Why she deserved to lose: Gaza genocide
Why she actually lost: voters inappropriately blaming democrats for the high inflation in 2021-2023
- (it wasn't really Biden's fault or the democrats' fault, it was a global issue and pretty much every country has dealt with high inflation in the last few years. The US's inflation has been about average internationally, maybe even a bit lower than average.)
Why this sucks:
- since Gaza protest voters weren't actually a difference maker, there's not as much opportunity for us to agitate about it as we would've liked. Liberals will probably be dismissive of the argument that Harris lost because of her position about Gaza, and they'll be right; it just doesn't really hold up.
- the liberal smugness about ignorant voters that we're surely going to see in the next few weeks is... actually kind of correct.
Let me know if you think I'm wrong about any of this. I'd kind of like to be wrong, honestly.
I think you're wrong about this because these things are connected. The path to the white house was a Berniecrat campaign. They had to push an anti-corporate narrative really hard and rely on grassroots donations to get way more people involved, naturally boosting turnout. Part of the anti-corporate (not necessarily even socdem, but bonus points if it was) strategy absolutely would've been standing up to the MIC. There was a way to victory that confirmed people's doubts about the economy with a substantial policy platform that wasn't pandering to petit bourgeois pigs.
Think about the alternate reality where Kamala's strategy was to run a far more progressive campaign. She would've depended on orgs like DSA to drive the message home that she was trying to appeal to those voters; that doesn't necessarily mean she would have had to drop Zionism from the campaign since the DSA is spineless and there is no organized left in the US that could make a demand like that, but it certainly makes it a lot more likely that she would've considered the pro-Palestine political block a more expedient group to capture than Zionist voters.
Corporations would never allow a socdem candidate. Left-wing candidates would be drowned in mud by media and betrayed by their own party like it was with Corbyn. Berniecrats would not be able to win.
U.S. capitalism could extend it's lifespan exponentially if it just oscillated between socdem reform and neoliberalism over a long span of time, looting different regions during each oscillation. enough to maintain a pacified and loyal populace, ready to do imperialism's dirty work
but they won't be able to make it through just one of these theoretical cycles. they can't. so instead it will all come crashing down soon
It couldn't. Post-war socdem consensus was abandoned, because the rate of profit fell so much, it became unsustainable while preserving capitalism. Now we are at "tearing copper out of the walls" stage anyway.