8 ms·

This is going to be the "snake ate my face" situation real fast. Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base uneducated and poor. Seems like the

by fracus 2y ago

This is going to be the "snake ate my face" situation real fast. Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base uneducated and poor. Seems like they've reached the critical mass necessary. I don't understand any other way they vote someone in who has demonstrated time and again he'll work against their own interests. I understand short sighted single issue greed for the mighty dollar but it is a nonsensical vote for anyone else.

ricardo81 2y ago
I'd disagree, after all a democracy is one vote per person. And it surely looks like they've voted against what you thought was the better choice. In that sense, you have to have some pretence about why you disagree. You mentioned it was something along the lines of people thinking about a 'mighty dollar', but that seems conflationary. Saying it's a nonsensical vote in a two party race is a bit off.
- mcperr3 2y ago
  I suppose a democracy could elect a leader that promises to destroy it (hypothetically). The voters have no obligation to protect it.
  - ricardo81 2y ago
    Yes. In Scotland where we have devolution from the UK government, there is a party that wants to dissolve the parliament that campaigns to be elected to that parliament. Just democracy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cyberax 2y ago
Because trans people. And immigrants pouring through the border. And abortion. In other words: culture wars.
- daveguy 2y ago
  Yup. He lied for months about forced operations in schools (seriously?!). And immigration is the lowest it's been since Biden took office after Trump botched the pandemic response and no one wanted to come here. If Trump follows through on his promises, the US will be in bad shape.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > If Trump follows through on his promises, the US will be in bad shape. Might be a good learning experience for the Red states. One huge issue in the US politics is that the Red states are largely insulated from the consequences of their decisions by the Federal budget transfers. Nearly all deep Red states are net receivers of the Federal funds, especially when Medicare/SS are taken into account. All that culture war nonsense, CHIPS act, and so on do not make any tangible difference for a voter in Alabama. All these amount to peanuts compared with the overall Federal spending. Trump is poised to seriously change this.
    - systemBuilder 2y ago
      Red States are the biggest leaches off the federal government. Out of the top-10 states that take in more subsidies than they pay out in taxes, only 2 are blue states, 8 are red states! The Red States never learn because the social welfare programs from the Democrats coddle them ...
    - badrequest 2y ago
      Bold of you to think the red states are capable of learning.
      - cyberax 2y ago
        Oh, they will. Culture wars only go so far when your wallet is _truly_ affected.
        immibis 2y ago
simple10 2y ago
It's much more nuanced than people are giving credit. See my other comment below for a fuller analysis. I have some military Republican-leaning friends. To give credit where credit is due, Trump successfully switched the Republican party away from the being the party of expansionist war. This plus the economy (whether or not you agree with people's interpretation of the economy) swayed a lot of votes. Ultimately, I think Trump won because a lot of key independent voters cast votes against the Democrats. It's a referendum on the way Democrats have been running campaigns for the past 20 years. See 2016 Democrat Primaries [1] where Hillary Clinton's campaign pulled some shady deals to get Bernie Sanders out of the race. Hopefully, we'll get a legitimate 3rd party one of these days to properly give a referendum on both leading parties. Doubtful, but one still has to dream. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden...
- siffin 2y ago
  When trump enables a war in the middle east that's bigger than the dems would have ever allowed, will you take that credit back and say it was a mistake to believe that republicans are no longer a war party?
  - phtrivier 2y ago
    You're not meaning the same thing by "pro war" or "anti war". So long as the war in the middle east or Ukraine does not involve US soldiers on the ground, Trump can finance or equip one of the side - for the average voter in the US, there is no "war". Maybe the the young men in the US were more concerned about the war in Russia escalating to a conflict that would involve US soldiers on the ground. We know how Trump will behave with Putin (he will offer half of Ukraine on a plate in exchange for pinky promises.) We can suspect that Trump will not move a finger when those promises are broken and the Baltics are invaded. What is still a mystery is how Trump will deal with Iran - here, there is no clear policy that will please both Israël and Russia, so someone will have to give.
    - simple10 2y ago
alchemist1e9 2y ago
> I don't understand any other way they vote someone in who has demonstrated time and again he'll work against their own interests. Isn’t it possible that the educated elite are incorrectly perceiving what is in the interests of the “uneducated and poor”? Perhaps it’s possible they have a different utility function and set of preferences than the elites perceive? It’s aways funny when the left who claim to “save democracy” go from 0-60 in a split second toward totalitarianism when they have decided the masses simply aren’t educated enough and don’t know what they need. As a final point, since this is HN, would you mind sharing some examples of what Trump has done or policies he has that are “against their own interests”?
- daveguy 2y ago
  0-60 in a split second toward totalitarianism? Care to give an example of that, or just throwing stuff against the wall? I'll give a policy example against the average person's interests -- his 20% tarrifs across the board will cause approximately 20% inflation and a trade war that will ruin our export markets just like it did the first time. Trump brags about giving billions to farmers because he had to after his policies decimated their markets.
  - simple10 2y ago
    Agreed on the tariffs. It's a significant concern if all the tariffs get implemented. However, I doubt it will happen due to political opposition from both Republicans and Democrats as well as legal concerns. The US president has limited authority to unilaterally implement tariffs. He would have to claim national security concerns or retaliation to unfair trade practices from other countries. Trump previously imposed tariffs on China due to (well documenented) unfair trade practices. Biden then extended the China tariffs. But Trump would be legally challenged and most certainly lose if he claimed unfair trade practices by every country on earth. Here's a good video explaining the problems with tariffs. They have lots of unpredictable long term outcomes and are hard to remove once implemented. Apparently there's still a chicken and truck tax on trade between US and Europe that dates back to WWII. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eHOSq3oqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eHOSq3oqI
  - 2y ago
indigo0086 2y ago
>Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base uneducated and poor. Dems almost exclusively Lord over academia as something so valuable that the people that do jobs that keep the lights on, water running, and the floors steady are tired of hearing how much knowledge they lack. They say this in the same breath as they accuse republicans of keeping the sacred university knowledge from trades workers
- aiisjustanif 2y ago
  That is contrarian to democrats giving more support historically unions and putting laws in place to raise the wealth and social support of lower income citizens. Think of Medicare in 1965, Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, and the Low-Income Housing Preservation and Residential Homeownership Act of 1990
  - murderfs 2y ago
    The most recent example you're citing is from 34 years ago...
    - xnx 2y ago
      "Historian gives ‘Union Joe’ a higher grade than any president since FDR" https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/05/bidens-labor-report-card-historian-gives-union-joe-higher-grade-any-president-fdr/397002/ https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/05/bidens-labor-repo... That's one article that seemed a good summary, but there are a half dozen different things that could be cited as ways Biden has supported unions.
    - aiisjustanif 2y ago
      What does that have to do with the original point that they don’t care about working class people if all of those monumental acts still exist and help working class people. I can state the Infrastructure bill and the CHIPS act from the last 2 years giving more job opportunities.
  - indigo0086 2y ago
viridian 2y ago
Are you interested in talking to people to understand, or do you prefer to just pontificate as to why people would engage in "nonsensical" behavior?
- kulahan 2y ago
  This is the part that blows my mind consistently. The number of people screaming “WHY would ANYONE vote for him?!” and then not even considering trying to find out is a true bummer.
  - jquery 2y ago
    They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. To me this seems a pretty clear case of inflation=“punish the incumbent” and also Biden spread out the pain of covid recovery instead of making red states bear the burden. Kamala promised more of the same, including lots of investment into rural and red areas that aren’t gonna vote for her anyway. Result? 10-15 million blue voters stayed home this cycle. Trump turned out his entire base. Just pontificating…
    - giancarlostoro 2y ago
      > They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. I've seen these conversations happen thousands of times in political communities online, before you know it, the person trying to understand starts getting angry at some point, and both people are calling each other names. Very few people truly want to understand the other side. If you want to understand the other side, the first step is to listen, and not say anything (don't try to defend your viewpoint, this isn't part of your goal, and it will derail it), ask questions, and agree to disagree politely.
      - immibis 2y ago
        Because those discussions go like this: (to a C programmer) "Why are you using C?" "Because it's memory-safe." "But it's not memory-safe." "Yes it is. Your program will just segfault rather than getting hacked." "No it won't... see these examples of C programs getting hacked without segfaulting." "You're using it wrong. See look, if you write with spaces instead of tabs, your program is memory-safe." Do you remember "MongoDB is web scale"? Would you not get angry when trying to find good reasons to use MongoDB? That's what it's like talking to the average Trump supporter, except it's about the removal of human rights instead of just which database you should use.
stetrain 2y ago
When people feel unhappy with the way things are currently going, they vote for the other guy. I think it's really that simple in a lot of cases. There are of course many other layers and nuances, but I think trying to dig into the specific policies, rhetoric, and character of each candidate can miss the forest for the trees. I could be wrong but I don't think 72 million people went out and voted for Trump because they carefully compared both candidates and decided that they preferred Trump on all of the key issues, or because they like or approve of Trump as a person, character, or candidate. In fact his approval and favorability polling is still below 50%. People held their nose or stuck their head in the sand on the parts of him they find unfavorable, and pressed the button for "change things" because they don't like how things are currently going, real or perceived. Just like they did in 2020 when they felt like things weren't going well and voted to switch things up. People who follow politics a lot more know that "let's try the other guy" comes along with a lot of other baggage and issues and policy, but that's a lot to think about and try to parse through in a world full of people yelling opinions, and I think a lot of people just look past them.
southernplaces7 2y ago
>Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base uneducated and poor. And you claim the democrats didn't push class divide by basically deriding and ignoring a huge part of the American population that supports Trump or might vote for him? Note that he made massive gains with latinos and even with the frican American community. That says a lot about who felt which party was ignoring them and pushing its own sort of class divide with rhetoric that didn0t take many of the things these people really give a damn about into account. Pray tell too, what exactly are the specific interests you think they voted against? And how were the democrats addressing them? After such a high popular vote in his favor, saying in effect that he won only because those who voted for him are a bunch of ignorant fools is exactly the sort of foolish tendency that made his opponents lose.
tbone902 2y ago
[dead]
doctorpangloss 2y ago
How do you reconcile "short sighted single issue greed for the mighty dollar" with "poor" and staying that way?
anon291 2y ago
This is what a lot of us here on HN see. The site guidelines say no snark and our comments get flagged but this whole snark is ignored and elevated. Maybe it won't be a snakes ate my face moment. Trump is hardly an unknown. People voted for 2016-2020. That's what they want. No snark needed
segasaturn 2y ago
Groceries and housing are unaffordable, and any voter who complained about the issue to the incumbent party were ignored, or were outright told their experience with high prices wasn't real (which is called gaslighting). So people went with the alternative, who acknowledged their issue and provided very bad, very stupid solutions, but solutions nonetheless. This is the exact same situation that happened in 2016 on the issue of jobs being sent overseas (remember when out of work coal miners were told to "learn to code"?). Really, this outcome was very easy to predict.
- realce 2y ago
  > Groceries and housing are unaffordable, and any voter who complained about the issue to the incumbent party were ignored, or were outright told their experience with high prices wasn't real (which is called gaslighting). Almost every single Harris ad I saw was about how groceries and housing was too expensive. Two of the 3 pillars of her campaign were about price-gouging on staple goods and increasing access to home purchase. How was the issue not acknowledged?
crystal_revenge 2y ago
I don't get the focus on Republican votes, when a major issue is the lack of Democratic votes. As someone who leans quite left (and voted 3rd party in a deep-blue state), I can completely understand why many traditional Democratic voters didn't turn out (and why many Republicans despise the Democrats enough to presumably vote against their interests as you pose). The largest issue for me is that I cannot support genocide. The "I'm speaking" (to protesters) was repulsive. The culture of "if you don't get on board it's your fault if democracy dies" attitude of the Democratic party was just as fascist sounding to my ears as anything they claimed the Republicans have in store for the future. I personally can't fathom how any person that aligns with my view of the world would basically take the stance of "genocide doesn't matter, toe the line". For me personally, two parties that aggressively support continue apartheid conditions and genocide are both against my interest so profoundly that where they differ on issues is irrelevant. Furthermore the Democratic party has increasingly come to represent a very anti-democratic institution. Biden was promised us as a one-term president to get things patched over while new leadership was established. Then the fact that he was clearly increasingly incompetent was hidden until it was embarrassingly too late. But oddly, it was not too late for a primary, where Democrats could choose a candidate, but we didn't get that. And yet, when mentioning any issues with the mass murder of children you are told to "shut up and get in line". Finally, Biden didn't deliver on any of the meaningful promises he made. Nothing happened to improve abortion issues while he was president, his track record on climate was just as meaningless and awful as any Republican, children still sat in US detention centers separated from their parents, corporate interests still take precedence over the rights of workers just as much as with any Republican. While I am nervous about another Trump term, I fail to see how the world was so much brighter under Biden. The Democrats have become the party of "shut up and do as we say because we know better" with no objective improvements in the issues I care about when they are in office, which is impossible for me to get behind.
- tehs2 2y ago
  I'm sorry you feel that way but not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump, and now we have a guy that is worse for Palestinians than Harris ever would be.

by fracus 2y ago

ricardo81 2y ago

I'd disagree, after all a democracy is one vote per person. And it surely looks like they've voted against what you thought was the better choice. In that sense, you have to have some pretence about why you disagree. You mentioned it was something along the lines of people thinking about a 'mighty dollar', but that seems conflationary. Saying it's a nonsensical vote in a two party race is a bit off.

mcperr3 2y ago
I suppose a democracy could elect a leader that promises to destroy it (hypothetically). The voters have no obligation to protect it.
- ricardo81 2y ago
  Yes. In Scotland where we have devolution from the UK government, there is a party that wants to dissolve the parliament that campaigns to be elected to that parliament. Just democracy.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

cyberax 2y ago

Because trans people. And immigrants pouring through the border. And abortion. In other words: culture wars.

daveguy 2y ago
Yup. He lied for months about forced operations in schools (seriously?!). And immigration is the lowest it's been since Biden took office after Trump botched the pandemic response and no one wanted to come here. If Trump follows through on his promises, the US will be in bad shape.
- cyberax 2y ago
  > If Trump follows through on his promises, the US will be in bad shape. Might be a good learning experience for the Red states. One huge issue in the US politics is that the Red states are largely insulated from the consequences of their decisions by the Federal budget transfers. Nearly all deep Red states are net receivers of the Federal funds, especially when Medicare/SS are taken into account. All that culture war nonsense, CHIPS act, and so on do not make any tangible difference for a voter in Alabama. All these amount to peanuts compared with the overall Federal spending. Trump is poised to seriously change this.
  - systemBuilder 2y ago
    Red States are the biggest leaches off the federal government. Out of the top-10 states that take in more subsidies than they pay out in taxes, only 2 are blue states, 8 are red states! The Red States never learn because the social welfare programs from the Democrats coddle them ...
  - badrequest 2y ago
    Bold of you to think the red states are capable of learning.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      Oh, they will. Culture wars only go so far when your wallet is _truly_ affected.
      - immibis 2y ago

simple10 2y ago

It's much more nuanced than people are giving credit. See my other comment below for a fuller analysis. I have some military Republican-leaning friends. To give credit where credit is due, Trump successfully switched the Republican party away from the being the party of expansionist war. This plus the economy (whether or not you agree with people's interpretation of the economy) swayed a lot of votes. Ultimately, I think Trump won because a lot of key independent voters cast votes against the Democrats. It's a referendum on the way Democrats have been running campaigns for the past 20 years. See 2016 Democrat Primaries [1] where Hillary Clinton's campaign pulled some shady deals to get Bernie Sanders out of the race. Hopefully, we'll get a legitimate 3rd party one of these days to properly give a referendum on both leading parties. Doubtful, but one still has to dream. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presiden...

siffin 2y ago
When trump enables a war in the middle east that's bigger than the dems would have ever allowed, will you take that credit back and say it was a mistake to believe that republicans are no longer a war party?
- phtrivier 2y ago
  You're not meaning the same thing by "pro war" or "anti war". So long as the war in the middle east or Ukraine does not involve US soldiers on the ground, Trump can finance or equip one of the side - for the average voter in the US, there is no "war". Maybe the the young men in the US were more concerned about the war in Russia escalating to a conflict that would involve US soldiers on the ground. We know how Trump will behave with Putin (he will offer half of Ukraine on a plate in exchange for pinky promises.) We can suspect that Trump will not move a finger when those promises are broken and the Baltics are invaded. What is still a mystery is how Trump will deal with Iran - here, there is no clear policy that will please both Israël and Russia, so someone will have to give.
  - simple10 2y ago

alchemist1e9 2y ago

> I don't understand any other way they vote someone in who has demonstrated time and again he'll work against their own interests. Isn’t it possible that the educated elite are incorrectly perceiving what is in the interests of the “uneducated and poor”? Perhaps it’s possible they have a different utility function and set of preferences than the elites perceive? It’s aways funny when the left who claim to “save democracy” go from 0-60 in a split second toward totalitarianism when they have decided the masses simply aren’t educated enough and don’t know what they need. As a final point, since this is HN, would you mind sharing some examples of what Trump has done or policies he has that are “against their own interests”?

daveguy 2y ago
0-60 in a split second toward totalitarianism? Care to give an example of that, or just throwing stuff against the wall? I'll give a policy example against the average person's interests -- his 20% tarrifs across the board will cause approximately 20% inflation and a trade war that will ruin our export markets just like it did the first time. Trump brags about giving billions to farmers because he had to after his policies decimated their markets.
- simple10 2y ago
  Agreed on the tariffs. It's a significant concern if all the tariffs get implemented. However, I doubt it will happen due to political opposition from both Republicans and Democrats as well as legal concerns. The US president has limited authority to unilaterally implement tariffs. He would have to claim national security concerns or retaliation to unfair trade practices from other countries. Trump previously imposed tariffs on China due to (well documenented) unfair trade practices. Biden then extended the China tariffs. But Trump would be legally challenged and most certainly lose if he claimed unfair trade practices by every country on earth. Here's a good video explaining the problems with tariffs. They have lots of unpredictable long term outcomes and are hard to remove once implemented. Apparently there's still a chicken and truck tax on trade between US and Europe that dates back to WWII. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eHOSq3oqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-eHOSq3oqI
- 2y ago

indigo0086 2y ago

>Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base uneducated and poor. Dems almost exclusively Lord over academia as something so valuable that the people that do jobs that keep the lights on, water running, and the floors steady are tired of hearing how much knowledge they lack. They say this in the same breath as they accuse republicans of keeping the sacred university knowledge from trades workers

aiisjustanif 2y ago
That is contrarian to democrats giving more support historically unions and putting laws in place to raise the wealth and social support of lower income citizens. Think of Medicare in 1965, Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, and the Low-Income Housing Preservation and Residential Homeownership Act of 1990
- murderfs 2y ago
  The most recent example you're citing is from 34 years ago...
  - xnx 2y ago
    "Historian gives ‘Union Joe’ a higher grade than any president since FDR" https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/05/bidens-labor-report-card-historian-gives-union-joe-higher-grade-any-president-fdr/397002/ https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/05/bidens-labor-repo... That's one article that seemed a good summary, but there are a half dozen different things that could be cited as ways Biden has supported unions.
  - aiisjustanif 2y ago
    What does that have to do with the original point that they don’t care about working class people if all of those monumental acts still exist and help working class people. I can state the Infrastructure bill and the CHIPS act from the last 2 years giving more job opportunities.
- indigo0086 2y ago

viridian 2y ago

Are you interested in talking to people to understand, or do you prefer to just pontificate as to why people would engage in "nonsensical" behavior?

kulahan 2y ago
This is the part that blows my mind consistently. The number of people screaming “WHY would ANYONE vote for him?!” and then not even considering trying to find out is a true bummer.
- jquery 2y ago
  They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. To me this seems a pretty clear case of inflation=“punish the incumbent” and also Biden spread out the pain of covid recovery instead of making red states bear the burden. Kamala promised more of the same, including lots of investment into rural and red areas that aren’t gonna vote for her anyway. Result? 10-15 million blue voters stayed home this cycle. Trump turned out his entire base. Just pontificating…
  - giancarlostoro 2y ago
    > They’re literally trying to find out when they exclaim that question. I've seen these conversations happen thousands of times in political communities online, before you know it, the person trying to understand starts getting angry at some point, and both people are calling each other names. Very few people truly want to understand the other side. If you want to understand the other side, the first step is to listen, and not say anything (don't try to defend your viewpoint, this isn't part of your goal, and it will derail it), ask questions, and agree to disagree politely.
    - immibis 2y ago
      Because those discussions go like this: (to a C programmer) "Why are you using C?" "Because it's memory-safe." "But it's not memory-safe." "Yes it is. Your program will just segfault rather than getting hacked." "No it won't... see these examples of C programs getting hacked without segfaulting." "You're using it wrong. See look, if you write with spaces instead of tabs, your program is memory-safe." Do you remember "MongoDB is web scale"? Would you not get angry when trying to find good reasons to use MongoDB? That's what it's like talking to the average Trump supporter, except it's about the removal of human rights instead of just which database you should use.

stetrain 2y ago

When people feel unhappy with the way things are currently going, they vote for the other guy. I think it's really that simple in a lot of cases. There are of course many other layers and nuances, but I think trying to dig into the specific policies, rhetoric, and character of each candidate can miss the forest for the trees. I could be wrong but I don't think 72 million people went out and voted for Trump because they carefully compared both candidates and decided that they preferred Trump on all of the key issues, or because they like or approve of Trump as a person, character, or candidate. In fact his approval and favorability polling is still below 50%. People held their nose or stuck their head in the sand on the parts of him they find unfavorable, and pressed the button for "change things" because they don't like how things are currently going, real or perceived. Just like they did in 2020 when they felt like things weren't going well and voted to switch things up. People who follow politics a lot more know that "let's try the other guy" comes along with a lot of other baggage and issues and policy, but that's a lot to think about and try to parse through in a world full of people yelling opinions, and I think a lot of people just look past them.

southernplaces7 2y ago

>Republicans push class divide so to keep their voter base uneducated and poor. And you claim the democrats didn't push class divide by basically deriding and ignoring a huge part of the American population that supports Trump or might vote for him? Note that he made massive gains with latinos and even with the frican American community. That says a lot about who felt which party was ignoring them and pushing its own sort of class divide with rhetoric that didn0t take many of the things these people really give a damn about into account. Pray tell too, what exactly are the specific interests you think they voted against? And how were the democrats addressing them? After such a high popular vote in his favor, saying in effect that he won only because those who voted for him are a bunch of ignorant fools is exactly the sort of foolish tendency that made his opponents lose.

tbone902 2y ago

[dead]

doctorpangloss 2y ago

How do you reconcile "short sighted single issue greed for the mighty dollar" with "poor" and staying that way?

anon291 2y ago

This is what a lot of us here on HN see. The site guidelines say no snark and our comments get flagged but this whole snark is ignored and elevated. Maybe it won't be a snakes ate my face moment. Trump is hardly an unknown. People voted for 2016-2020. That's what they want. No snark needed

segasaturn 2y ago

Groceries and housing are unaffordable, and any voter who complained about the issue to the incumbent party were ignored, or were outright told their experience with high prices wasn't real (which is called gaslighting). So people went with the alternative, who acknowledged their issue and provided very bad, very stupid solutions, but solutions nonetheless. This is the exact same situation that happened in 2016 on the issue of jobs being sent overseas (remember when out of work coal miners were told to "learn to code"?). Really, this outcome was very easy to predict.

realce 2y ago
> Groceries and housing are unaffordable, and any voter who complained about the issue to the incumbent party were ignored, or were outright told their experience with high prices wasn't real (which is called gaslighting). Almost every single Harris ad I saw was about how groceries and housing was too expensive. Two of the 3 pillars of her campaign were about price-gouging on staple goods and increasing access to home purchase. How was the issue not acknowledged?

crystal_revenge 2y ago

I don't get the focus on Republican votes, when a major issue is the lack of Democratic votes. As someone who leans quite left (and voted 3rd party in a deep-blue state), I can completely understand why many traditional Democratic voters didn't turn out (and why many Republicans despise the Democrats enough to presumably vote against their interests as you pose). The largest issue for me is that I cannot support genocide. The "I'm speaking" (to protesters) was repulsive. The culture of "if you don't get on board it's your fault if democracy dies" attitude of the Democratic party was just as fascist sounding to my ears as anything they claimed the Republicans have in store for the future. I personally can't fathom how any person that aligns with my view of the world would basically take the stance of "genocide doesn't matter, toe the line". For me personally, two parties that aggressively support continue apartheid conditions and genocide are both against my interest so profoundly that where they differ on issues is irrelevant. Furthermore the Democratic party has increasingly come to represent a very anti-democratic institution. Biden was promised us as a one-term president to get things patched over while new leadership was established. Then the fact that he was clearly increasingly incompetent was hidden until it was embarrassingly too late. But oddly, it was not too late for a primary, where Democrats could choose a candidate, but we didn't get that. And yet, when mentioning any issues with the mass murder of children you are told to "shut up and get in line". Finally, Biden didn't deliver on any of the meaningful promises he made. Nothing happened to improve abortion issues while he was president, his track record on climate was just as meaningless and awful as any Republican, children still sat in US detention centers separated from their parents, corporate interests still take precedence over the rights of workers just as much as with any Republican. While I am nervous about another Trump term, I fail to see how the world was so much brighter under Biden. The Democrats have become the party of "shut up and do as we say because we know better" with no objective improvements in the issues I care about when they are in office, which is impossible for me to get behind.

tehs2 2y ago
I'm sorry you feel that way but not voting for Harris is a vote for Trump, and now we have a guy that is worse for Palestinians than Harris ever would be.