No no no

It's almost like it could have been easily predicted

If only people had been talking about exactly what happened for months leading up to the election, maybe it would have gone differently.......
Yep. As soon as I heard her stance on Israel, I got a sinking feeling. There was such hope and enthusiasm at first, but she just had to pander to AIPAC.
- She also muzzled Walz and started being super corporatist.
  
  I think the DNC and their consultants did that. I saw an interview with their consultants after the election, and they were all "We have no idea what went wrong", etc. etc. They all think that Trump is some wild anomaly, not that their strategy sucks. Anybody could've told you that people were tired of the status quo, so a status quo candidate would have trouble winning.
- The nuanced stance that Israel, an ally, was attacked and had a right to defend itself but that they shouldn’t cause a humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
  That she was committed to a two state solution?
  That she consistently called for ceasefires all of last year?
  Y’all got played if you think Harris was pandering to AIPAC.
  
  What good is calling for a ceasefire if there's no leverage? Netanyahu ignored Biden's calls for a ceasefire because he knew that Biden would just back down if he ignored it. Harris was the same. You can call for ceasefires until you're blue in the face, but if Netanyahu can just say "Naw", and nothing happens, then what good is it?
To be honest, my prediction was "parking lot", so the whole "riviera" concept was a surprising development.
The ethnic cleansing was obvious, tho.
- My prediction was glass but I guess they’re accomplishing their goals just fine without nukes
Not by explaining it, because that was tried on and againd to no avail.

Dawg, the democratic party failed to energize it's base by running a center right campaign with a platform of strong boarders, a strong military, and tax cuts. Them failing to get enough votes is there fault for trying to beat voters with the cudgel of trump while offering nothing to most working families. I voted for Kamala, and even I recognize this. I am really tired of seeing a comment like this every time there's a post about trump. The election is over. Rhetoric like this only divides the left further.

Imagine thinking democracy is only your duty if you feel energized by the candidate.
- Imagine being a Democracy and deliberately running an unpopular campaign so the financiers keep the money spigot on.
  
  Actually I'm starting to feel convinced the Democrats saw "The Producers" as inspiration.
  "You can make more money with a ~~flop~~loss than a ~~hit~~win!"
  As long as they keep losing elections, they can keep making money disappear (via laundering it). They sop up all the donations and laugh all the way to the bank, burning LITERAL BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on their cousin-in-law's "strategy consulting firm" and tons of completely ineffectual "vote blue" spam, and pay themselves six-figure "speaking fees".
  The solution isn't to just stop voting, though. Voting is merely the least inconvenient, easiest to access tool in the toolbox and the people who left it unused are morons no matter how much ELSE they are doing ABOVE AND BEYOND that. Voting is the bare minimum; you have to do that AND local party organizing, civics, community engagement, nominating candidates for local races.
  But if you don't vote TOO, it's like you neglected to wipe your ass. The stink follows you and embarrasses everyone with you.
  
  Completely irrelevant because
  This is what "forcing" the democrats to make a change looks like, all it will ever do is shift the overton window to the right and make things even worse.
  What really lost the democrats the election was years of gerrymandering, voter suppression and making it just difficult as fuck to vote in Dem areas.
- I don't think I have any obligation/duty to democracy, given how its going.
  
  "I didn't bother trying to save it, so now it's broken and failing, which justifies my past self not bothering to try and save it"
Rhetoric like this only divides the left further.
Liberals aren't left, and the democratic party served its purpose to a T. These people who continue to defend it are too. Both of their purpose is to shift the overton window all the way in to fascism, which they are doing successfully, and have no reason to stop (until the fascist come for them, at which point they will wonder why no one is interested in or even around to help them).
- Singling out and attempting to ostracize people who are objectively on your side because they're not as "left" as you is objectively dividing the left. I agree with most of the rest of what you say but that's just devouring the bait hook line and sinker.
- Yeah so blaming other leftists who didn't for liberals is really senseless and still divides the left
  
  But those doing the blaming (E: liberals) aren't on the left, and those who are on the left who wouldn't vote for a liberal have no reason to be divided by a lib licking a boot. Libs might be dividing themselves, those who now see through the bullshit will move further to the left, and those who buy in to it will continue moving along with them to the right.
  
  You're arguing to argue, even if you don't realize it. I didn't really say anything about liberals specifically other than they failed with their campaign. You're like, arguing against liberals with someone who said the liberals didn't run a good campaign... Do you like arguing or are you just really worked about about something that's like tangentially related to what I said and that I think you and me would even agree on, If that was what I was actually talking about. I never said liberals were the left you're just.... Being silly.

Did you ever try asking someone to explain the reasoning, or did you you just assume whatever strawman you came up with was real?
- Sure. If you make your vote conditional on supporting a certain policy, then you create an incentive for politicians to support that policy in the future. Politicians have no incentive to care about the concerns of people who support them unconditionally. That means it’s at least potentially the rational and strategic line to draw a red line somewhere, and if you agree with that, then it’s pretty obvious that genocide is crossing that line.
  Pretty simple. As the saying goes, why buy the cow (give the voters what they want) when you can get the milk (votes) for free?
  
  How did that work out for you?
  
  She didn't merely, "Refuse to explicitly oppose Israel." She and Biden were completely supportive of Israel, sending them more and more weapons (beyond what congress approved btw) no matter what they did and applying no pressure to them. They went after pro-Palestine protesters and refused to allow a Palestinian-American to speak at the convention. They made it extremely clear which side they were on, and thinking otherwise is just wishful thinking.
  
  Nothing? What on earth did I say that gave you the impression that I thought Trump was better? I didn't vote for Trump either. You're ignoring what I said and going back to the strawman.
  
  By not voting for Kamala, you voted for Trump. This is the broken system we must work within to attempt to better society.
  You're just in denial about your own complicity.
  
  Then by not voting for Trump, I voted for Kamala and you have nothing to complain about.
Vote Cornel West because he's an ok person who opposes genocide.
It doesn't matter at all because of where I live in this sham democracy.
Continue to be berated by delusional genocidal libs for the rest of my life.
- Politics doesn’t end on Election Day. Continue to pressure Kamala over the genocide

I see an awful lot of people post-justifying doing nothing as some form of radical resistance.

Well, sure, maybe it is resistance, and maybe they have a clear conscience... But it didn't do a fucking thing, did it?

I see it this way. They want to stop the atrocities in Gaza by any means possible. I can't blame them for that, but I can blame them for how they went about doing it.
Let's boil it down to playing a simple game. You can play by the rules, and play smart, and win. Or, if you don't like the game, you can play a different game and win that one.
By voting for someone other than Kamala (or not voting) they are inherently playing the game, and playing to lose.
If you want to play a different game, then you need to do some Luigi shit instead of sitting on your thumbs bitching about things.
So in the end, they played the game, and they played to lose, and now we're all fucked because of it, and I don't respect that decision at all.
Yeah, abstaining from voting accomplishes nothing. They should've voted for an anti-genocide candidate like Jill Stein or Cornel West.

If I were running for office, it would be easy to say no to genocide. Why wouldn't Harris do that?

Republicans would just spin the narrative by accusing her of being antisemetic (aka a Nazi).
- So people should support genocide so that genocidal people don't call them anti-semetic?
  That's a root of the problem. People were called anti-german for opposing the nazis.
  I'm not voting for somebody who's too scared or brainwashed to oppose genocide.
  
  Yeah, the problem is stupid people. Stupid people who are incapable of understanding nuance. Like you, for example, that can’t understand the nuances of navigating an unfortunate reality. You, who can’t comprehend voting for the lesser of two evils, and instead will allow a psychopathic fascist to take over because you can’t navigate nuance.
  
  You're deflecting because you're guilty that you voted for genocide. I'm proud of my vote. Are you?
  
  Yes. I tried to stave off fascism.
  The lady doth protest too much, methinks

I don't follow... Kamala would have just held the status quo, so just to have a change in direction the country decided to go to hell?
- It's not like Democratic administrations gave us the voting rights act, gay marriage, interracial marriage, and abortion. Medicare & Medicaid. Ended Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell. The ACA may not be very close to universal healthcare, but it is a huge improvement on what we had, and it decreased the uninsured population by 15-20M.
  There's a lot more to want from a progressive party, but they have, slowly, made things better. Sometimes, the wing nuts claw those improvements back, and "Ratchet Effect," "Both Sides," etc are great propaganda for cowing opposition to the wing nuts.
  
  Show me a third option. If there's beef and chicken on the menu, you can't get a Mercedes.
  All those people out in the street protesting for civil rights, fighting the Pinkertons, and refusing to work like inmates? they fucking voted. They got their people into office, and those people fixed the laws.
  
  They didn't get those things by voting, they got them by showing the powers that be that people united can do anything. The DNC exists to channel that energy into something harmless to the existsing power structures. The system is broken and everyone knows it but the most policy wonked liberals. Trump won because he at least understands that people are fed up with neoliberalism. At a certain point people would rather torch the prison than spend another day inside.
  
  decreased the uninsured population by 15-20M.
  That just means insurance companies are profiting. There's no guarantee that people are actually getting health care.
  All FQHC administrators reported uninsured patients were more likely to gain coverage from Medicaid than from private health insurance. Insured patients generally experienced an improvement in accessing healthcare services but depended on their plan’s covered services, FQHCs’ capacity to meet demand, and specialist providers’ willingness to accept their coverage type.
  
  So, I guess your argument is that ACA is bad because all it "really" did is enroll poor people in Medicaid? Or that the extent of their insurance coverage depended on the insurance they got?
  You're comparing your idealized plan with what got implemented, rather than what got implemented with what came before.
  
  Well, it will soon be repealed so the debate will be moot anyway...

They'll take no such responsibility. People are stupid and it's time to stop pretending. It's time to stop coddling stupid people, it only emboldens them.

Stop blaming the voters for kamala's bad decisions.

she threw her campaign when her campaign chose to abandon the very vocal block of anti-genocide voters who had enough votes to swing the election.

if your campaign can only succeed if several millions of people to change their minds suddenly, you ran a losing campaign from the beginning.

It’s the voters who voted for Trump. It’s that simple.
Although I didn’t have ”Trump ending the Israel Palestine conflict by making Palestine American” on my bingo card, it was always super obvious that Trump is way more pro Israel than Kamala. If you thought otherwise you didn’t pay attention at all.
- Yeah, but blaming then is obviously pointless. It makes sense to blame the ones that could have prevented this: the Democratic Party and the ones who didn't vote democrat.
  
  I think you can just blame the democratic party. People shouldn't be blamed for not voting for garbage genocidal candidates and their wacky condescending fanboys.
  
  you'll obviously be repeating this same garbage as America descends into absolute hell. a hell you could have stopped if you weren't a fool.
  this post really highlights a huge part of the problem which is the fact that voters generally don't take any responsibility for their terrible decisions. people love to blame others for their mistakes and boy do you fit the definition.
- Trump had the same number of votes this time as he did in 2020. He didn't win, the Democrats lost because they had nothing to offer people other than "we aren't Trump!". It was a losing strategy in 2016 when the economy was sort of functioning and it only worked when Trump was in power and the morgues were overflowing with dead bodies. Now that the economy is shit for anyone naking less than $200,000 a year, it was a loser again. All the Democrats than ran on "centrist" platforms lost while those offering actual changes like M4A, housing reform, and ending money in politics safely won reflection.
- If the election system requires tactical voting then it isn't a democracy.
  
  And despite all of that, you still focus the blame on the voters, instead of on the system which is working exactly as intended, including your part in it which you are actively playing while convinced you are really opposing it somehow (you're not).
  
  And not participating in it is improving it somehow?
  
  I still vote, but I gave up on the idea that we will be allowed to vote our way out of the descent into Fascism roughly 25 years ago.
  
  You dont improve democracy, you have it or you dont.
  
  You're thinking of rhythm. You have it or you don't. That's a fallacy.
  Democracy is constantly evolving and, hopefully, improving. No system or framework is perfect, and one that stays the same will eventually expose its flaws.
  I'm still hopeful that we'll end up better on the other side of this. Look at Germany now. Or at least a few years ago.
  
  In a given moment, yes you either have rhythm or you dont. In this given moment, we have not a democracy but something else. I guess you could say I dont know what it is for sure, but I do know its not a democracy.
  I suppose you could argue that people choosing to support an oligarchy is a form of democracy though, since it is majority opinion.
- It also requires you to campaign tactically. Kamala showed exactly what happens when you don't.
- All people in swing states
  At least you're realistic in your vote shaming. Major progress.
Actually, for that matter, I DO actually want to incorporate your point.
The problem is the proverbial horse died of thirst.
You're right in that it's not correct for me to simply leave it at "you can lead the horse to water but you can't make it drink", because the truth is SHE DIDN'T LEAD THE FUCKING HORSE TO WATER AT ALL IN THE FIRST PLACE!
She silently held up a sign that said "maybe water"
Trump held up a sign that said "no water for anyone except you" (which was patently a LIE, there was never any water at all with him) while also making beckoning noises and holding a sugar cube in his other hand.
The fact that the horse literally couldn't even read in the first place doesn't change the fact that she didn't do her fucking job and that he used empty populist rhetoric to lure the horse to a place where there definitely was NEVER going to be any water whatsoever.
We tried to nudge the horse to where there might have been water. But it's just a dumb fucking animal and wanted sugar cubes. Now it's dead (and it didn't even get the sugar cube it was being bribed with) and
...
yeah. We have better shit to do than keep beating this dead horse. It's too late for it to learn anything.
So, departing from that metaphor, in a very real sense I've been making preparations to help people survive and perhaps someday even evacuate. Complaining about the circumstances is not the ONLY thing I'm doing, not by a long shot. But I do complain. Because I'm stressed and need to release the metaphorical pressure.
If you know of any mutual aid groups starting up to construct an underground railroad now that the horse is dead and we have to rely on ourselves, I'd sure like to know.

You know what makes me so angry though? Looking at the way the Dems govern, even now in the face of this firehosed of shit, this was going to happen eventually. I've been thinking a lot about "who's worse, the Nazis, or people who opened the door for them?"

It does seem that this would have happened eventually unless the rot was repaired, which didn't seem likely. However being accellerationist about it seems so foolish. Why wish for bad outcomes to happen sooner? There is no guaranteed good that will come later on to make it somehow a better choice than living with the lesser evil now.

It didn't backfire at all. If we can demonstrate that the Democrats can't win if they support genocide, then maybe they won't support genocide next time. And if they cannot be persuaded to listen to reason, then they need to be replaced by another party and the sooner we start on that the better.

Y'all think this was unexpected because you never bothered to understand our positions or arguments. You just strawman us and then believe your own strawman. Trump being worse on Gaza was already acknowledged and considered, there is no surprise here and no regret, we made the correct choice and will do it again if we have to.

What next time?

genocide is about to happen.

lmao libs waking up after over a year... acting like they suddenly give a shit about an ongoing genocide.

This is why y'all keep losing. Literally offering nothing but vile condescension.

Laughing at people caring about genocide is a strange position to take. And not an especially moral one.