Do you think the eligible voters who withheld their vote for Kamala Harris understand that they're part of the problem, yet?
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@Alice
> Do you think the eligible voters who withheld their vote for Kamala Harris understand that they're part of the problem, yet?
Do you think the people who put a geriatric in office with an unelectable VP and refused to hold a primary when it was obvious the geriatric wasn't up to a second election understand that they're part of the problem yet?
The people who refused the sandwhich with less shit in it are not the problem here. They could have had a much better choice, given a choice.
You know, I understand this point, but at the end of the day, the choice was between a fascist and a non-fascist and people chose to not vote against the fascist.
I never liked or wanted Kamala Harris. She's a right wing cop.
But she wouldn't have had people murdered in the street.
It's not a beauty contest. It's people's lives. Voting for harm reduction is self defense.
@troy_frizzell I agree with all of this. But if I was in the US I would have voted for the Greens, not Harris.
Besides the events of the last couple of years were not known in advance, especially to people who don't live and breath politics. So I don't think @Alice's victim-blaming is fair. People who voted *for* Orange Stalin deserve that kind of opprobrium, but non-voters don't, especially in the context of widespread voter suppression.
Yeah, the US Green Party is, sadly, not up to the level of Green parties in other nations. I had voted for them for years until 2016. The threat posed by Trump made me realize that anything was better than a fascist pedophile. If I recall, shortly after the election I saw a set of photos and accompanying news story about the candidate for the Greens here in the US hanging out with Putin. So... our GP has some issues, unfortunately.
@troy_frizzell
> anything was better than a fascist pedophile
By that logic you'd have voted for a Dem candidate who was a fascist but not a pedophile, or a pedophile who's not a fascist. FYI this is exactly the same logic by which many people jusrified voting for Orange Stalin.
> the candidate for the Greens here in the US hanging out with Putin
Citation please? Sounds like Clintonite FUD to me, of the 'pro-Palestine = antisemite' variety.
Well, you can search Jill Stein and Putin and there is a web full of stuff. It DOES sound like Clintonite FUD, you're not wrong. But there is a lot of it. My actual point is that the GP in the USA is not in the same position as most GPs internationally.
As far as voting for people who are fascist or pedophiles, one would hope that either would do to inspire a vote against.
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No, next question.
@Alice Denial is a thing, so no.
I live in a red state in the US. I always vote blue, no matter who and it never matters. I voted for Harris.
I didn't like Harris. She was comically, disgustingly anti-Palestine. She wouldn't even let her own constituents speak about it. And she was proud of it.
But I voted for her.
What most Americans don't seem to understand is that this slide into authoritarian Christofascist straight-up Nazi shit has been planned and orchestrated for more than 50 years. There's billions and billions of dollars invested in it; buying the news; getting us used to constant surveillance; sowing division; funding entire cabals of evil assholes with think-tanks devising intricate plans on how to overthrow the government so slowly it's already over by the time you notice; laws challenged, cases tried and retried, money lubricating the wheels of justice.
This was inevitable. The time to stop it was before I was even born. We just didn't believe it could happen here.
Harris winning might have bought us five to ten more years of "freedom". That's what I voted for.
@Alice ah, so it's okay to carpet bomb people for two years non-stop as long as they're not you. got it.
@Alice what was Kamala's platform? Please be specific in terms of commitments to key interests of the Dem voter base. We can start with the platform of "joy" and arresting student protestors. Okay your turn!
@Alice as someone who held their nose and voted for Kamala despite thinking she was a terrible candidate and would have made a terrible president, I put more blame on her, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party than I do on those who withheld their vote on principle. Having a policy of 'I don't actually care what you want, vote for us or else' is the political equivalent of walking around with TNT strapped to your chest and making demands, and I can't blame people for not caving in to terrorism.
@Alice
These Dems?
The ones who TWO DAYS AGO voted to FUND the ICE spending bill...?
Yeah.
Tell me again: Who's part of the problem?
☠️ 🇺🇸 ☠️
These Democrats voted for the DHS funding bill despite ICE furor
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5702347-house-democrats-homeland-security-funding/
@Alice Honestly. Do you fucking feel better?
@Alice my daughter didn’t vote, never has and she’s 23. She asked me why we aren’t moving to somewhere that’s not insane and I had to tell her it’s because she doesn’t deserve to and i love her too much to leave her. To be honest it was my job to teach her before now, I don’t deserve it either but the guilt might make her change.
@Alice Devotees of Ayn Rand (aka Anus Rand) will never believe themselves to be anything except superior people who are not part of any problem. They can do no wrong. That said, I think Jill Stein is alone a difference maker to why we are where we are. She was a big boon to fascism. But also the Electoral College and Elon Musk and ... there's tons of blame to go around.
@Alice This argument MIGHT have validity in the 7 'swing states', but not in the other 43 where the election results were clear far in advance of the election.
I hope that in the future, the Dems can present a candidate that will attract enough votes that their candidate can actually win. In my state, that went 16 point to the orange monster, a vote for Harris would have been an absolute waste of time. Voting for a more moral candidate was my best alternative.
@Alice emphatically no they do not.
Good for you.
Holding back your vote for Kamala Harris kept her out of Gaza.
And put Trump in office.
I hope it was worth it.
@Alice again, I'd like to reiterate both of these sources:
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voter-turnout-2020-2024/
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36LT4WK
Third party votes getting changed wouldn't have made Kamala win. Nonvoters favored Trump by a 4% margin.
So how is it any of their faults? How did a group favoring Trump *not* voting make him win? How did a total tally less than her margin of loss contribute to the other person's victory? I really don't see it.
@thesofafox I thought this was clear given my original post in this thread, but I am 100% referring to the anti-Trump eligible voters who still withheld their vote as an act of protest against voting for Kamala Harris.
@Alice Yeah. “Harris voters are complicit in Gaza.” Ok. Trump voters and abstainers are complicit in Gaza AND ALL OF THIS OTHER SHIT.
@Alice I used to post a picture of the Atlantis resort as a representation of what Trump & Kushner would do to Gaza. I thought it was a little over the top, but now it looks right on. Unfortunately.
@Alice no their propably victimise themselve, of lie that they voted.
Ya know like all german after WW2 that all said they never voted the guy.
Was a lie, like it is now.
@Alice But do we know how many of these so called withheld votes were actually suppressed? How many were purged from voter rolls? How many people showed up to vote and had to cast a provisional that wasn’t counted? How many mail in ballots weren’t counted?
@shsbxheb In my opinion, voter suppression/fraud is a separate issue.
But I personally know a LOT of people who withheld their vote out of principle because they couldn't see the very real future right around the corner. Those are the people I’m calling out.
And it's hard because I get where they were coming from. I really do. But the 2024 election was NOT the time to be trying to "prove a point" by withholding a vote for the only candidate that had a chance at beating Trump and keeping him out of office so we'd at least have a chance at avoiding what is now our reality.
@Alice @shsbxheb Same. I know several people who didn't vote, or voted 3rd party, to "send a message" to Dems. You'd think after the Nader debacle in 2000 or the Stein debacle in 2016, these voters would learn a lesson. You're not always going to fall in love with the top of the ticket. In a 2-party system, you vote for the best option and that was without a doubt Harris.
@Alice No. most of them are in the Orange States and so they’re all fucking FOR IT. Let’s stay in the Union with them.
@Alice Do you think the voters who voted for Biden to stop fascism feel like he did a good job? How many democrat presidents would it have taken?
@Alice I'm sorry she couldn't be bothered to oppose a genocide her own administration was arming, funding, and running cover for at the UN. If you can't get your head around why someone can't get behind a candidate who won't stop a genocide when they have all the power to do so, and why that refusal made it impossible to trust Harris on literally anything else, I got nothing for you.
@Alice if you are Kamala Harris, and you run a generationally bad campaign against an actual rapist pedo criminal, it is not the fault of the Muslim and Palestinian voters you threw under the bus that you lost your own election.
Doing left bashing and minority bashing a over a year later with everything going on is simply crazy
It's a good test as to whether you can trust someone's judgement or not.
@Alice THIS GARBAGE IS THE FUCKING PROBLEM YOU ARMCHAIR FAPPER
A person died and you're posting bullshit about how non-voters are the problem when the fascists who voted themselves in are killing people, you and libs like you need to fuck off
@Alice no, and now they can no longer by trusted to make informed and educated decisions.
@Alice nice going. Divide and conquer
@Alice note to self. don't bring a gun you don't plan on using.
@Alice This is a losing attitude. Even Harris herself acknowledges her stance on the Gaza genocide cost her votes. If you believe in democracy, you don't blame the voters for the party bureaucracy that prevented a compelling candidate.
@Alice Wish I thought they did -- but no. I know more than a few people who are shocked, SHOCKED at 🧊's actions and when I bring up none of this would be happening if they/people had voted for Harris, they STILL go on about her stand on Gaza.
One of these aforementioned people DM'd me this week to ask if it was true the IDF/Jews were training/in charge of 🧊 in MN. Apparently it's the conspiracy theory du jour. (I'm Jewish in case that wasn't clear.)
***endless screaming***
@Alice And... oh by the way...what statement has Jill Stein made on the situation in Minneapolis? Anyone heard from her lately? 🙄
@Alice do you think the people who gave ICE all of these weapons which were only ever going to be used against us have any regrets yet? Do the ones who ran a cop with a losing record on a platform of escalating violence have any regrets yet? Or the ones who set the precedent that murdering citizens without charge or trial was perfectly acceptable?
Maybe we should have stopped these fascist Dems a couple decades ago instead of allowing them to continue building the machinery that Trump now commands. But no, when it was Clinton escalating police violence or Obama ordering extrajudicial executions or Biden making ICE more lethal than ever before none of you assholes gave much of a shit and now here we are...
@Alice the other part of the problem is the bootlickers
@Alice I can't begin to explain how angry I am right now
@Alice They'll never understand the damage they've caused. It'll be yearrrrrsssss befor things go back to normal. If ever.
@Alice I cannot goddamn believe this describes a third of eligible voters.
@Alice I saw a post here just a couple of days ago, someone smugly saying that to vote for Harris would've crossed their own red line, and I wanted to reach through the screen and demand to know why nobody else's lives are a red line.
No, I do not think so. People who decide not to vote (as opposed to those who just don't bother to think about it at all) are infinitely capable of saying both choices are equally bad, no matter how bad the winner turns out to be.
I was in politics for decades. This point of view is simply incurable by logic. The only thing that cures it is when the winner's policies are bad for someone the non-voter loves.
![[REDACTED]™, Decorum deez nuts](https://media.beige.party/accounts/avatars/110/073/272/009/505/518/original/e6a994af2d1382b9.gif "[REDACTED]™, Decorum deez nuts")
@Alice lol they're in this thread blaming ThE DeMoCrAtIc PaRtY
they'll never accept responsibility but they'll be the loudest complainers about ThE StAte Of ThE CoUnTrY
fuck them, instant fucking mute
@Alice "understand" maybe... accept? Nahhhhh.
@Alice No way. No one admits they're wrong anymore.
"I didn't vote for him!"
No, but you also didn't effectively use your vote against him, either.
@Alice @Kierkegaanks This may seem random, but it’s bugged me for a while - George Carlin is practically worshipped for being such a “brilliant” anti-establishment comedian - for stuff like this:
“On election day, I STAY HOME. I don’t vote. Fuck ’em…it’s meaningless. This country was bought and sold and paid for a long time ago. The shit they shuffle around every four years doesn’t mean a fuckin’ thing.”
The YouTube video of this has many recent comments cheering on the sentiment.
😡
@Alice Not only that, you didn't participate in any of the political process that led to having the choices you wound up with.
Voting isn't the only duty of an informed citizen of a democracy. Voting is literally the absolute, bare-bones **minimum** you should do. (And fully a third of your electorate couldn't even be bothered to do **that** much!)
There's a whole lot more to do than mere voting to make that vote meaningful.
@Alice Yup.
Step 1: prevent the insane fascists getting power, within the structure you have.
Step 2: fix the structure.
You can't vote as if you have the system you want but don't have. You have to work with what you've got!
(Preferential voting is fantastic, and every country should have it, but if you don't have it then yes, you do need to vote for the candidate you don't like to beat the candidate who's going to murder you).
@Alice I think this is missing a whole lot of nuance.
As someone else pointed out, Kamala was the Dem's strongest candidate under 80 they could throw in.
And even then, she had a lot of issues beyond Gaza that made people turn away. Big tech donors especially. If it wasn't Bezos and Musk gaining power it would've just been Microsoft and Google instead.
She also made it very public and vocal that she would not listen to voter concerns, as some Gaza hecklers were told in one video that "if they want Trump to win they can keep bringing that up." One of the worst responses I've ever seen from a politician.
Corporate democrats like her are an amazing way to make voters not turn out. We already saw how this plays out once with Hillary, I'm not sure why people expected differently this time.
You make an excellent and compelling case why not to vote for Harris. For why refusing to cast any vote was the right and reasoned thing to do, even if it means Trump gets to level Gaza to build casinos, billionaire tech bros become fascist trillionaire tech bros, poet and mom of three Renee Good is executed point blank to the head, a five year old is arrested by ICE and used as human bait, and ICU nurse Alex Pretti is shot multiple times with his arms behind his back while ICE claps. I see the nuance @Alice misses. I am convinced by you. Next time another fascist racist Nazi runs against a Kamala Harris Democrat, I know how to use my only vote! I made a mistake in 2024 and voted to try to stop the Nazi. My bad.
@pattykimura @Alice I voted third party. And I do think people should cast their votes if they are able in any capacity. But I do have a big problem with the mentality of "if you didn't choose this singular non-facist candidate from my preferred party, you contributed to facism."
And I do have an issue with blaming non-voters entirely, and putting zero blame on the shitty bureacracy that led to the lack of voter turnout in the first place.
Which third party did you vote?
The Putin apologist party candidate?
The anti-vax party candidate?
Cornel West?
You know who else 100% supported left wing third party candidates? Trump. He said because what you did "100% takes from her" which is why Fascist Trump encouraged voters like you. Regardless of what you intended, you 100% enabled Trump, he cheered you on. He smirked at how you supported his win. He understood the consequence of your choice, even if you still don't.
How did your third party vote stop TrumpNazis? Did it never occur to you the risk you put on the people Trump openly bragged he would target? How did your privileged choice save them from the coming Nazi storm the rest of us KNEW would happen? Why could 75M of us see what you denied?
Trump won by 1.46%. The narrowest win in the last 50 years.
You can believe your choice didn't enable the abduction of brown children, of jackbooted immunized ICE terrorizing MPLS, of the gutting of wind and solar, of DOJ targeting left speech, of the abduction of Latino men to Salvadorian gulag CECOT, but the clever moron Trump knew it, even if you didn't. He knew each third party Harris-denial vote was a win for the Nazis. I am sorry that you did what you did, but you did it.
I was a Sanders/Warren voter. I've been a socialist my adult life. This was a clear binary last chance election. I had to put the welfare and lives of my friends and family (and targeted people I didn't know) who are trans, undocumented, Muslim, Palestinian, green cards, who are Latino, Asian, Black, Afro-latino, Native American, queer, poor, on Sec 8, on Medicaid, live in HUD housing, dependent on Food Stamps, ahead of my personal deeply held political beliefs. I had to sacrifice my decades long anger at the Democratic corporatists, for the practical sake of others, for the consequences to them of my personal electoral choices. I don't get to live in a bubble, I choose not to live in a bubble.
We each own the consequences of our choices. It's never just about your intent, it's equally about the impact your action has on others. Denying the unintended harmful impact of your choice because your intent was pure is not a responsible adult's get-out-of-jail-free card - it's a self-deceiving juvenile lie, and it is coincidentally 100% Trumpian justification for why he is NEVER to blame for the harm he causes others.
You likely will never rethink your choice. It's human nature to absolve ourselves of harm we cause but didn't mean. People do it every day. My personal war on the intent/impact fissure is TL;dr mine, not yours. Live the best life, in service to others, you can.
@pattykimura @Alice Firstly, none of those candidates are who I voted for. I voted for Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate.
Secondly, I'm just going to link these here:
https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.36LT4WK
https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2024/us/results
Even if every single third-party vote was pooled together towards Kamala, she still would've fell short by roughly 300k in total, and she would've fell short of electoral votes in almost every single swing state.
The data does not back up your claim that third party votes changed the outcome of this election.
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@Alice wild what passive aggressive antiblackness and misogyny will make people do. Or not do.
@Alice well, the failure is to a large part on Democratic party, as they couldn't come up with a strong candidate under 80yo. The catastrophe was allowed, I don't know by whom, but it was evident early enough.
@Alice Rule #1: if you have a choice between voting for a fascist and voting for not-a-fascist, ALWAYS vote against the fascist.
Rule #2: There is no rule #2.
@Alice Hitler was legally elected but history judged all of Germany for following him, not just the ones who voted for him, unless they were actively in the resistance. Americans need to show the rest of the world what they would do differentky.
@Alice I've known some "she hasn't earned my vote" folks who have said "But I didn't vote for him" to which I tell them "no, but you elected him".
I've also known folks who assumed she would win and cast their vote elsewhere.
I don't think any of these people understand that it's not some game, still.
@Alice i know a person from high school who told me they would not vote for Biden (before the dropout) because of Gaza and because they became a tik tok influencer and was makinf 6 figures and didn't want the ban to go through. Oh, but now they're aghast at Trump's actions but i still havent forgotten.
@BlackAzizAnansi @Alice They should check the latest ToS on TikTok
Got a lecture from adult daughter's hipster friends in Brooklyn NY that they weren't voting because they were 'tired of their vote being taken for granted.' Somehow they don't recall the conversation. 🤷
I'd vote for Ms. Harris again. But I don't think she should run.
More eligible voters (abt 83M) did not vote than voted for Trump (77M).
This huge number is why we don't need MAGA voters if we can pick up 3% of non-voters. Or if MAGA voters stay home.
MPS is energizing and focusing non-voters and demotivating Trump voters. Bovino, a surprisingly small little man with a Nazi haircut and a high voice, loves the cosplay and pretend heroics (uh, 6 armed guys tackling one unarmed guy is not combat where the other side is also similarly armed), but his legacy will be of Adolph Eichmann.
No. They are, to a person, still high in their own asshole believing this shit was about their fucking feelings.
I hate them more, axshullee. 😍
@Alice do you think the people who voted for Biden realize they're part of the problem yet?
Like if one side keeps hiring cops & the other side keeps ordering the cops to hurt people, neither of those people are on your side.
(I say as a Biden & Harris voter who feels absolutely like this was a test we all failed. None of these people are good for us or the world. Democrats build institutions that they then give over to Republicans who use them to abuse us.)
@Alice do you think the people who voted for Biden realize they're part of the problem yet?
Like if one side keeps hiring cops & the other side keeps ordering the cops to hurt people, neither of those people are on your side.
@Alice
IDK, I blocked them all ages ago. I'm sure they're still blaming everyone but themselves, though, which is why I block for that stuff.
@Alice @sebastianhahn Probably not.
For younger people for whom this was their first election they could vote in? Its possible. For people older and more set in their ways? No. I think it takes about 2 presidential primaries where they have debates and stuff to figure stuff out.
@Alice Progressives that didn’t support Harris because she wasn’t perfect enough infuriate me with a passion.
Some of them they say we should actually be directing it at the #POTUS47 voters. Sure I despise them, but trying to shame them for any of this is pointless. They wanted this. They got what they wanted.
Progressives should’ve foreseen all this 💩 and known Harris Walz would’ve spared us while taking a few steps in the right direction.
@Alice Some of them, yes. Most of them, no.
@Alice They didn’t just withhold their vote, they loudly announced their intention, described how awful she was, and made certain everybody knew there was no real difference between the two.
@Alice do you think that the people who vote for the same center right political party again and again and again instead of forming a reasonable left of center party that represented working class interests and refused corporate donations will get the fucking hint and stop undermining their own interests and stop slavishly worshipping the billionaires they deem "good"?
@Alice No. Just yesterday I saw two guys patting each other on the back for being too smart and principled to vote for a Democrat.
@Alice But her laugh / She was Black / wasn’t she a cop? / Gaza / etcetera
@Alice Of course not. Because all of their reasoning was SoUnD and LoGiCaL. Not that they’re misogynists or anything.
@Alice Whenever I hear a poll about Trump's unpopularity I want some pollster to also ask the question, "did you vote in the last federal election" and see how that matches up. The numbers mean nothing if the people who didn't vote are still not gonna vote or do anything next time.
I’m sorry that the Democratic candidate wasn't perfect enough for you to keep this absolute monster out of office.
@Alice Interesting and depressing thread. As a foreigner I get the impression your fascist regime will remain in power for a long time because the right unite under their leaders while the left is busy bickering and in-fighting.
@Alice you're only sorry because now you actually have to fight instead of brunching and pretending your staged opposition is actually doing something other than enabling the fash.
@Alice@beige.party i would not call arming a genocide, "not perfect enough for me" I still voted for the genocidal war criminal, but I'm basically a psychopath, I'm not claiming that I'm morally superior to people who can't swallow that moral calculus.
Maybe that's the problem, maybe if the democrats ran candidates who people actually like, who don't support genocide, and do support things like free healthcare that everyone wants, they would win by comfortable margins.
@Alice absolute shit take. Bye
@Alice and I am sorry she did not get more people to vote for her.
#Votershaming is not how you make this moment better for anyone. You harden lines that are softening.
@Alice ⬆️ just fucking ewww
Over entitled adult preschooler
As if they have done ANYTHING but give fascists a time to regroup while they help to collaborate
That's a block
@Alice you understand Biden increased ICE funding during his tenure and democrats are voting to increase the funding now too? I think those guys are a lot more responsible for this than voters who were disgusted by a genocide
@Alice
Whining about lost battles has never won a war.
@handsomebird @Alice we wouldn’t have win a “war” if you would have fought the small battles correctly.
@ErickaSimone @Alice
I still have the same response.
Stop whining, and start fighting.
@Alice #FuckTrump but also #FuckDemocrats
I voted but I was still pissed that as a voter, my choice was taken away on the opposite side of the ticket
The Democrats are just as responsible for Trump and the people who voted for him IMHO
Their entire platform has become "Vote for us because we aren't them"
@Alice I literally had someone tell me that they couldn’t vote for Harris Walz because walls wasn’t good enough on education…in MN- where they don’t even live??? Wtfh? It was any excuse they wanted to either stay home or to put this monster back in office. I will never ever ever forgive them. Fuck them all
@Alice imho, as non American, she was a great candidate.
@Alice I voted Harris bc she was the least worst viable candidate, but come on. Expecting candidates to oppose genocide is not expecting perfection. It should be a pretty low bar and she made no effort to go over it.
The rage I feel towards that sector of the electorate is immeasurable.
@Alice When I saw the "I don't like her laugh" comments about Harris I knew we were cooked. This was right in line with the guys in South Dakota saying they were voting for Kristi Noem because "she's hot".
It's basically the summation of our emanate collapse as a society and nation.
@Alice I think about this all the time, and I'm not even American. There was every reason to believe Trump would turn into the dictator we see today. People knew how dangerous he was but they decided to get cute with their comparably minor single issues. Ugh.
@Alice there are a heck of a lot of Russian trolls on Lemmy so YMMV, but apparently not. Apparently all the Gaza outcomes would have been exactly the same.
@Alice No. I don't believe they do.
@stefan @handsomebird @Alice again. The blatant racism, projection and demand for labor from whites who call themselves “abolitionists.”
Insidiously racist behavior.