Comment by tastyface
6 hours ago
If half the voting population elects a vicious moron completely unsuitable for power, that's not the fault of the opposition. *They actively chose to vote for the fascist.*
Party of personal responsibility and all that.
There have been people that claimed they would have voted for the worst rulers registered in history before the dems; and at the same time John Bolton recurretly used the phrase "a cardboard cutout would be better than".
The question on whether they perceived (actually, whether they can perceive) what others like e.g. Bolton see is valid - nonetheless, you have to face that they explicitly, vocally refused to vote for the dems, "whatever it takes".
And the system in the USA is very broken - among the issues, there are only two options in the choice, with all the paradoxes it brings.
> If half the voting population elects a vicious moron completely unsuitable for power, that's not the fault of the opposition.
Don't let the opposition off the hook: as you said they lost to "a vicious moron completely unsuitable for power." How does someone fuck up an election like that so badly? It should have been a slam dunk.
It's the fault of the opposition for not doing a better job (at all manner of political competencies). One thing I've noticed over the last ten or so years, is that Democrats/Liberals/Progressives are very averse to admitting to and learning from their own mistakes. They'd much rather focus on blaming someone else for their own incompetence.
This is still unbelievable to me, up to this day. If the opposition choses to run for office with a moron, couldn't you at least find a candidate that is not demented.. You can't make this up..
You sure are letting the U.S. voter off the hook here…
> You sure are letting the U.S. voter off the hook here…
Because blaming the voters for not supporting you is foolish and stupid.
Not only do they have far less room to maneuver to express themselves (essentially through a single, unclear multiple-choice question), but blaming them prevents actual political actors from doing needed self-reflection and adjustments needed to win.
It's like if you had a failing business selling poop-in-a-bag, and focused on blaming your potential customers being too dumb to see how superior and high-quality your poop is. You think it's awesome, so they must be idiots! Stop wasting your time doing that, and re-evaluate the products you're selling. Maybe no one wants to buy poop?
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You're kinda correct but making the mistake that the democratic party is a uni-party and not a vibrant political group made up of hundreds of different vying interests.
There is only one group to blame and it's the same group that has controlled the party since the 90s: neoliberals. Neoliberals do not have a vision of the future worth fighting for, more corporate control, so it's not hard to see when other opposing forces can simply offer something different.
It's the same problem we saw in the 1920s that lead to growing fascism: pushing for austerity, more corporate control over society, and deregulation are all things that help fascists and authoritarians thrive.
I agree neoliberals are a very big part of the problem (and giving them the finger was one of Trump's trump cards, pardon the pun), but I don't think it stops there.
Another aspect, which applies to neoliberals and many other groups in the Democratic coalition, is the seeming abandonment the idea of representing voters (in a district) in favor of persuading/lecturing them. That really appeals to the true-believer partisans (who are getting represented), but alienates everyone else.
I'm pretty sure the Democrats would have at least 5 more Senate seats if they consistently ran candidates that focused on representing the state they're running in as a whole (and continued to do that after the election was over).
Factually, Harris as a candidate was orders of magnitude better than Trump: a boring, competent, left-leaning centrist. In a functioning society, a reactionary revolutionary like Trump -- complete with Project 2025 manifesto -- should have scraped off maybe 5-to-10% of the vote, almost regardless of his competition.
The problem wasn't really Harris, who got very close to half the vote. The problem is that half the voting population does not think that electing a fascist demagogue is that big of a deal, or compares favorably to electing a boring centrist. This suggests that our civic culture is fundamentally broken at the moment. You can't run a society like this!
> Factually, Harris as a candidate was orders of magnitude better than Trump: a boring, competent, left-leaning centrist.
OK, so now we know how you voted. What fraction of the electorate are you?
> The problem wasn't really Harris, who got very close to half the vote.
Which in this case is called "losing." Trump even won the popular vote that time.
> The problem is that half the voting population does not think that electing a fascist demagogue is that big of a deal, or compares favorably to electing a boring centrist.
IMHO, one of the Democrats' many fuck-ups was they overdid the "fascist demagogue" line of attack, basically neutering it.
It's pretty clear roughly what your political views are, but let me hazard a guess that you're far away from being a swing voter. IMHO, another one of the Democrats' fuck-ups was being unwilling to make their most loyal voters uncomfortable, and instead demanding that persuadable voters tolerate discomfort, which is a tough sell.
> This suggests that our civic culture is fundamentally broken at the moment. You can't run a society like this!
How very convenient! Doesn't that mean you don't have to adapt in any way that's uncomfortable to you?
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"…a woman who spent over a year committing genocide"
Wild, if true.