YOU are speaking!
Have you made any poignant commentary on the recent election in the U.S.? Do you have a good response to liberals who are upset with the results or process of the election? Have you written or seen something as a comment reply/post that you think has standalone value? Did you see a new take or analysis you hadn’t previously considered?
Whether it’s a long idea with lots of context, or a short and sweet one liner, we want those thoughts aggregated here. This post is intended to be a resource for comrades to draw from when having actual discussions outside of Hexbear both online or IRL regarding the election.
Consider this a mini-effortpost aggregator. This is not for shitposts, but humor is completely acceptable if it helps make the point.
-Can't blame third parties, the margins are too big and they wouldn't have mattered in a single state.
-Can't blame non-voters, voter turnout was relatively high.
-Can't blame the Electoral College, Trump won the popular vote by almost twice the difference that Hillary has in 2016.
-Can't blame it on people being ignorant of the ramifications, Trump had already been president for 4 years, he was the presumptive nominee all along, and throughout election season he actually polled higher than his favorability when he left office.
-Can't blame corruption or voting machines, the last week of polling had Trump ahead, and the exit polling lines up with the results.
The only thing the Democrats have to blame is themselves, for running a bad campaign with an inferior candidate and striking out on a softball.
A close friend of mine was remarking in the last few weeks how the Democrats had pivoted from the "weird" messaging, which seemed to be working, back to the "he's dangerous and unstable and a threat to democracy" messaging, which they knew from experience did not have much of an effect. In fact, from exit polls, out of people who said "democracy in this country is threatened" or prioritized a candidate's capacity to do the job, a clear majority supported Trump! This is yet another damning piece of evidence that suggests that Democrats were actively not doing what they could to win the election. Either they prioritized fundraising at the expense of outcome, or they actually threw it.
Also, Allan Lichtman BTFO.
I'm personally waiting for Hilary Clinton to tell us who's to blame for this
We didn't Pokemon went to the polls hard enough
Wasn't turn out significantly depressed compared to 2020?
Yeah, I heard this was an incredibly low turnout
People weren't excited to vote for 99% hitler? Who could've seen this coming
I have to double check the numbers but it was lower then 2020 i think.
2020 was an outlier though. Both geriatric ghouls did record numbers in that election
True, and mail-In-voting was what drove those numbers, I think. So you're probably right, likely better to compare it to 2016 honestly.
this says more about 2020 than 2024 though. 2020 was unusually high turnout (62% iirc), some people think because of COVID and mail-in ballots being widely available
I'm not sure if it's that significant, they've still got about 10% of votes to count.
The “he’s weird” messaging was legitimately working well and the Trump campaign even knew it. Look how they hid Vance away from the public as soon as people started realizing he was a freak (derogatory)
And it makes sense that the “he’s weird” messaging would work when targeting the Dems main goal of white suburban moderates. Tell a wine mom to imagine trying to have a real conversation with Trump or Vance and they’ll immediately be able to tell that these are not Normal People™ and theyll be much less enthusiastic to vote for them
What are you suggesting we blame it on? My gut impulse has been to say it was a bad strategy that didn't mobilize the voters Dems won with before, while Trumps turnout was static. Which I think is kinda a turnout based argument but if that's a mistake I want to catch and stop that now.
Low turnout is a reflection of the campaign and the current administrations favorability. Harris didn't break away far enough from Biden's policies on all fronts which left the base drained of enthusiasm. Turning to the right alienated the progressive wing of voters. Simple as.
I don't think it was alienating progressive voters, otherwise we'd see more votes for Stein and West, etc. I think she simply didn't get people excited enough to vote.
I'd like to think that a plurality of voters are explicitly progressive, but it's a better explanation that popular policy and messaging gets people out, and unpopular policy and messaging doesn't.
These seem like the same thing to me. Couldn't a progressive who feels alienated by the campaign also fully believe that Stein and maybe even West are agents of Russia and not want to vote for them? Could they have shown up and instead only voted on down ballot races instead?
I agree with this. People either feel like someone has answers to their anxieties about the future, or they don't. When they feel like they don't, they become non-voters.