Objection

She did truly so much stuff wrong. The only reason I thought she had any chance at all was because Trump is such a shitty candidate that the bar was very low. She was a bad candidate who never would've won a normal primary, like 2020 showed, and she underperformed downballot candidates all over the place, including Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where democratic senators won or are winning, and which combined make up enough EVs to win (not to mention PA where the senate candidate outperformed Harris but lost by a hair, or NC which elected a democratic governor by a wide margin).

Losing Arab voters was probably enough to cost her the election, but even with them it's doubtful she would've won. There was a 14 point swing among Hispanic voters compared to last election, likely because of the Democrats pivoting right on immigration, and the economy was voters' biggest concern where Harris' messaging was very weak. Fundamentally, this whole strategy that they tried that you apparently like of dismissing everyone's concerns except the moderate republicans who were never going to vote democrat is completely self-defeating.

Very few people supported Trump because they thought he'd be better on Gaza. Some may have chosen to take a gamble on literally anyone because the Dems are so bad on it, but I doubt that represents a major bloc.

On the other hand, I think it does represent a major factor when it comes to the economy. People are dissatisfied with the status quo and Kamala ran on the status quo. Trump was able to present himself as an alternative, and he was the only other choice.

I honestly think she could have not just mobilized more democrats, but also peeled off more republicans by seperaring from Biden's economic policies and presenting a further left alternative. Not everyone who votes republican is ideologically committed.

That's still speculation, but whether it's more people voting Trump or fewer people voting Democrat is a moot point. If the Dems moving right led to the outcome that more people voted Trump, then it was still a losing strategy.

Christ. If Hilary Clinton is your idea of a progressive candidate and going on SNL is your idea of mobilizing the base, then you are just on a wavelength that is so far removed from mine that frankly I don't think there's any real possibility of a productive conversation.

this idea that who people vote for just comes down to who’s closer to them on the political compass

If that’s false - then how do people choose who to vote for? What else would be the measure that they use?

Seriously, come on. People have all sorts of reasons for chosing a candidate. This is so obvious that I shouldn't have to explain it.

At that point, why not just say, "Harris lost because Trump didn't drop out of the race and endorse her?" Completely useless analysis.

I agree with what MisterScruffy said. There were things that actually were within the democrats control that they could have done differently that would have allowed them to win. Blaming external factors outside of anyone's control that you have no solution for addressing is completely unproductive, and just an excuse.

Who gives a shit about your sympathy? What matters is what can be changed in the future to prevent this outcome from happening again.

You seem to think the thing that needs to change is voters at large. I have no idea what your plan is to make that happen other than condescending lectures and shaming people into obedience, which, good luck with that. The things I'm saying should be done differently would only require a handful of politicians to change. So the question is, is it easier to change how a couple politicians behave, or how all of society behaves?

So, if that's why the democrats lost, and there's nothing that can be done to address it without being Rupert Murdoch, then are the democrats just destined to lose forever?

Citation needed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidential_election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election

The final vote totals are not in yet, true, but I'm going off what information we have now.

No, nonsense doesn’t make sense. But this does make sense. The issue is - if I’m right and the whole country is moving rightward, then Dems can only survive by also moving to the right.

In other words, one interpretation is that Dems and Harris didn’t go far right enough.

I hope that’s wrong though, since it suggests lefties like myself are an endangered breed.

Well, the good news is that you are completely wrong.

Harris lost for two very simple reasons. First, because she attached herself to a status quo that many people were dissatisfied with. Second, because she attempted your shitty strategy of shifting right to win over republicans, when republicans are perfectly satisfied with the party they've got.

You're operating on lots of false assumptions, like this idea that who people vote for just comes down to who's closer to them on the political compass or something. Honestly, Harris could've run to the right of Trump on every issue and Trump supporters still wouldn't vote for her. That's just how reality is, and your ideology is out of line with it.

That’s fair - would be helpful then if you state what you do mean. Or in other words, what you think would be effective in “mobilizing and energizing the base.”

Running a progressive campaign with progressive policy. Not punching left. Not supporting genocide. Not bragging about Dick Cheney being on your side.

Even just calling Republicans weird was actually working but she couldn't even stick with that because she was too concerned with winning over the mythical moderate republican vote.

Hmm… I don’t recall this actually. Citation needed.

Really?

Sorry, you are saying that folks joined the GOP and voted for orange voldemort because … he was to the left of Dems?

Trump got 72 million votes in 2024, compared to 74 million votes in 2020, so I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that Dem voters moved to Trump. Trump just successfully turned out the same base of supporters that he had before, while Harris didn't. But even if your claim were true, it would still indicate that moving to the right is ineffective, because in that case it failed to stop them from leaving. It's just utter nonsense no matter how you try to look at it.

I disagree. She was on places like “Call Me Daddy” and SNL - the outreach was there.

I cannot possibly emphasize enough how much I do not mean "going on SNL" when I talk about mobilizing and energizing the base.

Well, it worked in 2020, but not in 2024. Meanwhile, Clinton did not purse this in 2016 - instead calling the worst of these folks “deplorables” - and still lost.

So that one comment outweighs the entire rest of the campaign where she moved to the right to try to appeal to moderate republicans?

Hey, you know what, Harris called republicans "weird." So I guess we can't count this either as an example of your ideology being proven decisively wrong for the upteenth time. And the next time that the democrats try this and it blows up in their face yet again, there will be some random comment that means you can exclude that data point too.

Then Hitler somehow convinced the center right President to grant him powers

Class interests are how. Hitler came to power by promising big business interests that he would crush labor unions and socialists and promote the interests of capitalists, which he largely did. The term "privatization" was first used to describe the Nazi economy. Many of these rich Nazi collaborators survived and thrived under the Nazis (so long as they weren't part of a minority), and also survived its fall. The company that manufactured Zyklon B, for example, eventually became part of the company now known as Bayer. The rich accepted fascism as a calculated risk because the country was in crisis and there was a risk of communists coming to power and redistributing their wealth.

Cool, so what's your plan for addressing bias in the media?