The same people in this thread blaming voters for how Kamala Harris ran their campaign were the same ones insisting we had to run Biden as the incumbent, and calling you a bit or a school if you said they needed to be replaced.

We wouldn't have this outcome if the people who've made it their entire identity to blame voters had placed their frustrations with the party and demanded better, sooner, when it could have made a material difference.

That means getting candidates elected in primaries that aren’t going to put us in the same trolley problem

You can also put pressure on candidates mid-campaign to change posture.

I can tell you this, the Venn Diagram of the people itt blaming voters for the Democrats supporting a genocide in 2024, and the people who didn't want Biden to step down is basically a perfect circle. Its also the same circle which shielded Harris from any critiques on her support for genocide.

While you and I can look at this and go “Wow, that’s not logical, she’s way better than Trump”, the Democratic campaign should have had political scientists and psychologists that knew about this well-documented phenomenon. I imagine they did, and ignored it, because siding against Israel would’ve cost money.

D and R parties both need independent voters to win any election. For example, even if every D voted for a D, they would lose without independents voting for them in significant numbers. This has been a political fact for many years.

So... why did the Harris campaign target REPUBLICAN voters (instead of Ds and independents)? They wasted a lot of vital time on that ("He doesn't need to know who you voted for" etc), and they knew that they would lose if they did so.

She knew it too, Harris isn't stupid. She took a knee.

yep, and the Dem leadership still support israel no matter what they do. They learned nothing and will try to set up the same voter hostage situation in every vote from now on.

While you and I can look at this and go “Wow, that’s not logical, she’s way better than Trump”, the Democratic campaign should have had political scientists and psychologists that knew about this well-documented phenomenon. I imagine they did, and ignored it, because siding against Israel would’ve cost money.

At the very least maybe the Dem party should have been smart enough lie publically that they would censor Israel and reevaluate US support of Israel (even if they wouldn't actually follow through). It's almost like losing is preferable to risking any AIPAC $.

I know people who felt that both sides at least tacitly supporting the genocide was so depressing that for their mental health they basically checked out of politics.

to do that in a democracy is beyond shameful.

You don't have to be invested at the grass roots or debating magats but you can still turn up at a polling station on election day, or do a fucking postal vote

Honestly, people behaving like Homo economicus is how you get MAGA.

Think about it. Isn't Trump's pitch to voters ultimately an argument in rational self-interest? It's all "I'll make an in group and an out group. You'll be in the in group. I'll pull up the in group while pushing down the out group."

Racism and sexism are rational. Or at least they are rational from those that benefit from them. Think about a white male living in the Jim Crows South. Your life was made soooo much easier by racism and sexism. There were whole career fields where they were the only quarter of the population that were eligible for them. They were automatically in the top quarter of society, simply by their race and sex.

Anti-immigrant zealotry is rational. If you're a native-born US citizen working in the construction industry? Every legal or illegal immigrant being deported would cause your standard of living to soar. Economists would tell you that on net it will harm the economy. But if suddenly the pool of construction workers is cut in half, any US citizen who knows how to swing a hammer is now rolling in dough. That's the rational terror of fascism - every time another group in the "first they came for" poem is liquidated, someone ends up with their property, their jobs, their place in the social order, etc.

You NEED to have a respect for persons built into your ethical framework, or else you can end up justifying evils of all sorts, all in the name of the greater good. Hell, Dr. Mengele slept well every night, content in the knowledge that he was doing the greatest good for the greatest number.

People preaching harm reduction whose candidates only ever increase harm over the last offering know this. They're arguing in bad faith.

As planned.