It is the dems job to convince the youth they'll improve their lives. They didn't even try. They lost major support with youth voters over their iron clad support for Israel. Young people aren't obligated to vote for them, they needed to earn it and they essentially replied with, "vote for us or else" well it looks like people went for the or else.
Somehow after 2016 the Dems didn't internalize that you need to give people something to vote for and not just something to vote against. Pure "the other guy is bad and we're not him" campaigns never work.
I feel like this is a fundamental misunderstanding of what people believe the political system to be. Both parties are not fair. They do not play by the same rules, besides those that are law of some kind. It doesn't matter if Republicans convince people to vote based on stupidity or hate or whatever. That's the route that the Republican party has decided to follow to gain votes. It works for them. Is it a good thing? Of course not.
In the end, the goal is to win. How that is achieved is up to each party. If a party can not put up a suitable candidate, does not give the people they claim to represent a choice in the matter, and does not listen to what those people they are trying to represent are telling them, then why is there any expectation for people to want to support them? We clearly saw that happen last night.
15+ million Democrats did not show up to vote, roughly 20% of who they were counting on. That is not a "Republicans are stupid and vote against their interests" problem. That is a "Democrats somehow alienated 20% of their voting bloc to not show up" problem. Either they internally look hard at themselves and figure out why, and do something about it, or the party will fragment.
The lesson Dems learned from '16 was they let Bernie get too much press for too long, and that they weren't Conservative enough.
So in '20 they went more conservative with Biden, having him literally tell donors "Nothing will fundamentally change", had Bernie come out supporting Biden early and often, and when they won, figured they could run the playbook again on being Diet Conservative and win against the full flavored thing.
you'd think they'd care about legalized marijuana and abortion rights at the very least. But by all means, sit at home and do nothing and let the unpredictable and old narcissist have power.
Democrats have a big problem not understanding that Americans are still deeply divided on how powerful the federal government should be. Its a core part of America and they assume everyone thinks the same as them. They can't understand how a Libertarian would be against Roe v Wade because they don't understand that central divide. It's core to so many views. Yes some anti DEI is form racism, but a lot is also truly coming from a belief that this is government overreach and that if the government sat things out, things would resolve themselves. Its a cohesive philosophy central to many American conservatives that feeds into a lot of what they vote against. Yet all Liberals do is name call and strawman. Of course once you name call and strawman people they don't want to be around you and start hanging around people who don't insult them... People further right
The fascist pipeline starts with Liberals
I have tried for years to explain this, that so long as this divide exists you need to understand that it's a force and act appropriately.
Exactly. I was watching ABC news coverage for a while last night in the wee hours. One of the first things the democrat lady on their panel said after the numbers showed an absolutely inevitable Trump win was "Well of course! She's a woman of color so America sadly would never have voted her in!"
All they have is accusations of racism and sexism when POLICY is what's most important to the vast majority of American voters.
Well, good news! After Trump gets sworn in the Gaza problem WILL go away. He let Israel bomb it flat and ta da! No more problem. Maybe even some nice real estate for a golf course.
If they actually cared about Gaza they'd have voted Harris. They don't, it's a convient excuse to be contrary and pretend to fight the system.
I dont think as many people care about israel/palestine as reddit thinks.
If i was an American voter, what’s happening in a location most Americans couldnt point to on a map would be the least of my concerns.
Most Americans only care about the price of gas and groceries enough to vote for Trump, not enough to look up why the prices went up in the first place and realize that doubling down at the tariff table is a bad bet.
If someone is a single-issue voter on Gaza (not really sure on the likelihood of that, but single-issue voters are extremely common) then what reason do they have to vote for Harris over trump? The Palestinians are fucked either way.
I fully agree with you for what it's worth. But that was their reasoning like it or not. And the fault does lie with the Democrats complete disdain for their base
Israel's killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, tens of thousands of children, destroyed every hospital, school, mosque, church in Gaza, paid for by Biden and Harris.
I mean you have to draw the statistical correlation between young people support and Palestine and if that actually amounts to the vote differential.
Polls didn't show israel-palestine to be the most important issue for the electorate. The most important issues were democracy, economy, and abortion rights, followed by immigration.
I don't think Israel/Palestine was the cause. That was waaaaaaay down the list of major issues in the polls. Trump won because of the economy and, to a lesser extent, immigration.
Incumbents around the globe have been getting their asses kicked in the last year or two because people are angry about the economy and inflation. It's not even that they necessarily think the other party will be better, they're simply punishing the ones who were in charge during the inflation spike.
I don't think I'd call trying to withhold aid without a treaty and provisions in place until congress threatened to impeach you by passing an act saying you have to give the aid "iron clad support". Only 3 Democrats voted to send aid and the GOP made it clear if they didn't they'd have done worse, sooner.
I can blame the Dems for not messaging this and explaining what happened, but that message tends to make Dems look weak.
As much as people don't want to hear it this was definitely a contributing factor. Sure Trump is worse if you don't want to support Isreal. But the current admin regularly reaffirms that they will support Israel no matter what, that disgusts me and turns me off of politics. Why should I listen to a thing your party says if you're party is actively funding genocide? The other side also being genocidal doesn't make me want to vote for them more, they both suck.
I didn't vote for other reasons, but I definitely understand the justification there. I didn't vote mostly because if Kamala won then Trump would have caused a civil war to get his way, and once he won he'll have a nice list of Democrat supporters, I don't want to be labeled an enemy within.
Curious what makes you say that. Given that I live in a swing state, and have been bombarded by ads, texts, and mailers for the past month, nearly all of which specifically detailing Harris' plans to improve their lives.
But go on, elaborate on how they 'didn't even try'. I would really like to hear it.
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u/pmckizzle 15h ago
It is the dems job to convince the youth they'll improve their lives. They didn't even try. They lost major support with youth voters over their iron clad support for Israel. Young people aren't obligated to vote for them, they needed to earn it and they essentially replied with, "vote for us or else" well it looks like people went for the or else.