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this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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As someone who is 100% in favor of harm reduction wherever possible, who voted for Harris despite hating practically everything about her and Biden, who agrees with you that Harris would have been better than Trump- I am sick to fucking death of hearing so called leftists blame other leftists for Trump. I don't believe for a second that Leftists stayed at home in any significant numbers, despite what a few loud and proud online people were saying. The post election data suggest that it was mostly white, male, moderates living in the middle of the country that stayed at home compared to the previous election. And yet EVERY, SINGLE, DAY there is someone online blaming leftists for Trump.
You know what I haven't seen even once? Anyone calling out the DNC for putting up such trash in the first place. The millions of neoliberals more interested in propping up capitalism than human rights. The millions of liberals who know that the DNC is trash but are unwilling to put any pressure on them. The racist sexist moderates who voted for Biden but not Harris because he has a penis and wasn't brown. ALL of those groups are FAR more responsible for Trump than the handful of Leftists who stayed at home.
And did anyone even bother to question if the "Leftists" online who were the loudest about not voting were genuine? It's not possible they were Russian bots?
We need to focus on building a coalition of EVERYONE on the left, even people who are "only vaguely leftist" and that isn't going to happen as long as this bullshit narrative continues to divide us.
No 'abstaining leftists', if they exist, don't owe you an apology, aren't likely to give one, and you would probably would stick to this narrative regardless.
TLDR: Leftists didn't elect Trump It's been 9 months, drop it.
As I've posted elsewhere in this comment thread (and can grab to post again if you like), there is data showing that former Biden nonvoters on the issue of Gaza alone, itself a very leftist and niche issue in the largely foreign-policy-apathetic US electorate, would have been enough to bring Harris to victory.
Funny enough, I initially, after the election, disbelieved this claim, and was largely disinterested in pursuing the matter. I regarded leftists, like you, as too small a group in the US to swing some two million votes. It was leftists on here crowing about how integral they were to KAMALACAUST'S defeat who showed me the poll which changed my mind.
... fucking what??
That's a constant topic on here.
That's sometimes brought up on here, but is typically shot down by leftists as 'lib' talk.
Bruh, that was also a constant topic on here, though one which always started a fight.
For my part, I doubt that many actual Russian or Russian-employed professional trolls were on here. If there's anything 2 years on Lemmy has taught me, it's that leftists are no smarter or more discerning than the conservatives I grew up with, or the centrist liberal neighbors I found when I moved away from my hometown.
Political allegiance makes people less vile, not less stupid, it would seem.
I would appreciate that yes I've tried looking through your other comments and cant find it.
I don't disagree that Americans are way too apathetic and ignorant of U.S. Foreign policy, but I don't think it's as niche of an issue as you think it is, nor its it regulated to the left. There are plenty of libs how are against Genocide and believe it or not a lot of 'conservatives' (not MAGAts) aren't happy about it either. There has been a lot of focus on the Genocide in Palestine, and lot of people are upset by it. College students and townsfolk are doing regular protests all over the world about this issue.
I'm not sure how many people refused to vote on that one issue, (yet, if you show me reliable data I'll have to accept it), but it suggest to me if the Media did it's job and more people knew about what was happening in Papua New Guinea, Colombia, and Darfur people would be against those atrocities as well. Especially in cases where the U.S. government supports those regimes with material aid.
According to F.D Signifiers post election breakdown, that's who the majority of abstainers were, and he's not a liberal by any stretch. Although he did make a follow up video which I am just now seeing which discusses the issue with some of the data your are talking about in mind.
There's probably some truth to that, after all we are simply human beings just like any other group, so our average intelligence is probably about the same. I would say that "Leftists" (on the whole, though there are obviously exceptions) are better informed than the average population. After all we had to fight against a 100+ year propaganda campaign to even uncover the truth about what Socialism, Anarchism, and Communism even means much less decide we agree with it. So no, we aren't smarter, but we are less ignorant.
I just think it's super important right now to stop pointing fingers and laying blame and try to figure out a path forward for all of us. Ideologically 'pure' or not, stupid or not. What I care about is human beings and our quality of life, that should be our focus.
I realize in your own way that is what your end goal is as well, I just think the way you are going about it is counterproductive.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza
I really think you're overestimating the concern of ordinary voters, and, especially, of conservatives.
College students were protesting the Gaza genocide long before 2023. It never made a dent in American public opinion. I'll have to express skepticism that it's a good gauge of voter sentiment, especially since, ironically, college-age students are less likely to vote than the general population.
Man, I was watching mainstream media report on Israelis blowing the fuck out of schools and hospitals in the 2010s, and no one gave a shit. In the run-up to WW2, simply aiding the Allies against the literal fucking Nazis was deeply controversial in the American electorate.
Foreign policy is not a high priority for most people until it effects them, not even for literal genocide.
Man, considering how many people on here I've seen abandon 'traditional' narratives that happen to be correct for literal Soviet-era disinformation, not really sure about that. Abandoning old lies doesn't mean much for the state of one's ignorance if you abandon old truths as well and adopt new lies.
Thank you, I appreciate you linking to your source. I just want to point out a couple of things about that poll you may not have considered or were unaware of, because the way those articles portray it, it's a little misleading.
That poll was a survey of 1078 voters. Of those 1078, 604 did not vote for Harris. Of those 604, only 175 people listed did not vote for Harris primarily because of her pro-genocide stance. While those numbers are significant, it's not exactly the smoking gun against Leftists that some people are making it out to be.
For one thing, that poll was limited to people who intentionally went to YouGov.com to take the poll. Which means it's a self selected sample. While that doesn't make the data useless, it does mean that it probably doesn't tell us a lot about people who aren't particularly politically active, which I would say describes people who didn't show up to vote.
Next is the fact that the poll doesn't break down the 175 people by how they identify politically. For all we know every single one of them would have described themselves as a Liberal or a Moderate.
This also moves the goalpost and changes the argument somewhat. I said that I found it hard to believe that a significant number of leftists stayed at home, this poll has nothing to do with people who stayed at home. It's talking specifically about people who voted, but voted for "Someone other than Harris". Those are two different groups of people. We also don't know if the 'someone' else was Trump or a 3rd party candidate.
Also, more people said the reason they didn't vote for Harris was "The Economy". There is no way a Leftist would prefer Trumps Mercantilist economic policy over Harris' Neoliberal economic policy. No chance.
While you might be able to convince me that a lot of people couldn't in good conscious vote for someone who vowed to continue perpetuating genocide, you will never convince me that anyone who is an actual leftist (as in someone who knows what that actually means and isn't' an agent provocateur) would vote for a fascist who also vowed to continue with the genocide instead. So without knowing who those 175 people voted for, there is no real way of even guessing if they were leftists or not.
My larger point overall is even if it were true that a significant number of Leftists stayed home or voted for a 3rd party candidate, you seem to be way more mad at those people than the DNC who WOULDN'T (not couldn't) nominate someone who wasn't pro genocide. Which if we are being real here should be the bare minimum we should expect out of a "Left" party.
Yes, harm reduction 100%. You and I and MOST leftists agree with that, but that doesn't mean that disenfranchised Neolibs believe in it. It doesn't mean apathetic moderates believe in it. I honestly think that if every single Leftist who couldn't or didn't' vote for whatever reason had shown up to vote for Harris- Trump still would have 'won'.
And that's assuming that TrElon didn't actually steal the election, which with their personalities coupled with some of the comments that they have made seems Highly unlikely to me.
So even if you did manage to successfully shame the non-voting leftists, and got them to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness for their non-actions, and vow to 'vote blue no matter who', or whatever it is you and people like you hope to accomplish by constantly promoting the narrative that it's actually Leftists who are responsible for Trump- all of the other issues remain and it will accomplish nothing but further dividing a community that it's already super hard to get to agree on much of anything other than Capitalism and Imperialism.
That's a valid point, but a whole different topic. It also doesn't necessarily imply those people are ignorant, just that they have come to different conclusions than we have. A lot of Tankies know full well what went down in Russia and China- and are cool with it. I disagree with most of what they say, but I am willing to temporarily ally with them in order to bring Hitler 2.0 down first, and then we can debate the merits of their arguments after.
Bruh, polling is a science. Those aren't just random numbers.
As I've pointed out elsewhere, foreign policy is not exactly a fucking moderate issue here in the States. This is an issue that is overwhelmingly cared about to begin with by people who are already left-leaning, not moderates or tuned-out half-assed liberals.
It literally discusses abstainers, man. Come tf on.
... but there's a chance of Leftists preferred Trump's total genocide policy to Harris's noncommittal suggestion of reduction of support?
It really sounds like you just want to hold onto your original conclusion despite the data going against it. Which returns to "Leftists are less vile than other political alignments on average, but otherwise indistinguishable", like liberals hanging onto the idea of Obama as a radical reformer or conservatives clinging to the idea of capitalism as self-regulating.
... buying into Holodomor denial isn't a fucking 'different conclusion', it's ignorance peddled in support of atrocities.
?? Ok? Who said anything about 'random numbers'?
So you said, and you also said it was based on a feeling you have not facts. Not exactly science bruh.
"Left Leaning" is exactly how I would describe "half-assed liberals", and regardless of whether or not you think I'm 'overestimating the concern' of centrists and non-MAGAt conservatives, the fact remains that there are a lot more people who are against Genocide than the handful of Leftists in the U.S. It's not like "We shouldn't murder and exterminate an entire race of people" is some wacky commie idea. I think you don't seem to be particularly be concerned about it, and are projecting that on others.
Again this is a poll of people WHO VOTED who voluntarily went to YouGov to take the poll. How the fuck would you expect that such a poll could say anything about 'abstainers'? Did they hold a seance and ask the ghost of Jimmy Carter? Whatever it was it couldn't have been science, bruh.
No? You are the only person here making any sort of a claim that Leftists preferred anything about Trump over Harris.
The data doesn't support your claim. The data suggests that the majority of people who voted for Biden in 2020 and didn't vote for Harris in 20204 were more concerned with 'the economy' than Palestine. The data doesn't say anything whatsoever about the political leanings of such people, it's all based on your feelings. It really sounds like you are jumping through hoops to hold onto your original conclusion. I was (and still am) willing to change my view based on evidence, this is not evidence. It's a single poll that doesn't support your conclusion.
Yes, the only group of people whose ideology is based off of equality and fair treatment for everyone is just as 'vile' as the ones who treat humans as slaves for the corporate grindstone and equates your value as a human to how much $ you can make for your corporate overlords or the group who literally see trans people as subhuman. Hot take there bruh.
If you really gave a fuck about Trans people, you would be doing whatever you could to support leftists and try to help them bring about equality instead of pretending every ideology is the same. It's people like you who love to criticize leftists who legitimately point out that Democrats and Republicans are both bad, without looking at the nuance that we never claimed both sides were equally bad. And you unironically parrot this ignorant tripe, while accusing leftists of being stupid and ignorant? What an amazing hypocrite you are!
How about instead of spending your energy trying to convince Leftists we are trash, you go hang out with the NeoLibs who you clearly have much more in common with and try to convince them that Capitalism and Imperialism is bad actually (assuming you actually believe that). That would do a hell of a lot more toward your goal of safety for marginalized communities than whatever the hell you hope to accomplish with this moronic tactic.
Sure, and I could point to Blaire White as an example of mainstream thought among transgender people- If I was a brain dead moron who was arguing in the worst possible faith I could muster.
Me:
Considering your unwillingness or inability to read the poll or parse my arguments, I feel this is a very appropriate note to end this ridiculous conversation on.
I read the poll. Did YOU read the poll? You are drawing a lot of conclusions based on the article and your own biases (and not the actual poll) that the data does not support.
I've pointed out exactly how it doesn't logically follow, and your response is to put your fingers in your ears and pretend none of that actually happened.
Saying Leftist are "LESS vile ON AVERAGE, but otherwise INDISTINGUISHABLE" is still saying they are vile. Using weasel words like "less" and "on average" doesn't erase that.
If you find Leftists vile and think you'd be better off suckling the teats of the neolibs- by all means go suck them.