People didn't flip to red so much as blue voters in swing states sitting on their hands and abstaining from voting. Now they're looking down the barrel of authoritarianism and they're still unwilling to vote unless Gaza is a fully solved problem. The cruel irony is that this behavior is worsening the situation in Gaza.
Couldn't the Democrats change their positions so that they align with and accommodate popular positions and win elections. I don't think most of the (rather large block) of folks I know who abstained wanted a fully solved problem, they wanted the US to stop funding Israel and that is a position that the Democratic party could have taken if they had chosen to do so.
Black people have known for decades, you vote for the people that don't actively hate you.
Sitting out of the process does absolutely nothing, whether its a protest vote, pretending that politics don't affect you, or just giving up completely. The people who get elected in those situations always 100% ignore you.
When people are in office that are at least willing to listen, you then make a lot of noise and put on pressure. You might get ignored mostly, since you are a minority voting block, but you can make incremental gains and even sometimes big wins.
what do you do if both sides actively hate you? voting for the lesser of the two evils seems to just guarantee evil forever, and they have no reason to listen to you if they know you'll always vote for them.
You also do what black people have known since the civil war ended. You run for office. Hispanic Americans have learned this and their voices are now heard, Asian Americans also seem to finally understand this point. Gay Americans and other minorities are also running and winning. The answer is to never sit out.
Are you complaining in this post about the suffering of Gaza while downplaying the suffering of black people in the US and the work black people have done? Because you think its productive to pit the different groups against each other?
Honestly, I have listened to and sought out a lot of diverse voices because I'm genuinely curious.
I certainly found plenty of folks who were not only okay with the DNC's position but who were actively happy with Harris as the nominee.
Black people are, however, not a monolith. I'm quite aware of the differences between the many different sets of ideas (everything from hoteps to DNC-paid shills to people who genuinely liked the Harris platform to black anarchists/commiunists/ ex-panthers/ etc) and it's highly reductive to try to make the claims you're making here about "what black folks have learned".
As a person who genuinely believes actual leftist (communist and anarchist) politics are legitimate I found plenty of folks who abstained or tried to hold the DNS to change their policy.
But regardless of the "harm reduction strategies" or how legitimate you think having any semblance of political representation, the fact remains:
the democrats lost.
Unless you want to concede that "the party can only be failed, it cannot fail the people", the reality is that the party could have changed its policies and accommodated groups that abstained and perhaps won.
You can claim that the voters are just fools, but at the end of the day very few of us have any power at all over the DNC platform so it's simply bizarre to blame us for their horrible, provable failed choices.
Because you didn’t address the substance of their point:
What you’re arguing for is only single-round optimal, but multi-round suboptimal — much like defection in the Prisoners Dilemma is defeated by trust strategies the Iterated Prisoners Dilemma.
Until you show how it’s multi-round optimal, you haven’t addressed their critique.
But to answer the first, I’ve heard directly from party strategists that they look for people who vote, but not in a particular race. They can’t identify them directly, but a higher ballot submitted count than (eg) presidential vote count is a signal that they can gain voters in that area — which they follow up by surveying independents, etc to see what policy issues they’re concerned with.
The argument is that by not voting some rounds, you influence their platform in subsequent rounds. If you vote for them regardless, there’s no incentive to optimize their platform to address your concerns.
Doing what you're suggesting is exactly is what has got us here. Do you not see the pattern that the path we're on started very long ago?
What you're advocating benefits the greater evil ten times as much over a 20-year timespan. They're absolutely loving you. The more Bidens, the more Harrises, the more Clintons, the better for them.
You know why China is doing so well? Because they still remember how to think in the long term.
On the contrary, Democrats win when black voters turn out and lose when they don't. Because Republicans often hold such nakedly racist and repugnant views that voting for them is a complete non-starter, the only practical choice available to most black voters is not who to vote for, but whether to vote.
Black citizens make the most progress by strategies built around embarrassing the powers that be. Those powers generally capitulate (as much as they ever were going to) after a period of tantrum-throwing, which is where we are now. Such politicians hate having to vote against the donor class's wishes, but they'll do it to get reelected (or they'll be primaried by candidates who will). Or, they'll lose. Those are the choices, which Kamala Harris unfortunately learned the hard way.
One other thing black folk have known for decades: nobody you can put into the White House or the legislature will be able to stop half the country from thinking of you as a n!gger. You don't vote based on that because Carter and Clinton and especially Obama and Biden have shown us that election-based social progression is a pipedream.
This is what people don’t understand, because it isn’t their single issue.
If I beg you to reconsider on a very serious issue that is in your power to change stance on, and you not only ignore me but laugh in my face, then why exactly do you still get my vote? Why exactly should I reward you for completely ignoring my protests?
Make sure to swap Gaza for your single issue - maybe LGBT rights, or abortion, or gun rights - and then seriously think about how you would deal with it.
The Democratic party has basically decided to lean on “but they’re worse” as a political platform while backsliding on multiple issues. They do this because Democrat voters lap that shit up, chant “vote blue no matter who” like members of a cult, and then cry out in astonishment when the Democrats in Congress and in the gov keep sliding towards the right.
Also, an addendum: before blaming abstainers and third-party voters, it might be good to ponder on why Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency over making any concessions whatsoever on Palestine. At best, it was a grave miscalculation borne out of hubris. At worst, it was an act of self-sabotage to ensure unconditional support for Israel. Pick your poison :)
It's important to also point out that not enabling genocide is one of the most important issues single-issue voters can swing their vote around. That's because genocides both
1) threaten the international rules-based order, shattering the expectation of adherence to any number of human rights-centered protocols and representing crisis that can snowball into larger conflicts,
and 2) are often facilitated in part by police actions (civilian detainment, censorship, killings dressed up in lawful rules for the use of force, etc.), which threatens a general spillover of military action into the civilian/domestic status quo.
In other words, tolerance of genocide leads to a general shift towards war and despotism, even for people who aren't in the group targeted for genocide. Tolerance of evil builds the scaffolding for further subjugation.
You misunderstand. GOP breaks all rules and will literally do anything to win because their policy destroys peoples lives. They're the bad cops. Democrats have the slightly less destructive policies and they sort of occupy reality. They're the good cops. Both cops have the same boss.
> GOP breaks all rules and will literally do anything to win because their policy destroys peoples lives.
Not only that, the current president literally promised everything to everyone - just to win! People are too naive (or too innocent) not to notice the lies.
Tbf, that's Athenian democracy at work - politicians would promise the most audacious things just to get elected. One could argue that's even how democracy started in the first place - just so that one guy could rule Athens independently and not as a Spartan puppet.
Of course, we haven't adopted the other facet of Athenian democracy which is ostracization by voting.
It's assumed all cops are dirty. Good cops are few and far between as bad cops have incentive to get rid of them (so they don't snitch or do other 'good' things like police crime).
Couldn't far left progressives run their own candidates to win their own elections on issues without siphoning unreciprocated one-way support from the Democrat party? Given the toxic outcomes of supporting purity testers who give ultimatums similar to yours on political issues completely unrelated to the average voters life, theres likely no mainstream party that would align with a platform of virtue signallers that dont intend to create any meaningful policy, so to claim your position is popular is somewhat is a misnomer. Saving people is a popular concept, sure, but it's not easily perceptible to the rest of us that the group taking the strategy to ensure the most suffering for the Palestinians possible in our voting cycle is the one attempting that feat.
"Saving people" is an Orwellian turn of phrase for not supplying the bombs that are dropped on hospitals and refugee camps. Does the commuter "save" the child playing in the street by not willfully plowing her over in his SUV?
Not actively supporting a genocide isn't "virtue signalling". The Democrats will continue to lose until they face that reality. It's actually super gross to present the ethical will of voters like this.
Well, blaming the voter for abstention still conveniently sidesteps blame towards the Dem party for trying to platform Biden again.
And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?"
>Well, blaming the voter for abstention still conveniently sidesteps blame towards the Dem party for trying to platform Biden again.
Non-sequitur much?
>And now we have you yelling at other people in your party, sewing more division, alienating even more people from your coalition. "How is that working out for you now?"
My party? Which party are you talking about? Don't be shy.
Just pointing out second order consequences.
As for you, what exactly are you trying to say? It's not clear to me what you hope to contribute to the discussion other than satisfying your imagined superiority to other Americans. Or is just those with an excess of melanin?
The Democrats could simply not fund (and start) a genocide and easily win elections. Don't blame voters. I won't vote for anyone complicit with Israel, D or R. Ask yourself why it's so important to Democrats to support Israel, even when that means losing important elections. We've got big problems on our hands and it doesn't look like we'll be voting our way out of this, Israel has too much control over every aspect of our government.
Indeed. My gift to Democrats that continue to support Israel is to make sure Republicans win and destroy the country.
Genocide is cause for war and destruction of countries. And fortunately, Republicans made it convenient to destroy American society.
You see children being burnt alive by racist zealots with your tax dollars, and you CONTINUE to fund it? Yah that's a good way to end your society. The USA is no exception.
Too bad the vote led to the current situation where women pointlessly die because of restrictive abortion policy, LGBT people get even more persecuted in the USA with no hope for improvement, protesting the genocide in Palestine is now ground for deportation for non-citizen residents and seems like it would make one an enemy of the state, so you lost all chances of being able to do something. Plus the ideology being force-fed into other countries with American politicians supporting far-right parties in Europe and attempting to strong-arm them into far-right policies (https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2025/03/29/french-... ). I guess none of that ever mattered to abstentionists.
Well Europe was probably going to fell to the far-right anyway...
Is it the fault of the voters who couldn't stomach the genocide or the Democratic candidates who refused to budge on the issue? It's an argument that has been recapitulated millions of times now, so I'm not sure why we should repeat the exercise here.
It does make me despair to have the two parties that together govern our country both be so committed to something so heinous. Can one really be a proud citizen of such a nation?
We’re not citizens we’re subjects. Their dehumanization of Palestinians will eventually be applied to the poor and underprivileged “citizens” of the US.
If only the blue representatives would resolve this tension by pulling support for a now internationally-recognised genocide! :( I suppose that option is just too radical to put on the table.
You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight? I'm not sure why "less bad" on your pet issue isn't enough, especially when you're up against Trump, who has made posts suggesting resorts and golden statues of himself in Gaza.
What are the implications? Israel isn't going to align with Russia or China, so probably they'll have to stand on their own and rely more on their nuclear deterrent. It'd be easier if they weren't bombing every single neighbor they have though.
Actually I think thats exactly the plan. They will milk the US as long as they can and once they have gotten everything they can from that dead corpse, they will do what any other nation would do: Align themselves with whatever partner that can help them the most. They have a lot of talent and investment (thanks to the US) and can offer other future superpowers plenty in exchange for partnerships.
Yeah I was just curious what the commenter thought because to me it's not obvious what would happen, there's many possibilities, what you listed is certainly plausible but it doesn't seem inevitable, depends on so much.
Exactly. Israel isn't exactly the nicest country but they're a porcupine. You leave them alone, they leave you alone. You keep poking them, you get hammered.
And, yes, the settlers are not a good thing--but the problem exists because the government knows they are not the actual cause of the problem, Israel would gain nothing from curtailing them. And note that the violence is wildly misreported, much of it is defensive in nature (look at how often you see one person get shot who is facing the settlers when supposedly they were fleeing--awfully hard to shoot a fleeing person in the front) and plenty of it is purely fake.
> You've thought through the full foreign policy implications for pulling aid from Israel overnight?
I don’t think many people are thinking through now especially the one at the top of power chain, otherwise we’d not have witnessed child charades like invade Canada, Greenland, and Panama, as well as overnight gutting of USAID.
I doubt any foreign policy aid would get pulled from Israel. Israel doesn't need to be taking actions perceived as genocidal. If the US wasn't offering full and unconditional support they'd just have to go about their foreign policy aims in a more palatable way.
Isreal's approach to foreign policy doesn't do them any favours, I've lost count of the number of negotiators they've taken out this year. The US would be helping them by forcing them to conform a bit more to global norms, if they upset less people and try some more cooperative strategies we might see progress on peace in the region. The fact that the Democrats failed to find a frame like that to prevent what appears, superficially, to be a genocide really goes to the heart of what GoatInGrey was pointing at.
The Biden administration brokered and pressured Israel into a ceasefire that asymmetrically disfavored them. Israel exchanged 30 Hamas militants per Israeli hostage. The ceasefire outlined a permanent resolution to the conflict, including Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza. They also pressured Israel to keep aid channels open during the war, which is exceptionally obvious now given significantly longer blockades and that famine broke out under Trump. The 2006 withdrawal from Gaza and Oslo Accords were also brokered by America. Israel would not have agreed to any of this without any security reassurances in the form of military aid.
On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans. While it's possible there would be fewer civilian casualties, it's also possible there would be more if Israel switched to from precision strikes to ground invasions and dumb weapons.
Once again, that word "civilian". "Civilian" is defined by usage, not by original intent. And many of the apartment buildings that collapsed were because their foundations failed from the collapse of Hamas tunnels. Standard construction techniques are extremely vulnerable to damage from being undermined. Look at the pictures of the devastation--earlier on you could see the lines. Since then it has become far more blurred as Hamas tends to occupy or booby-trap just about everything.
And it's not a thin pretext--every hospital is a Hamas base. Remember all the rejection of the idea that Hamas HQ was in bunkers under the main hospital? Repeated denials that any such bunkers existed. Israel had a very simple response: we built the bunkers, we know they exist. If hospitals were acting as they should be they would be open territory--the IDF could simply walk in and look around. Yet every time it's been a big fight. And I remember a supposed "hospital" strike where they actually hit a tunnel--got the commander they were after and got secondaries. A bomb that simply explodes underground isn't going to cause secondaries, so clearly they hit a tunnel that supposedly did not exist.
> And it's not a thin pretext--every hospital is a Hamas base.
This is a claim made exclusively by an aggresor army that has no credibility whatsoever, given that we've seen them lie through their teeth about double tapping attacks and because they have explicitly stated that their purpose is to destroy Gaza no matter what.
Like this whole thing has gone for 70 years in Israel. We already know what comes of the same strategy that was followed for all that time. Doubling down on it now isn’t going to change anything.
It has gone on and the people occupying Gaza and the West Bank rejected several two state solutions. And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel. It was capped off by October 7. What solution can work except to let the one democratic society take over the entire region?
Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas[1] [2] [3] [4]. If you screw yourself, you shouldn't blame anyone else when you get fucked.
Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections.
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections (both in west bank and gaza) and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
Qatar started sending money to the Gaza Strip on a monthly basis in 2018. $15 million worth of cash-filled suitcases were transported into Gaza by the Qataris via Israeli territory. The payments commenced due to the 2017 decision by the Palestinian Authority (PA), an administration in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and rival to Hamas, to cut government employee salaries in Gaza. At the time, the PA objected to the funds, which Hamas said was intended for both medical and governmental salary payments.
Israel has always had the opportunity to cooperate with the Palestinian Authority. They chose to support Hamas, instead. Whether or not that's the right decision is up for debate, but the course of action was already set in stone.
election were in 2006. there were no elections after this. i am not sure how payments that started in 2018 influenced 2006 elections.
also, you probably weren't around back than, but there was international pressure on Israel to allow those money, because, quoting mainstream press, un, etc "hundreds of thousands of people will be hungry, there will be famine and collapse of all services in gaza that will lead to humanitarian disaster".
so, now, after Israel caved to international pressure to prevent humanitarian disaster in Gaza, Israel is blamed for propping up hamas.
Netanyahu literally propped up Hamas at the expense of other options, which you would know if you even just read the headline on the first source I linked. So you disagree with the Times of Israel? Care to elaborate on why you disagree other than just make assertions?
Obviously, but Hamas needed Israel's help to maintain power, which Israel was happy to do. This happened recently, like in the 2020s. In case there's a paywall preventing people from reading my sources, here you go:
> Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
> According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
you are moving goal posts. discussion was about gazans electing hamas while been well aware that it's charter calls for destruction of Israel and killing Jews
quoting you "Israel interfered in Gaza politics to ensure they had no option but Hamas".
A few corrections on this topic:
- there was/is no Gaza politics
- Elections were general elections in Palestinian Autonomy
- Both Israel and PA were against elections because they were afraid that Hamas will win but USA forced it because "democracy shall prevail and will resolve everything"
- Hamas won general elections in Palestinian Autonomy in 2006 and assembled government chaired by ismail haniyeh as PM
- USA trained Fatah to coup against legitimate Palestinian government
- Coup succeeded in west bank and failed in gaza in 2007
- During coup, Hamas killed, dragged behind bikes or threw from rooftops those that opposed it
- After coup, Hamas tortured into obedience or killed all opposition
and on topic of how hospitals in gaza used, from same article: " Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital."
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power
Are you sure you want to hold voters directly accountable for an election that happened over a decade ago? If yes, then it's a pretty slippery slope to be on, esp if the same standard were to be applied to US voters.
More than half of Israel's population wasn't even born when Israel was formed. Doesn't seem to matter, they are supposed to move back to Europe (though they were born in Israel of parents born in Israel of parents born in the middle east, not europe). They can't get away from the original sin of being born to people who were born by zionists. Those evil zio-settler babies.
The people "occupying" Gaza and the West Bank are the Israelis, and the Palestinians rightfully refuse any agreements which strip them of their rights under the guise of generosity. Stop with the ahistorical equivocation.
I wonder if that had anything at all to do with the Israeli right backing Hamas at the time, because they were being shamed internationally (haha) by the previously militant PLA/PLO being more and more willing to negotiate.
Netanyahu and his ilk didn't like the awkward questions of why the terrorists were negotiating but they weren't. So they started propping up Hamas.
> And when given the right to vote, they placed Hamas into power and began an Iran backed rocket crusade against Israel.
"They" started firing rockets, or Hamas? Hamas who is 30,000 of Gaza's 2.5M? Just when was that last election, again?
Nobody in Israel propped up Hamas to win elections.
Palestinian elections in 2006 were forced by USA (because democracy and stuff) despite objections from Israel and PA who were afraid that Hamas will win.
When Hamas won elections and assembled government, USA sponsored coup executed by PLO. Coup succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaza.
What are you talking about? The Camp David Accords and Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty were resounding successes. The Oslo Accords achieved mixed results but was still a major improvement. If there is a lesson to be learned, it is that requiring for Israel to unilaterally withdrawal was hopelessly naive.
Oslo was not an improvement. Palestine (the PLO/PA) gave up deterrence and renounced violence and the West Bank is now being annexed by far right Israelis. What did Israel give up in Oslo? Nothing
This is incorrect. In 1992, the PLO had little military presence and were exiled abroad. The West Bank was governed by Israel. The Oslo Accords allowed the PLO to return and govern their people, including the establishment and expansion of their security forces.
They had little "declared" presence. But obviously, as anyone can tell you, the Palestinian militant movements are very guerilla and very grassroots, and renouncing violence in order to govern and have "security forces" while their enemies did not promise any such thing is not an improvement.
The most obvious proof of this is the intifiada which followed Oslo
> On the other hand, there is no guarantee that completely cutting off ties with Israel, would make anything better for Gazans.
I agree with everything you said about Biden being practically better for Palestine, but this is nonsense. Israel would be a completely isolated state without US support. Even North Korea has China. The last completely isolated state in the world was South Africa whose apartheid ended as a result. It's not crazy to think Israelis might realize forcing people who have lived in the same country for generations to be stateless and voteless to preserve a "pure", "Jewish" state is not a worthwhile gamble if it costs them any connection to the outside world.
What do you mean by “pure Jewish state”? Israel has a 21% Arab population that is thriving and happy. In addition to 6% other non Jewish groups. So nearly 30% of the county isn’t Jewish.
Getting the Western world to agree to South Africa style sanctions towards Israel to their response to an attack is another level of unrealism over ending America's military and intelligence partnership. Even if that occurred, Israel is quite friendly with India that has only strengthened with October 7, and is capable of building a similar relationship with China.
Agreed, it along with claiming victory on that certain thing that started five years ago and didn't end yet, realllly annoyed the left. And now, matters are worse.
(It also made the statements about "radical left" candidates very ironic.)
And that was always known to have been a counter-productive protest. There's nothing ironic about this. They were told. They didn't care.
It was unambiguously clear that no matter how bad you felt Obama/Biden/Harris were on Israel, Trump was/would be worse.
If every single human life is worth saving (and it is), it's indisputable that Trump is worse for Gaza than Harris would have been.
It was the ultimate Trolley Problem, and a bunch of progressives acted like pulling the switch on move the trolley is NEVER acceptable regardless of how many lives it saves...
The Dems being willing to lose elections rather than meet voter expectations, says more about them than it does any particular voting or non voting group.
Have you considered that if they lose an election without that minority, then they still lose the election.
Like a political partys job is to get votes. An electorates job is to withhold votes to punish poor performance. The entity not doing their job here is the party.
The political party's job is to get votes. Which includes keeping the votes they already have. Giving things to one wing of the party can cost votes to the other wing.
The party is aware of the trade-offs. It goes ahead with its best estimation of what will win. Sometimes they can do everything right and still lose. One such scenario is when people would rather have the greater of two evils rather than be responsible for the lesser.
That was (potentially) a reasonable argument before the election, but the election happened and we know the results.
"We can't adopt [potentially winning strategy] because it might harm [definitely non-winning strategy]" is not a reasonable position. You don't have to adopt any specific alternative plan, but clinging to a non-working plan clearly isn't the right answer.
Sure and its possible thats what happened. But looking at their behaviour, its more like they thought they could use Trump to force everyone to fall in behind them regardless of policy.
The only way Democrats would have lost votes is if the "Vote Blue No Matter Who" folk weren't really prepared to vote blue, no matter who. Democrats didn't lose their base, they lost their left; theoretically, there's no leftist policy they could take on that would lose them their base, because it's their base.
The trolley problem is an oversimplification. What we have is actually a repeated trolley problem, where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests. The “less evil” party is in effect holding the people tied to the tracks hostage in your trolley problem. Because “less evil” is still evil, society decays no matter which way you flip the switch which leads to a population prone to fascism. The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
> where picking the least of two evils gives the “less evil” party a near infinite amount of leverage over you to demand your loyalty regardless of whether they give in to any of your requests.
The less evil party commands no loyalty at all, you vote for it only so long as there are no better options. If we're presupposing that there will never be any other option but the greater evil, then the lesser evil very much should be voted for consistently. Why can't the other side be the one that needs to reform to better appeal to the voters interests? What is to stop the lesser evil from becoming more evil, catering to voters who actually show up?
If people voted for a third party, that would be one thing. Sure the odds of winning the election are slim, but a third party candidate needs only 5% of the vote for the party to get federal campaign funds, to say nothing of the increased legitimacy in upcoming elections. It's happened in my lifetime, it can happen again. A strong showing by a third party forces the major parties to adjust to avoid splitting the vote. Jill Stein of the Green Party was openly opposed to Israel's actions in Gaza, they could have voted for her. And while there they could have voted for down ballot candidates so one party doesn't get control of all branches of government. But they didn't; third parties had their worst election since 2012. Of the 6 million democrat votes lost from 2020 to 2024, 400,000 were picked up by the green party. You can't simultaneously accept that the two party system is the be all end all and that you don't have an obligation to vote for the better of the two parties. It's understandable that people unenthusiastic with the current political situation just want to disengage, but don't act like it's a noble act of protest. Staying home isn't playing the long game, it's just throwing away your vote.
> The neoliberals are to blame more than anyone else for the situation we’re in today. They love to deflect but they are complicit in everything going wrong right now.
That they could have done better doesn't reduce at all the blame of those who specifically worked towards creating the current situation, and those who saw what was happening and chose to do nothing.
Biden literally started the genocide and Harris vowed to continue his policies, so no they are not "better". All they had to do is not support Israel and they would have won the election.
Yup. What's happening is horrible, but that doesn't mean there are better options. History has a very clear lesson: When Israel is harsh fewer Israelis die. When Israel is nice more Israelis die. The lesson has been repeated many times. Multiple times Israel has permitted the world to cram appeasement down it's throat, every time has made it worse for Israel.
Want peace over there, make peace not bring problems for Israel. But so long as Iran keeps fanning the fires of war I see no way to accomplish that.
wrong. There is a study that surveyed those that didn't. The conclusion was that if turnout had been better, Trump wins by an even larger margin. There definitely was a shift right.
Joe Biden invited Trump for a second term through his genocidal policy in Palestine and unwavering support for Israeli fascism. Trump's second term could have been avoided if Biden had been more moderate in several key topics, Palestine included.
Wait what happened? Was it that people who typically vote blue voted against those who supported Israel? As a Muslim and staunch supporter of Palestine, I didn't think that many people turned red because of this, at least not enough to swing the election. Wayne County, which has Dearborn Michigan (the city with the largest population proportionally of Muslims), stayed blue. I figured if Dearborn couldn't tip the scales any which way then the issue was probably not something worth campaigning on in terms of demographics
The bigger factor was people staying home because they refused any compromise on the issue. For races that swing depending on turnout, this was enough to tip those races red. Hard to say whether this impacted the Presidential election, but it probably did affect some House and Senate races.
Voting third party isn't the same as staying home. If a third party candidate gets just 5% of the vote, the party gets federal election funds in the next election. This isn't some pipe dream, third parties were crossing that threshold in the 90s. It encourages the major parties to alter their positions to avoid splitting the vote, and if they fail to do so then the third party can gain traction over the long run. Further, if you go to the polls for a third party, you are presumably also voting in down ballot races, where you have significantly more impact whether you vote third party or major party.
Staying home does nothing to combat the two party system, gives no direction to politicians as to which way they ought to move to get your vote in the future, and doesn't allow you to participate in local politics.
Yes agreed, that's why I voted instead of actually staying home. I wish other people would understand the nuance you just mentioned. I don't think either the democratic party nor the republican party actually care about anything more than keeping their seat at the table. They don't care about the working class, the disenfranchised, or the underprivileged, even if they claim to to get votes.
This is shocking to me tbh. Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster and that Stein or whoever had 0 chance of winning...
Yes, we did know Trump is a disaster. Perhaps Democrats should have met their voterbase somewhere in the middle to reduce the risk of losing to Trump? Of course, they didn’t, so to me the Harris campaign is to blame more than the third-party voters.
Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.
Democrats are constantly trying to please whatever portion of their voter base they think they need to win the election. In this case they were trying harder to court the maybe-Trumpers than the never-Trumpers because the never-Trumpers don't need as much convincing. Unfortunately, when these two groups become at odds over a single-issue vote, it fucks the Democrats no matter what they do. In the end, people who refused to vote for Harris over Palestine fucked everyone, especially Palestine.
And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.
I don’t see it as “letting Trump win”. I see it as “not supporting the Democrats because they don’t want my vote”. If you want to blame someone for Trump winning, blame the Democrats.
Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.
It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.
I explained how Democrats were going to alienate one part of their voter base no matter what they did. Do you have an alternate pathway for how the Democrats could have magically chosen both options at once?
And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.
Okay, so you have rationalized to yourself why there was “no alternative” by essentially saying that Democrats were absolutely helpless to do anything - an act of God was in their way, so to speak.
Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?
This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.
I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?
Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.
You're just ignoring reality in a couple of paragraphs. Condemning Israel or extending a fig leaf to Palestine alienates the moderates. Not doing it alienates the single-issue-on-Palenstine voters. I don't understand why I have to keep saying that, or why you haven't addressed this fundamental fact of their voting base. They had to tiptoe around everyone's big feelings because not electing a dictator wasn't important enough.
My main issues are actually vote reform, climate change, and single payer healthcare (voted for Bernie in the primary) so I'm no stranger to being ignored politically; my issues are not even remotely on offer.
And FWIW I would strongly support sanctions against Israel for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians, and support aid for Palestine. I just knew that wasn't on offer.
No, it’s more like: fuck the American gov for materially supporting a genocide [of Palestinians].
And that’s a bad analogy. AIPAC is literally buying out elected officials, while I am simply participating in democracy by choosing how to use my vote.
What happened was complex, multi-factoral, and impossible to cleanly draw pithy conclusions from. It’s like the drawing of the rabbit that turns into a duck when you look at it a different way except there are fifty animals instead of just two. Everyone wants you to think it’s just their preferred animal because it fits their agenda.
This makes me curious about how many other historical events have presented the animal that happened to fit the ruling class at the time. I'm not talking about history being written by the winners, but more nuanced things.
> that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red
This is nonsense outside Michigan. And to the extent this happened, I'd have to say pro-Palestinian voters in swing states casting with the guy who initiated the Muslim ban and recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital essentially communicated that they were fine throwing millions of people in the Middle East under the bus to satisfy their vanity.
There is such a thing as sitting-it-out. People didn’t necessarily vote for Trump. They just didn’t vote for Harris. And that is exactly what the voting record shows: votes for Democrats dropped significantly between 2020 and 2024.
Even Wayne County, Michigan, which has Dearborn, stayed blue.
Though I was honestly surprised at how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump. Harris may be pro-Israel, but Trump is anti-almost everything else we stand for.
> how much of my Muslim community was so anti-Harris that they voted for Trump
I'm honestly split between pro-Palestinian Arab-American Trump voters and soybean-farming Trump voters as the stupidest voting blocks of 2024. Not only are you helping put someone in power who is so obviously going to work against your interests. You've also removed yourself from the other party's table where your issue might have gained priority down the road.
Tbh we are all victims of America's shitty two party system and voting system, and just reflective of how much power political pundits and influencers have. I think ranked choice voting would make fewer people vote against their own self interests.
> ranked choice voting would make fewer people vote against their own self interests
Not for these groups. They wouldn’t rank something that benefits their interests because they’re not voting for anything; they’re voting against. That generally doesn’t work in democracies, which require engagement and compromise.
Maybe the thinking is that if you stop waiting for your turn and remove yourself from the table, someone will move your issue up the road to get you back to the table.
Ironically, that was one of the biggest campaign points and voter sentiment on which people flipped to Red. We all know what happened.