PROTIP: Dems being spineless, brainless cretins does NOT absolve anyone who said that sitting by and letting fascists take over the country was preferable! And yes, you CAN blame the voters for that!
The voters did not magically come to the ‘correct’ decision to sit this out by the spirit of democracy whispering in their ear; they did so because they believed that fascism won’t be ‘that bad’ to them, personally! And no amount of blaming Dems for being gutless corporate weasels can change that being an accomplice to deliberately driving fascists deeper into power is not a forgivable offense!
PROTIP: Dems being spineless, brainless cretins does NOT absolve anyone who said that sitting by and letting fascists take over the country was preferable! And yes, you CAN blame the voters for that!
I realize how old-man-ish this will sound (although in my defense I am literally becoming an old man) but there’s a widespread lack of personal accountability these days. Everything must always be someone else’s fault.
There is something wrong and I’m not sure it’s personal accountability. It may be my mental illness or just my antisocial behavior but I’ve never been able to ignore the broader issues with the world.
I’m not saying mental illness has distorted reality or something. I’m saying because I don’t function like everyone else everything seems inadequate for me.
I’m also not saying it’s good to be antisocial I’m saying I feel severe anxiety and dread after the simplest of human interaction and it exceedingly more difficult to manage as I get older. So there is no group think I am comfortable subscribing to because the group freaks me the fuck out.
What ever the cause I have this lense that seems to just be non-existent for most people. There could be a economic aspect to it but I do pretty well comparatively. The only difference between someone my age and myself is I might have less of a savings but my income is acceptable. I don’t have family support but I think generational wealth is few and far between. That could be wrong if you’re accounting for my demographic but it could also be skewed depending on where you live.
All this to say, some people are completely unconcerned with the condition of society. They are happy pretending everyone is like themselves where what is happening in government or around the world will never effect them personally. I do not share this view. Maybe it’s because I don’t have the dopamine to sustain the positive feelings that Bob Marleys “don’t worry, be happy” song represents but if we look at this election, they need my lense and their perspective can be thrown in the ocean.
This may or may not be relevant in your case, but one of the key goals of Russian propaganda is to create a widespread sense of apathy in the population: https://jordanrussiacenter.org/blog/propaganda-political-apathy-and-authoritarianism-in-russia
Fault is on everyone
-
Non-voters and trump voters
-
russian propagandists
-
“useful idiots” telling people to not vote harris for perceived evil
-
democratic leadership for not having a better platform
-
Kamala Harris, who just cant stop getting pulled towards cheneys like a magnet
-
Joe “I don’t wanna quit yet, even tho I’m old as fuck” Biden
-
republicans, who just want to destroy democracy
Everyone is at fault
Miserable, isn’t it?
People want one easy foe to blame, and to exonerate all other forces. Tribal mentality. Absurd from a supposedly educated modern population, but here we are.
Nearly everyone who had a serious hand in this election is guilty for this fucking debacle. Some by action, some by inaction; some by malice, some by incompetence, some by ignorance, some by sheer fucking stupidity.
What a fucking shitshow this all was. And will be for the foreseeable future.
The denial of some assholes on here go through is incredible. They won’t hold anyone accountable for their vote. Like who the fucks voting? The DNC isn’t voting. No group is voting vicariously for anyone. No one is mandating you vote. People vote. And many people let themselves be misled, and shirked all personal responsibility to understand who is leading the country and why and how. The half that voted for that orange asshole fucking deserve what’s coming to this country. I fucking hate it here.
“I am speaking”
As a Brit I’m not immersed in American politics day to day. My (unqualified) take from a million miles away went:
“Oh, Joe Biden got elected thank god”
“Oh, he’s promising to only serve one term, good that’s completely sensible”
“Joe’s running again? What? Could they not find anyone better? This isn’t going to go well at all…”
“(during that debate) Oh well, looks like Trump’s going to win…”
“Hey, Kamala looks like she would have won if this had been the plan from the beginning, not a sudden fumble when Biden’s brain melted beyond repair on live TV…”
Seems like - from my point of view- the main culprit was hubris on Biden’s part ever attempting a second term. And the inexplicable failure of the whole party to not force him out of that self destructive choice. Other candidates besides Kamala likely could have won, just seemed like any Dem candidate would be fatally undermined by starting a late campaign.
You’re not wrong. Biden never formally promised to serve one term, but heavily implied it. Many of us were disappointed when he announced he was running again, but conventional political wisdom that the incumbent has a massive advantage was still a compelling argument. For an incumbent to be forced out is nearly unheard of in presidential politics.
Even after the debate, I was willing to lend Biden the benefit of the doubt insofar as I considered him to be doing what HE believed to be the best chance of winning. When I learned that he had internal polling showing a total massacre long before the debate, my opinion soured from “Idiot, but I get it” to “Narcissistic moron who lost the country to fascism”.
Harris started with strong support she could have, potentially, won with, but in the process of ‘defining’ herself to the electorate, chose what she saw to be the ‘safest’ choices in a attempt to not lose that lead. Unfortunately, that lead was largely built on possibility, and in the process of defining herself, especially defining herself in the ‘safest’ possible way, obliterated the ability of all people to see her as all things, and cratered her chances of success. She would have probably had more success with at least a vague argument of change rather than “I can’t think of anything I’d do differently [than Biden]”, even if it created bad blood between her and the president. Whether that would have been enough to win, God only knows, but I think we can all look back and say, at this point, that the ‘safe’ choices were not, in any way, safe.
Tbh honest I was surprised Biden was even a consideration back in 2020, he was too old even then and it made the criticisms of Trump’s age and mental health not land so well. The moment it was a close call in 2020 the plan should have been ‘popular dem by any means necessary’. Not, double down on aging incumbent when they rarely do better on re-election. I can’t tell it if was hubris or a complete failure of the party apparatus to believe it could come up with someone more appealing than Trump…
That tracks. I was hopeful that Harris would put some more distance between Israel and us than Biden had (not a big or difficult ask, I thought). Her consistant distancing from any Palestinian-adjacent ideas really put the nail in that coffin.
She was either disappointing or unnoteworthy on most other fronts, but I voted for her anyway.
It seems like your take on the Harris campaign, boiled down, is basically that they tried to optimize for center too hard? And should have gone farther left? I hope I’m not putting words in your mouth, that’s how it reads to me.
I agree. Like you said it’s impossible to know how that would’ve turned out, but after seeing this last election, hard not to conclude that Dems need to start spitting some fire and getting spicy. This milquetoast party of reasonable takes really isn’t getting anything done.
Sure they’d lose some (many) moderates, and I bet they’ve polled and “determined” that they’d lose more votes than they’d gain, but polls can’t capture the momentum generated by a movement for change, the potential support is de facto unobservable under current conditions.
Regardless, even when Dems “win”, it seems little changes. Really wish they’d start swinging for the fences and see what sticks.
Edit to add - I agree with your post as well, don’t want to (yet again) hyper focus on Dems-the-party
It seems like your take on the Harris campaign, boiled down, is basically that they tried to optimize for center too hard? And should have gone farther left? I hope I’m not putting words in your mouth, that’s how it reads to me.
I would love if they had went further left, but ultimately it’s that they ran on a platform of ‘everything is okay’ when the mood of the country was not ‘okay’.
She would have probably had more success with at least a vague argument of change rather than “I can’t think of anything I’d do differently [than Biden]”, even if it created bad blood between her and the president.
Exactly! She should have thrown Biden under the bus! He’s done with politics, his polling no longer matters and fuck his feelings. She should have used it as an opporitunity to highlight all the shit people dislike about him and promise to do differently. She should have used trashing him as a springboard to promise to be better. Instead, she just promised to be Biden 2.0 when nobody even liked Biden to begin with.
This is great. Needs a dash of misogyny though.
