this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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I have problems with people who abstained. The hard thing is, how do you change voter behavior?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The genocide(and poor national level performance) was the last straw for many people who have been lifelong democrat voters. After 30+ years of seeing dems bring ferocity and strategy and boldness to primaries only to sit in office, renege and fail on many of those promises even in times when they have a supermajority. Then to see only a few dems actually screaming on the floors of congress. As well biden refusing to use the bully pulpit.

I don't believe any of them wanted this outcome. I do believe they felt their vote was only going to promote a regime that would continue the trend of genocide and protecting wall street over the needs of desparate citizens. Billions to kill and profit then pennies to the people.

I believe the fault lies entirely on the DNC and not the voters who saw no benefit in promoting the party over the other.

It's wrong, a dem in power is worlds better, but i understand seeing it as pointless in the moment. There is no good answer, only a less wrong one...

To answer the question, pass useful legislation and don't promote genocide. Legislation like universal healthcare, constitutional abortion(and other women's healthcare), raising minimum wage, universal pre-k, Union support, decriminalize drugs(esp. Weed), and to reverse inflation to name only just a tiny few..

TLDR: 30yrs of "lesser of two evils" kills voter motivation. Blame the party not the people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 55 minutes ago* (last edited 55 minutes ago)

This was NOT the time to do this. This election was about the end of fucking democracy in the face of fascism and these abstainers wanted to pull teenage shit and fucking ended the country as we know it.

Now Gaza is getting wiped out because these abstainers couldn't abstract what a p2025 theocracy was going to do?

People were screaming about this for months. THIS election was an existential fight right now at home, and they chose to pull idealist teenage shit.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (5 children)

"We offered nothing and lost to a liar who said they would get something if he came back into office. Why did we lose?"

"We said everything was going great when the public was facing hardships and being targeted by systemic and economic inequality, and the dude lied and said he'd solve it. Why did we lose?"

"The last guy was unpopular and didn't push back on Trump to get him jail. And then we said we'd do nothing different as Americans are facing homeless and their bodily autonomy being ripped away from them. How did we lose?"

"We courted Republicans who openly hate our voter base, alienated them by saying we don't need you, and Republicans are too brainwashed to vote for anyone but Republicans. Why did we lose?"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

"We let the campaign be run by the same people who already lost against Trump in 2016. Why did we lose?"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Clearly, the dems need to be lying more.

No, I'm serious, they need to actually start hitting back in kind if they want to preserve even a sliver of the country. This moral high road shit sounds great but boy, does not seem to work in practice.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I will never look down on someone who voted or refused to vote because of thier conscience. Obviously for this specific question, that excludes people claiming to care about gaza, but still voting for trump. There was no illusion that trump was going to do anything positive for gaza.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I will never look down on someone who voted or refused to vote because of thier conscience.

You should. They only bring about worse situations at best. Pretending to be moral when what you're doing is the opposite is pure hypocrisy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Remember, the most constructive thing you can do is get mad at other, equally powerless people like yourself! This is how political change happens.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

Remember! People aren't powerless! Voting is a power! Not voting is not how political change happens

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

that's a good point

I wonder what would happen if the Democrats tried to activate those chronic non-voters, rather than trying to flip those moderate republicans i keep being told are real

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

It really does baffle me that some people think a lack of an effort will bring about change.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 hours ago (8 children)

Democrats then: "We'll win without appealing to Arabs in Michigan or anyone who demands we stop funding Israel. Shut them out of the DNC and scold them at every turn. Who cares how they react or that they're forming PACs like 'Arabs for Trump.' We don't need their votes."

Democrats now: "We lost because you STUPID Palestine-lovers wouldn't vote for us. Your country needed your votes, Gaza needed your votes. It's actually your fault that we didn't bother appealing to you."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago

To the DNC and right wing Dems, its always someone else's fault why their candidate failed to appeal to the voters they are trying to represent. No accountability for their failure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

"We don't need you! We never needed you! Every one of you is a paid Russian actor! We will win with Chaney and Romney!"

"GOD PLEASE WE NEEDED YOU! WHY DIDN'T YOU TRUST US?! WE CHASED AFTER THE REPUBLICANS TO MAKE YOU LOVE US!"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The more I think about it, the more this sort of gaslighting reminds me of Eve Online shenanigans. Which is fair, after all, users like Jibrish moderate r/eve like they do r/conservative.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

White-men for Kamala :'D

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

i hate the big d Democratic party. i dont like their platform, i don't like their candidates. i voted for harris in2024. the time to make political statements and form a movement is now. do you know what you are supposed to do during election season? VOTE!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 hours ago

The democrats tried everything except for actually grappling with the subject. Now blaming the voters completely misses the point .. that the dems where supporting Israel and clearly stated they would continue the current path. Trump had the decency to lie to the constituents. And now they cope by convincing themselves it's part of his plan. The voters where duped.. but the Dems did this.. not the voters.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I wrote the comment below on a thread that got locked while I was writing. TL;DR: Any bonehead who thinks that every single voter is politically-engaged and fully-informed, and that 6 MILLION of them all made a rational, reasoned decision to sit out the election is dumber than they look.

Oh, well, 18 months, what a slog! /s

Look, I've spent close to 30 years now detailing that this fucking insane "lesser evil" slide-to-the-right thing that Democrats were doing was going to end in evil. (That is, fascism.) Either the Democrats themselves would become what we feared, or the greater evil would happen to win.

Guess what? I was fucking wrong. I admit it now. I didn't guess that BOTH would happen simultaneously. It was bad enough more than 20 years ago when my Senator was the only vote against the PATRIOT ACT. It got worse when Obama decided to abolish due process and the rule of law. But by 2024, Democrats were straight up aiding and abetting the biggest war crime of all. Jesus jumpin' Christ on a pogo stick, how did we get to a place where that is the lesser evil?

Y'all couldn't vote for Nader in 1996, because "he can't win." Well, guess what, bucko, we had to change course somehow. He, or a spiritual successor, had to win, or we'd get... well, look around. It was clear even back then. We had to at least try something different, other than the lesser evil every time.

As they say, the best time to change was then, and the second-best time is now. But, no, Kamala Harris couldn't change her mind on genocide to win. No, sir! We have standards of evil to maintain, you see. Meanwhile, the billionaires weren't going away. The wealth inequality wasn't shrinking. Late-stage capitalism wasn't on track to make the serfs' lives better. The climate crisis would still loom. Charismatic fools like Rogan et al. are still young. So the choice in 2024 was fascism now, or fascism later. 2032, most likely, when the partisan pendulum would predictably swing the other way. 2028, possibly.

Is it any wonder that many voters felt overwhelmed, hopeless, defeated, and declined to participate, through the fabulous power of denial? Politics is depressing, the system is big, my vote is inconsequential... Y'know, denial, that power that we've all honed through a lifetime of practice—knowing the horrors of industrial meat production and still ordering a burger, knowing the role of CO~2~ in the climate disaster while waiting in the car at the drive-thru window for it, knowing the causes of cardiovascular disease and still eating it?

Knowing that someday, eventually, we have to fix our political system now that radicals have found its cheat codes, but still browbeating those disengaged voters that they are the ones responsible for this calamity. Yeah. Denial.

The same denial as 30 years ago. This election has been a long time coming. A year and a half? Get outta here.

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