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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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True but it's a minor point. Even if every single lefty held the line it wouldn't have made a difference. The people who didn't vote were mostly disengaged normal people and the blame for that is squarely on the Democrats for sucking absolute shit on purpose because of big money in politics.
Have some perspective, pick better fights with worse people. I personally find it extremely unmoving when the left chastises people over politics so good job emulating one of their worst and least politically effective qualities.
Instead, I humbly suggest you try to inspire a shred of hope among the cynical and apathetic - but deep down actually very cool people of the Earth🌠
As I've repeatedly pointed out, this is demonstrably not true on the Gaza issue ALONE.
But who needs facts and data when you have vibes to defend and assert as truth?
I love the part where leftists peddling little Nazi enablement get asspats, but anyone criticizing them gets the fucking tone police weeping over their poor wittle hurt feelings.
There were two pro-palestine campaigns: The Uncommited movement and Abandon Harris. The Uncommited people ended up endorsing Kamala, while Abandon Harris endorsed Jill Stein - who only got 0.56 % of the vote. So not only would it make no fucking difference if every single Jill voter had gone for Kamala, but the rest of the movement ACTIVELY supported Harris. And this movement was not even the left - it included the left sure, but it was a broad coalition of various demographics - not JUST the left!
So show me the data - I am not going through your comment history looking for it.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza
You are telling me that these 19 million people are terminally online stalinists instead of opinion-having normal people?
Is there a secret bit in the article that proves that part? You said it was demonstrable facts and data and then did a backflip and folded your arms so I really hope you aren't making shit up right now
1/3 of 19 million is 6.33 million. And honestly, if you told me that there were 6.33 million terminally online Stalinists in America, a country of some 330 million people, I might look at you a bit askew, but it wouldn't be out of the question.
Your original accusation that it wasn't 'left' voters who abstained, but 'mostly disengaged normal people'. I don't know how many normal people you talk to, but I assure you, in the US, even the moderately political are generally tuned the fuck out on foreign affairs. For someone to abstain for the issue of Gaza, specifically, is not 'mostly disengaged' nor 'normal people'; by and large, they would have been in the top half of engaged voters, at the least - and considering overwhelming US opinions on Israel and Palestine, even by 2024 (which saw the first major shift in my lifetime on the issue), those who abstained would have overwhelmingly been strongly pro-Palestine types.
Left narratives absolutely influenced the broader discussion on the Palestine genocide, including the notion that "both sides" (of the American political spectrum) were entirely identical on the subject, allowing the GOP to go all-in to appeal to Zionists whilst simultaneously and effectively painting the Dems as antisemitic (to Zionists) and Israeli genocidaires (to anti-Zionists), as seen by GOP strategists running ads simultaneously pushing both negative views in swing states with large Jewish or Arabic populations.
Lets back up a bit.
You claimed that the Gaza issue 'alone' proved your point. So originally you were suggesting that not only those 6 mil were left fanatics, but the other 12 mil as well? *
My claim is that there are two groups: crazy abstaining leftoids and normal people who lean left. The Dems lost because they failed to effectively appeal to this second group. You might think that this group is stupid - I'm not arguing that, lots of groups have poor judgement and they are definitely not the worst, but it's still besides the point.
I think that group can be mobilized with a good campaign that appeals to those people. I think that's a big part of how Mamdani got unprecedentedly high turnout in New York. I don't think that everyone who voted for him was a mad lefty.
My point is not that they're 'fanatics', my point is that they chose to abstain from voting for the sake of some abstract notion of left purity despite this leading directly to the murder of MORE of the people they claimed to be standing up for, and in service to the genocidaires they claimed to be standing against. I mean, fuck's sake, the Israeli far-right was openly celebrating Trump's win, and openly pulling for him before that.
Enough of that 6 million were left-leaning and voted on purity politics concerns, as demonstrated by the top issue named being Gaza, not a traditionally right-wing or centrist issue, and one that polling backed up even at the time as overwhelmingly the concern of left-leaning voters, not centrist or right-leaning voters, that Harris, a centrist ghoul but the anti-fascist coalition candidate, lost by a paltry ~2 million votes, leading the literal Nazi candidate to win.
There was considerable cross-pollination of ideas between the fringe left in 2024 on the Gaza issue and the mainstream; I find it would be a very difficult argument, then, to make that the 'normal people who lean left' were not similarly 'enjoying' a cross-pollination of narratives of that variety, especially since the ultimate decision made was to abstain from voting despite one candidate being distinctively and significantly worse on the issue than the other. That fringe left groups openly pushed the idea that "both sides" were the same on the issue of Gaza in 2024, it would seem difficult to suggest that 'normal people who lean left' were immune to narrative suggestions by ideological allies, while mainstream sources and folk were uniquely suggestible.
What's more, where and why is the distinction made? If the reason for abstaining is predicated on the same insane ideas, that one worships Stalin and the other 'only' thinks that left-purity on an issue is worth genociding Gazans and Americans alike is a minor detail. My claim is not that the majority of those who abstained on the Gaza issue are Stalinists, but that they, based on insane ideas of purity and overwhelmingly on leftist grounds, not right-wing or centrist grounds (as neither right-wing nor centrists are particularly anti-Gazan genocide in appreciable numbers, nor are they ordinarily reliable Dem voters), cratered our last hope of averting all of... this. Regardless of what happens going forward, we very much did not avert goddamn anything, and we very easily could have.
The 'R/Stalinisgreat' reference is sardonic, not literal.
I think we're arguing about different things.
My point is not that these people cannot be reached under any circumstances. My point is that here, on Lemmy, people constantly talk about how abstaining is a perfectly acceptable and moral choices under grounds of left-purity. For that matter, the attitude is far from restricted to the Gaza situation; the Gaza genocide is just the purity politics issue which is most starkly leftist and the one most often praised on here, whereas the broader argument is that this whole purity politics bullshit is bad and contrary to the point of political participation for anyone with a hint of actual morality instead of masturbatory self-indulgence dressed up as civic interest.
As the meme points on, no amount of street cred or internal fuzzies justifies murdering people for no gain for anyone except the people you (generic you) claim to be enemies with. This was a bad decision; in fact, it was an outright immoral decision, and it should be recognized as such. That many people on here insist on lionizing this decision as some heroic blow against 'the Man' is not only morally repugnant, but actively encourages a repeat of this purity-politics behavior the next time the issue of "Please for the love of God unite against the literal goddamn Nazis" comes up, whether in an electoral context or an... uglier one. And in support of that, you can look at any number of historical revolutions which fell to infighting, even at the cost of their own literal lives; the successful revolutions succeed because unity politics, not purity politics, are the narrative successfully pushed in service to defeating the greater fucking evil.
By normalizing this purity-politics outlook wherein people are encouraged to sabotage anti-fascist coalition efforts based on nebulous ideas of strategic civic-duty decisions as a spiritualist, personal matter, we set up the scene for this exact kind of situation to happen again. To be quite honest with you, having my life potentially condemned by people who claim to be the allies of folk like me, on what is theoretically on behalf of folk they, likewise, have condemned in greater numbers, is a shit deal to go through even once. I would rather not go through it twice, assuming I get to live that long.
I'm not looking forward to RFK's camps for concentration. I'm not looking forward to having Medicaid stripped from me and ending up unmedicated and vomiting blood on the floor of my bathroom, again, this time probably until I exsanguinate. I'm not looking forward to hearing about Israel finishing up their long-desired genocide in both Gaza and the West Bank. I'm not looking forward to hearing the horror stories from Alligator Auschwitz. I'm not looking forward to hearing about whatever murderous fuckwit plans the administration has for trans folk. I'm not looking forward to the 6 million projected deaths from the pointlessly cruel abolition of US aid internationally. I'm not looking forward to hearing how many additional Ukrainians are going to die because the US is now simping for Russian genocide and imperialism. And I'm really fucking tired of hearing people talk about how letting all of this happen was Great, Actually, because it fulfilled some need to keep a pure soul for the Leftist Afterlife(tm).
If that is true, then it sounds like the Dems should start catering to the left, instead of telling them to sit down and shut up.
Additionally, that poll says "...a top reason...", not the only reason. Look at the other issues listed in the poll:
All things that the Democrats keep campaigning on, but doing practially nothing about.
Fucking lol.
Dude complaining about it isn't helping. You aren't entitled to anyone else's vote. They can vote how they want. I don't like it either but that's how democracy works.
Focus your energy on something you can control
I never said I was. Like Trump voters, however, using one's power to vote to enable literal fucking Nazis is worthy of fucking criticism.
All this is informing them how utterly and horribly ineffective protest-non-voting and 3rd party voting is.
Ok but it's too late he is already the president. Thanks for telling them I guess but I'm sick of hearing it. It's not helping I'll downvote this shit all day
.... And the next election, protest-non-voting and 3rd party could will be just as ineffective.
This has been going on for decades. This isn't just about 2024. It's also 2000 and Gore. 2016 and Hilary. Hell you could even include 2010, 2012, 2014 under Obama where he lost Congress. And 2018 when Biden lost Congress. And 1994, 1996, 1998 when Clinton lost Congress. Etc.
So no it's not too late because it seems we have to educate protest non voters and 3rd party voters pretty close to every single election.
There have also been people saying the same thing you are for decades and yet here we are. But surely your post will be the one that convinces everyone.
My problem really isn't the message you are trying to get across it's more so the arrogance that you are using to say it. It sounds pompous and condescending. Like you know better than those people. You're just some douche on the Internet like the rest of us lol.
Why would someone listen to anything you say if you insult their intelligence while saying it?
The education continues.
Lmao accusing me of arrogance. You are dripping with it Mr. "But surely your post will be the one that convinces everyone." Lol you are everything you accuse other people of being. AND (just gonna fill this part in) look at what it's gotten everyone. That's literally the whole point.
You are absolutely right. Few people ever claimed the Dems are in any way perfect, they aren't, but the constant stream of posts here that seem to have only one purpose, ensuring the fascists hold power, disgusts me to no end. "It's all the Dems fault! , because if they would only adhere to my left ideology which is -totally- popular in socialism hating America, they would have won" is not getting us out of this any time soon.
In November, the difference was clear. One party offered slow incremental improvements on many real issues. Letting society adapt to these changes as they go along. The other stood for the wanton destruction of everything as you see now.
Making sure people hate the other party, in this stupid two party system is making sure the dictatorship can go on as it pleases forever.