There was (and now IS) an existential threat to our country and democracy. Everyone with 2 brain cells was trying to stop it. The other main choice may not have been perfect, but it was definitely not as bad as we ultimately ended up with. Again, everyone with two brain cells to rub together recognized the threat and was trying to stop this.
And these people were standing in the goddamned way.
Standing in the way with no foresight, with no thinking of unintended consequences. Demanding perfection when “not a dumpster fire” and “total dumpster fire” were the only viable options. Just standing in the way, single-issuing us to fascism.
I 100% blame anyone who did not take this threat seriously, sat out, stood in the way, expected someone trying to appeal to the entire country to appeal specifically to them, or single-issue protest voted us to this point.
They may or may not have made a difference in the end, but the point is they were actively working against the only non-awful outcome which ultimately came to pass.
So don’t blame the least worst candidate, blame the two party system and the voters who refuse to live in or understand the reality of that. Until that’s fixed, third parties have always been and will remain spoiler candidates.
So, thanks protest voters / abstainers. You saved Palestine.
I’m rarely this direct, but in this case I’ll make an exception: Your mental model is completely wrong. If I may spell out its assumptions: Every voter is strongly engaged in the political process, and fully-informed. Each non-voter made a fully-conscious, considered decision to not vote as a protest.
I only need to go that far to make it obvious just how bonkers that mental model is. Only about 65% of eligible voters cast a vote in 2024, and that was high, fer cripessake! It’s easy to find tons of surveys and person-on-the-street interviews to find out just how not-fully-informed so many people are, and how many people vote (or not) on vibes. The “uncommitted” voters in the primary were indeed the people likely to be politically-engaged and informed, and in the end a lot of them did hold their noses and vote for Harris in the general election. The numbers don’t bear out that they materially affected the outcome, either way.
By contrast, in my mental model, Harris needed to motivate a lot more of the 35% of non-voters to show up at the polls by giving them a reason to make the effort. And her campaign did not, so those people engaged in exactly the sort of “not going to think about it” behavior that powers us through so much of daily life: It’s only one vote, it doesn’t matter. I have to work and get dinner and pick up the kids, and going to vote is a hassle. Other people will vote. It’s just politics, it doesn’t affect me. Nothing really changes either way.
That last rationale was the real problem with the genocide issue. Harris’s messaging was muddled, at best, and didn’t provide anybody a reason to make the effort to vote. A strong, vocal opposition to it would have provided more voters with a rallying point and energy to overcome the inertia and get out to the polls. (And, frustratingly, we found out after the election that the campaign knew that their messaging on Gaza was a losing issue at the time.) Of course, a more populist economic message could have provided that energy, or a promise to break from Biden policy, which wasn’t working for a lot of people.
I’m not saying that my model is perfect — all models are wrong, after all — but it provides a far more plausible explanation of the 2.5 million “missing” voters than the idea that they all refrained from voting as a protest over an issue that wasn’t even in the top 3 issues that they identified in surveys.
That’s how Republicans end up with trump and never holding him accountable.
Hong and others think politicians should work for voters.
That’s called democracy
It sounds like you have a fundamental disagreement with the party, and are insisting the only other option to trump, becomes trump.
I hope some day you realize how fucking bad your plan is. But if you didn’t after the last election, no amount of facts or critical thinking is ever going to change your opinions.
So how about you go back to voting in Republican primaries and try toodetate your own party instead of trying to “fix” ours?
If Biden/Kamala had listened to her and everyone else screaming his stance on Israel was going to hand trump the election…
trump wouldn’t be president right now.
Don’t blame the people who tried to talk Biden/Kamala into putting America over Israel.
Blame the people who cared more about Israel and them being able to commit genocide than they cared about trump being president.
Hell, Kamala could have just fucking lied and said she wouldn’t support the genocide, or tried to use ambiguous wording.
She just kept doubling my down that shed do anything to support Israel, which apparently included letting trump become president.
The other way of looking at it:
There was (and now IS) an existential threat to our country and democracy. Everyone with 2 brain cells was trying to stop it. The other main choice may not have been perfect, but it was definitely not as bad as we ultimately ended up with. Again, everyone with two brain cells to rub together recognized the threat and was trying to stop this.
And these people were standing in the goddamned way.
Standing in the way with no foresight, with no thinking of unintended consequences. Demanding perfection when “not a dumpster fire” and “total dumpster fire” were the only viable options. Just standing in the way, single-issuing us to fascism.
I 100% blame anyone who did not take this threat seriously, sat out, stood in the way, expected someone trying to appeal to the entire country to appeal specifically to them, or single-issue protest voted us to this point.
They may or may not have made a difference in the end, but the point is they were actively working against the only non-awful outcome which ultimately came to pass.
So don’t blame the least worst candidate, blame the two party system and the voters who refuse to live in or understand the reality of that. Until that’s fixed, third parties have always been and will remain spoiler candidates.
So, thanks protest voters / abstainers. You saved Palestine.
I’m rarely this direct, but in this case I’ll make an exception: Your mental model is completely wrong. If I may spell out its assumptions: Every voter is strongly engaged in the political process, and fully-informed. Each non-voter made a fully-conscious, considered decision to not vote as a protest.
I only need to go that far to make it obvious just how bonkers that mental model is. Only about 65% of eligible voters cast a vote in 2024, and that was high, fer cripessake! It’s easy to find tons of surveys and person-on-the-street interviews to find out just how not-fully-informed so many people are, and how many people vote (or not) on vibes. The “uncommitted” voters in the primary were indeed the people likely to be politically-engaged and informed, and in the end a lot of them did hold their noses and vote for Harris in the general election. The numbers don’t bear out that they materially affected the outcome, either way.
By contrast, in my mental model, Harris needed to motivate a lot more of the 35% of non-voters to show up at the polls by giving them a reason to make the effort. And her campaign did not, so those people engaged in exactly the sort of “not going to think about it” behavior that powers us through so much of daily life: It’s only one vote, it doesn’t matter. I have to work and get dinner and pick up the kids, and going to vote is a hassle. Other people will vote. It’s just politics, it doesn’t affect me. Nothing really changes either way.
That last rationale was the real problem with the genocide issue. Harris’s messaging was muddled, at best, and didn’t provide anybody a reason to make the effort to vote. A strong, vocal opposition to it would have provided more voters with a rallying point and energy to overcome the inertia and get out to the polls. (And, frustratingly, we found out after the election that the campaign knew that their messaging on Gaza was a losing issue at the time.) Of course, a more populist economic message could have provided that energy, or a promise to break from Biden policy, which wasn’t working for a lot of people.
I’m not saying that my model is perfect — all models are wrong, after all — but it provides a far more plausible explanation of the 2.5 million “missing” voters than the idea that they all refrained from voting as a protest over an issue that wasn’t even in the top 3 issues that they identified in surveys.
You think voters work for politicians…
That’s how Republicans end up with trump and never holding him accountable.
Hong and others think politicians should work for voters.
That’s called democracy
It sounds like you have a fundamental disagreement with the party, and are insisting the only other option to trump, becomes trump.
I hope some day you realize how fucking bad your plan is. But if you didn’t after the last election, no amount of facts or critical thinking is ever going to change your opinions.
So how about you go back to voting in Republican primaries and try toodetate your own party instead of trying to “fix” ours?