surgeon my have just claimed to be joking but the statement in itself is disqualifying. In this case voting Dem was literally a vote for democracy while previous elections were cruelty vs the status quo and voting was harm reduction.
Oh I agree. But you can not call the mess of a two party system in the states a democracy anymore.
Democracy is "not for" a lot of people. They're lazy. They don't think it impacts their lives. They don't want to put in the mental effort to follow politics and make a good decision, so they just leave it to other people. You certainly know someone in your extended social circle who is just "not political".
But that doesn't change anything. The conservatives find a way to motivate their morons, they don't complain about non-voters and then just wish it were better. Some of your "not political" friends probably went out to vote for Obama.
Some of your “not political” friends probably went out to vote for Obama.
Certainly not, because luckily I don't live in soon-to-be Nazi-America. But like so many other Europeans, we will all have to suffer from the fallout :( Possibly with Russians marching through Ukraine right to our doorstep because our European Union can't get their shit together either.
Saying the other guy's bad and expecting that to be enough to get votes has failed a couple of times now. Those 14 million voters sent a message but I expect it to land on deaf ears.
Facists are not just "bad", they are actual mass-murderers. Handing your country over to fascists is how you become complicit to mass murder.
The median american voter can only recognize fascism if it's literally gangs of swastika wearing thugs going door to door rounding people up. 20%+ would actively be in favor of that if it's queers and democrats being rounded up.
:/ sigh
It worked for UK Labour at least. But crucially they were out of power and up against a party that was one of the biggest ongoing shitshows in democracy worldwide.
You keep blaming the voters for deciding the Democrats aren't representative of them.
Have you thought about blaming the Democrats for not being representative of the voters they want?
You can blame both, honestly. The US has always had the same political game as ever, people should be wise enough to understand how to play it. If you ever want to get to a more stable democracy that no longer has the stupid two party system that prevents any form of real representative democracy where you can actually have a selection of parties that represent you perfectly, the choice should be obvious.
At least with Harris they could try to work with her and convince them to change their views for the future as they ruled. Trump will call you a left wing lunatic and slam the door in your face. Zero influence and no chance for progress (and even regression) vs some influence and some chance to progress.
Half the country is white people who aren't going to have a meaningfully different life experience under Trump. Saying "they have to" do anything is vastly over estimating how much they care. They believe both sides are just as bad and if they're political at all they only trust the lowest politicians they can personally interact with.
You are expecting a level of political education and activation that just isn't there.
I'm not expecting anything, And I never said they had to do anything. Who would be expecting any kind of logical reasoning from US voters after this result. I said "If you want to" = "In order to get a desirable outcome, this is potentially the only way to do so.", not "Everyone must do this because I say so"
You don't have to use the imperative tone to set up an imperative. You clearly lay out two choices, forgetting there's always a third.
Stop trying to force your interpretation on my words, it's not what I said, period. I'm not limiting my scope to two choices. The US constitution does that for the matter of what party is in office. There are very obvious other choices, and most of them call for massive human suffering like civil war or political violence, which I'm not going to iterate on for obvious reasons. Nowhere do I deny the existence of those choices, I'm just presenting the obvious conclusion of trying to change the system in a peaceful manner.
Except you do.
Your suggestion has slightly less weight because Biden was elected with essentially the same platform.
Biden's win was NOT a confirmation of his campaign's correctness. That should have been an easy election but he barely won.
I didn't say it was. I'm just saying that the main difference between Bidens campaign vs Clinton and Harris is that his bits are on the outside.
Sexism. The point being made was sexism.
The Democratic party's policies have not severely changed between Clinton running and Harris running that would account for the lower voter turnout.
The courting of the less Trumpian Republicans and Harris not being an old white dude are the two biggest things that affected voter turnout.
The main difference is that Trump was president at the time. Before people didn't think it could be that bad, and four years after people had forgotten the chaos (2020 election was in the middle of COVID). It was a change election, and Harris was unwilling to try to be a change candidate because it would involve saying Biden did something wrong.
People point to sexism because it's an easy out. "The people are bad, so all we need to do is nominate a man" means it's a simple matter of internalizing their misogyny and then we win, when the throughline of three bad elections (Biden's was bad) is uninspiring politics about slow and steady government being all you need. In one instance we had an immediate example of what a government by an amateur outsider could do so a plea for normalcy produced some benefit, but it still didn't knock it out of the park when everything should have been in its favor.
Which is kind of a problem. The platform needs to reflect the current reality, not the reality 4 years ago.
Biden at least attempted to appear progressive. Harris went further right than him. Even to the point of saying she wouldn't raise taxes on the rich as high as Biden said he would
people keep saying this, but she got like 65 or 70 million votes?? Seems representative to me.
Not representative enough.
not as representative as trump either apparently.
The far left is definitely in no ways representative of the average democratic voter either.
gotta love the democratic voter base, utterly useless and bafflingly confusing.
I don't think it's just because they didn't like her, she had a lifetime of intense concentrated hate from the GOP political machine. She stepped down from Secretary of State amid health problems many assumed she would need to retire from, she had a slow leak politically modivated investigation aimed at her, and the lifelong republican head of the FBI decided to do a press conference announcing that they were reopening the investigation due to ''new evidence'' (an exact copy of an email account they already knew was only duplicates that would yield no evidence) which was all reaped from a sex scandal that ended three peoples careers. Further than that Russia had multiple proven spies embedded into the GOP, NRA, and more, and they were targeting Hillary as strongly as they could because destabilizing the US is their main lever to power in their backyard. The odds stacked against Clinton were immense, and the average US voter was still very likely to associate 'Clinton' with 'scandal' from Bill's presidency alone.