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All Harris had to do to win was promise to stop sending arms to Israel. Many, many polls showed this very clearly. 77% of Democrat voters wanted an arms embarg

All Harris had to do to win was promise to stop sending arms to Israel. Many, many polls showed this very clearly. 77% of Democrat voters wanted an arms embargo, and over 30% of 2020 Biden voters in key battleground states said that this issue was serious enough to affect their vote. > A Harris organizer who worked on youth turnout said that senior campaign officials gave them an order: When they sent out mass volunteer or fundraising emails and people replied by asking about Gaza, they were told to mark it as “no response.” The result? They seldom ended up engaging with voters on that issue. - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/uncommitted-leaders-stand-2024-strategy-trump-floats-gaza-takeover-rcna190782 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/uncommitted-le... So yeah, if there was one thing wrong with Harris, that would be it. That one issue would have changed the result, and as far as single issues go, I call genocide a pretty big one. It's kinda the biggest. Far from the only issue though - campaigning with Dick Cheney was pretty fucking stupid, for one thing. Then there was promising to be harsher on immigration than Trump. Promising the world's "most lethal" military (we already are?) while trying to gaslight broke Americans into believing the economy was great. In general, trying to pick up right wing votes was a heinous 'strategy'.

ta1243 2y ago
Well done for all the anti-israel-arming people. I hope they're happy with the outcome they wanted.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  To be fair, they're okay with what they got so long as they're not the ones getting it. Hamas is a hardline theocratic political party based on a very conservative interpretation of a religion. That means they're anti-free speech/press/religion/assembly, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-free enterprise, anti-secular jurisprudence, and anti-representative government. Neither of the Palestinian Territories have had meaningful elections in over a decade. They're utterly unwilling to discuss any sort of deviation from their foreign policy agenda in good faith. And yet, that's who many people on the political left-of-center see as the "freedom fighters" of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Is Israel blameless? Absolutely not. They've committed numerous war crimes and atrocities since October 7th. On the other hand, they have shown with Jordan and Egypt that if their neighbors agree to leave them alone, they'll do the same in turn. Fatah isn't that much better. Honestly it's a different flavor of the same kind of authoritarianism that many on the right in the US dream of. And with Trump, they're much closer to implementing this, albeit with a different religion. If the idea behind the 2024 election in the US was to prevent more people from coming under authoritarian rule on a global scale, the left in the US failed miserably. And I say that as someone on the political left.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    I don't know. I do know when I've worked in Gaza I've had to deal with Hamas because they are the defacto civil service. It's the same story we're seeing in the west though, from Hungary to America to Turkey to the UK. Strongman comes along and correctly says "your life sucks", then says "it sucks because of this group of people" Run with that message for generations, throw in members of "this group of people" actually killing your friends and family, and it's easy to see how that message works.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      > Run with that message for generations, throw in members of "this group of people" actually killing your friends and family, and it's easy to see how that message works. Oh, absolutely. But the way to solve that is to realize that it was authoritarianism that started the problem. If the Arab states had been willing to talk about the concept of a Jewish state in the Middle East immediately after WWII, this probably doesn't happen. Instead a bunch of authoritarian rulers (most of them monarchs) decided to send troops to try to snuff out the founding of the new state. "I was put here by God; what I say goes" was their entire experience, and they tried applying it to the geopolitical disagreement in their region. A bunch of countries who more-or-less sat out WWII were up against the survivors of industrialized state-backed efforts to wipe out their people during the bloodiest war in human history. As we know, the former lost, and with it, any real chance of establishing a meaningful state for the Palestinian people on their terms. There's two ways to handle a loss: you can accept it on reasonable terms, or you can keep digging a hole. Egypt and Jordan eventually came around to reasonable terms. So far, those terms have held over multiple governments and decades on both sides. If the continued method taken by Hamas (and by extension, Iran) is going to be that of violence, particularly against a state they have to know, deep down, that they can't beat, then there's not too much else to be done other than keep the region from falling further into chaos. That, whether it is right or wrong in the minds of American voters, means blunting the impact of enemy action against Israel. It's one of the bloodiest examples of realpolitik.
  - bloopernova 2y ago
    People weren't supporting hamas, they were condemning the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. That message was picked up by the russians etc and turned into a wedge issue on social media.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Another lazy $4 billion in arms to Israel two weeks ago...
- mandmandam 2y ago
  No, sorry, you don't get to declare moral superiority because people refused to vote for a candidate who promised to keep arming genocide. "The lesser genocide" is an incredibly weak campaign pitch, and that was proven. Everything Trump has done, from rearming Netanyahu, to allowing more bombing during a ceasefire, to making efforts for ethnic cleansing was initially proposed/endorsed by Biden; and Harris had promised to do the same. 77% of Democrat voters wanted an arms embargo. The vast majority of elected Dems keep voting to rearm. You can't blame voters for abandoning a party which point-blank refuses to even listen to them, never mind represent them.
  - ta1243 2y ago
    I'm not declaring anything, I'm just observing outcomes.
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      "Well done" ... "I hope they're happy" ... In case you weren't aware, that language isn't coming across as super-observational and not smug.
lenerdenator 2y ago
> All Harris had to do to win was promise to stop sending arms to Israel. Not sending arms to allies seems to be a good way to piss them off.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  Conducting genocide is supposed to be a good way to piss off "allies". That's domestic and international law, by the way.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    Well, what did putting Trump back into office do to stymie it?
    - mandmandam 2y ago
      That's not the point, and wasn't the question. The question was, why did Harris lose, and the answer is that many Americans are still too decent to vote for someone who promises to arm the world's most live-streamed genocide. Millions of potential Dem voters saw atrocities being committed with weapons sent by Biden and Harris. Every day, for over a year. Harris promised to keep doing that. That's viscerally disgusting, and a red line for decent people everywhere. That's why she lost, which answers the question. Polls before during and after the election back that up unequivocally. Now, you can argue that it's practical and more moral to vote for the lesser genocide all day, and you can point to all the ways that Trump is worse all night, but you can never, ever convince me that Democrats actually wanted to win more than they wanted to fuel genocide. Because they knew. They knew Harris' numbers, they knew the margins, and they knew what the polls were saying about Gaza. And then they campaigned with Dick Cheney. They managed to lose to a rapist insurrectionist, despite outspending him and his billionaires. One more time - it's not the voters fault that they couldn't stomach voting for someone actively enabling the mass murder of tens of thousands of children, even if the alternative was openly worse. And it's weird that this is in any way confusing to people.
righthand 2y ago
> All Harris had to do to win was promise to stop sending arms to Israel. That might be true but it would have set herself up for a lie that would then be weaponized by Trump for another four years. A lot of people in this country don’t want a liar in office, that’s why they didn’t vote Trump. So while she said she wouldn’t do anything different than Biden on immigration and not stop funding Israel. Those would have been lies if she did. Saying you’ll change things also builds distrust in past government and our well working systems. This rhetoric Trump champions and puts us in the problem we have today. We can see those lies in effect today as Trump ignores the voters he won from briefly talking about Gaza and still funding those wars.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  > it would have set herself up for a lie No. Committing genocide - murdering tens of thousands of children - nullifies any previous weapons contracts. That's obvious. Here's the specific law against it [0]. If you want to insist that Harris would be "forced" to keep arming Israel because of contracts, I do hope you'll have a read of it first. 0 - Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA), codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2304(a)
  - righthand 2y ago
    Unfortunately like Trump, that spending is out of her hands. That spending like all spending is set by the legislature through bills. She could have done nothing and saying she could is a lie you’re telling yourself.

ta1243 2y ago

Well done for all the anti-israel-arming people. I hope they're happy with the outcome they wanted.

lenerdenator 2y ago
To be fair, they're okay with what they got so long as they're not the ones getting it. Hamas is a hardline theocratic political party based on a very conservative interpretation of a religion. That means they're anti-free speech/press/religion/assembly, anti-LGBTQ rights, anti-free enterprise, anti-secular jurisprudence, and anti-representative government. Neither of the Palestinian Territories have had meaningful elections in over a decade. They're utterly unwilling to discuss any sort of deviation from their foreign policy agenda in good faith. And yet, that's who many people on the political left-of-center see as the "freedom fighters" of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Is Israel blameless? Absolutely not. They've committed numerous war crimes and atrocities since October 7th. On the other hand, they have shown with Jordan and Egypt that if their neighbors agree to leave them alone, they'll do the same in turn. Fatah isn't that much better. Honestly it's a different flavor of the same kind of authoritarianism that many on the right in the US dream of. And with Trump, they're much closer to implementing this, albeit with a different religion. If the idea behind the 2024 election in the US was to prevent more people from coming under authoritarian rule on a global scale, the left in the US failed miserably. And I say that as someone on the political left.
- ta1243 2y ago
  I don't know. I do know when I've worked in Gaza I've had to deal with Hamas because they are the defacto civil service. It's the same story we're seeing in the west though, from Hungary to America to Turkey to the UK. Strongman comes along and correctly says "your life sucks", then says "it sucks because of this group of people" Run with that message for generations, throw in members of "this group of people" actually killing your friends and family, and it's easy to see how that message works.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    > Run with that message for generations, throw in members of "this group of people" actually killing your friends and family, and it's easy to see how that message works. Oh, absolutely. But the way to solve that is to realize that it was authoritarianism that started the problem. If the Arab states had been willing to talk about the concept of a Jewish state in the Middle East immediately after WWII, this probably doesn't happen. Instead a bunch of authoritarian rulers (most of them monarchs) decided to send troops to try to snuff out the founding of the new state. "I was put here by God; what I say goes" was their entire experience, and they tried applying it to the geopolitical disagreement in their region. A bunch of countries who more-or-less sat out WWII were up against the survivors of industrialized state-backed efforts to wipe out their people during the bloodiest war in human history. As we know, the former lost, and with it, any real chance of establishing a meaningful state for the Palestinian people on their terms. There's two ways to handle a loss: you can accept it on reasonable terms, or you can keep digging a hole. Egypt and Jordan eventually came around to reasonable terms. So far, those terms have held over multiple governments and decades on both sides. If the continued method taken by Hamas (and by extension, Iran) is going to be that of violence, particularly against a state they have to know, deep down, that they can't beat, then there's not too much else to be done other than keep the region from falling further into chaos. That, whether it is right or wrong in the minds of American voters, means blunting the impact of enemy action against Israel. It's one of the bloodiest examples of realpolitik.
- bloopernova 2y ago
  People weren't supporting hamas, they were condemning the indiscriminate bombing of civilians. That message was picked up by the russians etc and turned into a wedge issue on social media.
BLKNSLVR 2y ago
Another lazy $4 billion in arms to Israel two weeks ago...
mandmandam 2y ago
No, sorry, you don't get to declare moral superiority because people refused to vote for a candidate who promised to keep arming genocide. "The lesser genocide" is an incredibly weak campaign pitch, and that was proven. Everything Trump has done, from rearming Netanyahu, to allowing more bombing during a ceasefire, to making efforts for ethnic cleansing was initially proposed/endorsed by Biden; and Harris had promised to do the same. 77% of Democrat voters wanted an arms embargo. The vast majority of elected Dems keep voting to rearm. You can't blame voters for abandoning a party which point-blank refuses to even listen to them, never mind represent them.
- ta1243 2y ago
  I'm not declaring anything, I'm just observing outcomes.
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    "Well done" ... "I hope they're happy" ... In case you weren't aware, that language isn't coming across as super-observational and not smug.

lenerdenator 2y ago

> All Harris had to do to win was promise to stop sending arms to Israel. Not sending arms to allies seems to be a good way to piss them off.

mandmandam 2y ago
Conducting genocide is supposed to be a good way to piss off "allies". That's domestic and international law, by the way.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  Well, what did putting Trump back into office do to stymie it?
  - mandmandam 2y ago
    That's not the point, and wasn't the question. The question was, why did Harris lose, and the answer is that many Americans are still too decent to vote for someone who promises to arm the world's most live-streamed genocide. Millions of potential Dem voters saw atrocities being committed with weapons sent by Biden and Harris. Every day, for over a year. Harris promised to keep doing that. That's viscerally disgusting, and a red line for decent people everywhere. That's why she lost, which answers the question. Polls before during and after the election back that up unequivocally. Now, you can argue that it's practical and more moral to vote for the lesser genocide all day, and you can point to all the ways that Trump is worse all night, but you can never, ever convince me that Democrats actually wanted to win more than they wanted to fuel genocide. Because they knew. They knew Harris' numbers, they knew the margins, and they knew what the polls were saying about Gaza. And then they campaigned with Dick Cheney. They managed to lose to a rapist insurrectionist, despite outspending him and his billionaires. One more time - it's not the voters fault that they couldn't stomach voting for someone actively enabling the mass murder of tens of thousands of children, even if the alternative was openly worse. And it's weird that this is in any way confusing to people.

righthand 2y ago

> All Harris had to do to win was promise to stop sending arms to Israel. That might be true but it would have set herself up for a lie that would then be weaponized by Trump for another four years. A lot of people in this country don’t want a liar in office, that’s why they didn’t vote Trump. So while she said she wouldn’t do anything different than Biden on immigration and not stop funding Israel. Those would have been lies if she did. Saying you’ll change things also builds distrust in past government and our well working systems. This rhetoric Trump champions and puts us in the problem we have today. We can see those lies in effect today as Trump ignores the voters he won from briefly talking about Gaza and still funding those wars.

mandmandam 2y ago
> it would have set herself up for a lie No. Committing genocide - murdering tens of thousands of children - nullifies any previous weapons contracts. That's obvious. Here's the specific law against it [0]. If you want to insist that Harris would be "forced" to keep arming Israel because of contracts, I do hope you'll have a read of it first. 0 - Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA), codified at 22 U.S.C. § 2304(a)
- righthand 2y ago
  Unfortunately like Trump, that spending is out of her hands. That spending like all spending is set by the legislature through bills. She could have done nothing and saying she could is a lie you’re telling yourself.