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8 votes
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Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me"
I will preface this by stating I'm not an American, and I certainly don't claim to speak for everyone. I'm also not against voting in principle, and in my own country I prefer to vote when I can,...
I will preface this by stating I'm not an American, and I certainly don't claim to speak for everyone. I'm also not against voting in principle, and in my own country I prefer to vote when I can, and have done so most of the time. But there were times when I chose not to, and there was a time when I regretted voting. I've also been browsing the English internet for a long time, which is dominated by Americans, and I've been part of English-speaking leftie spaces for a while too, which are also dominated by Americans. I base my post on these experiences.
There's a lot to be said on this topic, but I will try to briefly explain a key point I've been able to put into words only recently. Being a leftist, not a left-leaning person or a "leftist" that just means left-leaning liberal, but a genuine leftist, is a weird experience. You have a lot of issues close to your heart. You spend a great deal of time and energy learning to criticize the systems you live under, whether they be capitalism, nation-state, or some cultural hierarchy. You already feel alienated from most people on political issues, because you hold wildly unpopular opinions, and people treat you like a weird person for it. You get into a lot of arguments and conflicts as a result, which often result in further alienation. After all, refusing the status quo is not an easy thing to do, and it often leads to social isolation at some level. It's not predestined, and it's not all-encompassing, but you can't help but feel alienated from most. Their ideas, their ideologies, the things they endorse—it all seems, to put it mildly, a little bit insane.
Then comes the election season, and you realize the politicians of the supposed major """left""" option, which is actually just relatively left compared to the insanely right alternative(s), never take you seriously. They never voice policies that speak to your sensibilities, wishes, beliefs, morality, and principles. They always voice par for the course arguments, and obviously don't care for what you want.
Then, people that are part of the "normal" politics start making the same arguments. In my experience, this happens regardless of the country we're talking about.
- You should still vote for us. The other side is worse.
- If you don't vote for us, you're a traitor.
- A vote not cast for us is a vote cast for them (interestingly, the opposite of this is never voiced: "a vote not cast for them is a vote for us.")
- I don't approve of them in every way either, but this is the lesser of two evils.
- This is not the time to be having these arguments. It's a time for unity.
- This is the only option possible.
- You're not voting out of privilege. (extremely untrue, can even be called an outright lie)
- You should be logical and not emotional. Vote with your brain, not your heart. Be an adult.
The last item on thist list, I think, strikes at the heart of this post. People expect you to be this ultra-rational decision-making machine, "pragmatic" to the core, always willing to shut up and toe the line when it matters, without a care for what you want. But they don't expect this from anyone else (barring minorities). The far-right, right-wingers, centrists, liberals, people satistified with par for the course politics—they all get to voice their wishes, wants, opinions. They all get to act according to their own emotions, without critically examining their own beliefs, ideology, behavior. They all get concessions made to them by politicans. They all get to have a say. But not you. You should shut the fuck up and vote for them. You don't get a say.
They take it for granted that you would vote for them, that's why they never take what you want seriously. They give tons of shits about every other group, which are all part of the status quo politics, but they never give a shit about you. That's why they never make concessions to you.
At some point, naturally, you realize how hypocritical, unfair, and insidious this is. You may not consciously know it, or even be able to put it into words, but deep down you feel it: everybody else gets one, but not you. Then they seriously expect you to support them. And when you don't, they go on a witch hunt, labeling you a traitor.
For example, they expect you to be fine with "your" candidate supporting a genocide, even though this is the worst possible thing a country can do, and then be baffled when you don't take this well. And god forbid, if you "act emotionally" and have your own worldview and sensibilities, like every other group does, and not vote for them, you get labeled a traitor. These people don't realize that their own eagerness to so readily uphold the status quo politics, resulting in your own wishes and values getting eternally ignored, brings about your response.
So, I think this is why a lot of leftists don't vote when they prefer not to. I suspect this also applies to other demographics, such as minorities that get overlooked. And as long as the status quo politics ignores this problem, it won't be solved.
I think, for other people like me, something we can do is to voice why we don't vote when we choose not to. Because the status quo politicians and their supporters seem very eager to get the wrong message, which is "we need to move further right". This, of course, doesn't work, because right-wingers choose the original instead of the imitation anyway.
What I'm saying, I guess, is a very simple democratic process. If you want people to vote for you, you have to take them and what they want seriously, and at the very least make concessions to them. If you do not, they probably won't, and you can't blame them for it. This is how it works for every demographic. So, instead of blaming potential and future voters and supporters, you should criticize the party that failed to get their support.
41 votes -
Donald Trump didn't win on the US economy. He won on the perception of it.
31 votes -
Authoritarians like Donald Trump love fear, defeatism, surrender. Do not give them what they want.
32 votes -
How Donald Trump won, and how Kamala Harris lost
17 votes -
Saul Williams • KILL THE MACHINE ("Over my dead body")
5 votes -
Why US Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan
30 votes -
Thoughts on a Democratic postmortem
So Trump won. Next few years are gonna be rough, I know. What happened, and where can the Dems go from here? James Carville said it best: It’s the economy, stupid (even if he predicted the wrong...
So Trump won. Next few years are gonna be rough, I know. What happened, and where can the Dems go from here?
James Carville said it best: It’s the economy, stupid (even if he predicted the wrong candidate). Inflation was a big concern among voters, mostly driven by gas, groceries, and housing. Rightly or wrongly, many voters tied this to Biden, and through him to Harris. They viewed Trump as being likelier to fix things, with a big bold plan (tariffs, deportations, tax cuts). I suspect some (many?) voters wanted to punish Dems for inflation. Others probably thought Harris would worsen it. While she had a long proposal, she didn’t seem to talk about it much, nor boil it down to soundbites. Many of the demos that swung were hit hard by the price increases.
We saw swings among Latinos, young voters, and rural voters toward Trump. Some of this was due to depressed D turnout (Harris got 15 million fewer votes than Biden), but in other cases it was due to genuine swings. Starr County, TX went Republican for the first time in decades. New Jersey only went for Harris by single digit percentages. Black voters had a small 2% decline of the share of the electorate.
I think non-immigration identity politics played a smaller role. I do think Harris/Walz could’ve talked more about men’s issues specifically (suicide, the academic gap, poor job prospects), although they are hard to soundbiteify and not sound forced. They likely could've approached it from a universalist angle. Trans issues might’ve driven some voters to Trump, but I believe it was more localized (e.g., reduced margins in Loudoun County). Latinos likely weren’t particularly turned off of Trump because they aren’t a cohesive bloc, and in many cases not even the same race (you’ve got whites, indigenous, blacks, mixed, even Asian Latinos). Between the countries the cultures can be very different, to the point of each country hating the other. They can be more socially conservative as well, especially those in their 40s and older.
Immigration was definitely a bigger issue, dovetailing with economic issues (housing costs, “why are migrants getting help but not me”, homelessness). The migrant bussing by Gov. Abbott will be viewed as one of the greatest political maneuvers of the 21st century. It brought the issue to voters outside of border states. The number of people coming to the border was frustrating/scary for some voters.
Abortion didn’t play as big of a role, I suspect because many women don’t think they’ll need one, or because they don’t view care that legally may qualify as one.
The state of democracy didn’t motivate enough people for the Dems, in fact, some people who thought it was important voted for Trump.
Foreign policy didn’t play much of a role, although Israel/Palestine probably was significant in Michigan. But that needle would’ve been hard to thread for any candidate, and probably would’ve been less of a problem if other points were addressed.
I think the fact that Harris is a biracial woman did reduce votes, but I don’t think it was necessarily decisive in her losing. The right woman can definitely win (Thatcher won the U.K. in 1979, so it should be possible in the U.S. in 2024). I would probably hold off in 2028, but I don’t see an issue with running women long-term.
So, what are the takeaways for Dems?
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Suburban white-collar voters are not the end-all be-all. They are a good bloc to have (reliable voters in many swing states, including in off-years), but they are not enough to outweigh the others.
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You cannot take minority demographics for granted. They will not stay with you forever. They are not monolithic.
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Social policy can only go so far. Its salience can be quite limited compared to the economy. Negatives can be very negative, white positives may be “meh”.
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Running against someone, rather than for yourself only works so many times.
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You can only have so many issues stacked against you and be able to win. If it was just the economy, it might’ve been closer, but you had the economy, and immigration, and social policy, and Israel/Palestine.
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The average voter does not account for lag in terms of policy. Trump got credit for a good economy even though Obama did a lot of the work.
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Places that are or have been “safe” are not guaranteed to stay like that forever, especially when paired with point 2, without work.
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NatCon populism is here to stay. The combination of left-ish economics and social conservativism, propelled by apathetics and the hard right is a winning one, and needs to be countered accordingly.
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Many folks view Democrats as being the “mom” or “Karen from HR” party. That is not the kind of reputation that wins elections.
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It’s the economy, stupid.
Based on that, what would my strategy be for Dems in 2026/2028?
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Clean house. The folks in charge lost 2024 and only barely won 2020. Care needs to be taken to ensure replacements have sufficient political/management experience.
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Don’t be the party of why/if. Be the party of do. The former implies insecurity, the latter confidence.
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Bring back the 50-state strategy. Open offices in rural areas. States viewed as safely blue came awfully close to flipping for Trump this year. But the reverse can also be true, especially with a good candidate (cf. Indiana in 2008 ). And even if the presidential candidate loses, downballot candidates can still win, especially in off-years. I think the Dems had a good ground game, and while it cannot make up for everything else, it’s usually better to have it than not. Local elections matter a lot because they have stronger day-to-day impact, and they are the breeding ground for future politicians. North Carolina had several good Dem victories.
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Focus on economics. Moderate suburbanites aren’t enough to win on, and many people like Trumponomics. Go for smart tariffs, universal policies (e.g., Child Tax Credit, universal Medicare, etc), targeted tax cuts and increases along with tax code simplification, and one other oddball policy (withdrawal from the WTO? Annual gas tax holiday?) likely to be popular with voters.
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Social moderation/tolerance. The party is a big tent one, and there’s going to be friction over social issues. This doesn’t mean abandoning core constituencies, but being smarter about rhetoric and candidates (you won’t win the Georgia governorship with an Everytown candidate). Candidates should be allowed to have differing views on social policy (especially if it is personal and doesn’t extend to the political realm), and there should be a mechanism to allow dissent on an issue an individual is out of touch on. Related: get the loudest social progressives away from the party. They frequently clash with it but manage to tie the party to an unpopular viewpoint with something they said on Xitter/Tik Tok. I did like the initial message of freedom the Harris campaign was putting out, but it didn’t seem to be used much.
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Turnout still matters. You need to be able to turn out more people for you than the other guy.
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(My weird, hot take-ish view) Go on an offensive cyber campaign. You’ve got Russian operatives shilling for Trump and the GOP. Hack them. Make it so they can’t just continuously pump out disinfo. Even a few million should be enough to establish a unit dedicated to fucking up Russian troll farms.
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(Courtesy of @EgoEimi) Go for the reality TV angle. Lots of rallies, some political stunts, and bring loads of energy.
One final thought: Trump is a sui generis candidate. He energizes people who aren’t into politics normally. Thus far, the GOP hasn’t been able to translate that into off-year elections or non-Trump POTUS candidates. Nobody wants diet Trump, they want the real deal. When he passes away, it remains to be seen whether someone (Vance?) can take over with the same level of success.
75 votes -
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4 votes -
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40 votes -
Ezra Klein reminisces with Jon Stewart about right wing US media, social media, the rise of Donald Trump, cancel culture and where to go from here
12 votes -
Yes, elections produce stupid results. Is there an alternative?
7 votes -
British government urged to pause financial cooperation with Egypt until UK national Alaa Abd el-Fattah freed
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Jeff Bezos vetoed Washington Post plan to endorse Kamala Harris, paper reports
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56 votes -
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Devin James Stone (Legal Eagle) presents his legal reasoning for public endorsing Kamala Harris
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Georgia voter cancellation site
33 votes -
Donald Trump wants the US military used against Americans who don't support him
59 votes -
These five tumultuous years in Montreal shaped Kamala Harris
20 votes -
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5 votes -
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13 votes -
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64 votes -
Continuing crackdown on churches and NGOs moves Nicaragua further from democracy to authoritarianism
8 votes -
Look at this photo of Ursula von der Leyen’s new team – and tell me the EU doesn’t have a diversity problem
16 votes -
USA folks, don't forget to register to vote
87 votes -
The rise of the right-wing tattletale
11 votes -
Russia is changing its nuclear doctrine - atomic coercion, Ukraine and the nuclear threshold
18 votes -
China is ready for war (and thanks to a crumbling defense industrial base, America is not)
20 votes -
Donald Trump trials - Megathread - US Federal Jan 6 case with Special Counsel Jack Smith
Court of Appeals disclosed congressmember Scott Perry's texts re Trump, then removed them
31 votes -
Hamas was created and supported by Israel to oppose the seculars, divide Palestinians, and destroy the two-state solution
This is a historical analysis of the subject, as such, it deserves its own topic. I'm using several sources. By using different sources of good to high quality, my aim is to create a historical...
This is a historical analysis of the subject, as such, it deserves its own topic. I'm using several sources. By using different sources of good to high quality, my aim is to create a historical explanation based on convergence of evidence—the idea that difference sources supporting the argument makes for a much more robust case.
I quote the passages I deem most relevant. Also, in order to boost credibility, I give a Media Bias/Fact Check profile about factuality of the each main source.
The Japan Times — Israel's historical role in the rise of Hamas
MB/FC Profile — Factual Reporting: High
The international focus on the war in Gaza has helped obscure the fact that Israel in the 1980s aided the rise of the Islamist Hamas as a rival to the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization and its dominant faction, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah. Israel’s policy was clearly influenced by the U.S. training and arming of mujahideen (or Islamic holy warriors) in Pakistan from multiple countries to wage jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
(...)
Hamas, for its part, is alleged to have emerged out of the Israeli-financed Islamist movement in Gaza, with Israel’s then-military governor in that territory, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, disclosing in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists to counter the rising power of Palestinian secularists. Hamas, a spin-off of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was formally established with Israel’s support soon after the first Intifada flared in 1987 as an uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands.
Israel’s objective was twofold: to split the nationalist Palestinian movement led by Arafat and, more fundamentally, to thwart the implementation of the two-state solution for resolving the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By aiding the rise of an Islamist group whose charter rejected recognizing the Israeli state, Israel sought to undermine the idea of a two-state solution, including curbing Western support for an independent Palestinian homeland.
Israel’s spy agency Mossad played a role in this divide-and-rule game in the occupied territories. In a 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception,” Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky contended that aiding Hamas meshed with “Mossad’s general plan” for an Arab world “run by fundamentalists” that would reject “any negotiations with the West,” thereby leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official involved in Gaza for over two decades, told a newspaper interviewer in 2009 that, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.”
(...)
Israel, by contrast, persisted with its covert nexus with Hamas. With the consent of Israel, Qatar, a longtime sponsor of jihadi groups, funneled $1.8 billion to Hamas just between 2012 and 2021, according to the Haaretz newspaper.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been in power for much of the past decade and a half, told a meeting of his Likud Party’s Knesset members in 2019 that, “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” adding, “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
The Intercept — Blowback: How Israel Went From Helping Create Hamas to Bombing It
MB/FC Profile — Factual Reporting: Mostly Factual
But did you also know that Hamas — which is an Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement” — would probably not exist today were it not for the Jewish state? That the Israelis helped turn a bunch of fringe Palestinian Islamists in the late 1970s into one of the world’s most notorious militant groups? That Hamas is blowback?
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. Listen to former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. Segev later told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a “counterweight” to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel.”)
“The Israeli government gave me a budget,” the retired brigadier general confessed, “and the military government gives to the mosques.”
“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Back in the mid-1980s, Cohen even wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. “I … suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face,” he wrote.
They didn’t listen to him. And Hamas, as I explain in the fifth installment of my short film series for The Intercept on blowback, was the result. To be clear: First, the Israelis helped build up a militant strain of Palestinian political Islam, in the form of Hamas and its Muslim Brotherhood precursors; then, the Israelis switched tack and tried to bomb, besiege, and blockade it out of existence.
(...)
“When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake,” David Hacham, a former Arab affairs expert in the Israeli military who was based in Gaza in the 1980s, later remarked. “But at the time, nobody thought about the possible results.”
The Times of Israel — For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
MB/FC Profile — Factual Reporting: High
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.
The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
(...)
Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015.
According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
While Netanyahu does not make these kind of statements publicly or officially, his words are in line with the policy that he implemented.
The same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.
Reuters — EU's Borrell says Israel financed creation of Gaza rulers Hamas
MB/FC Profile — Factual Reporting: Very High
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Friday that Israel had financed the creation of Palestinian militant group Hamas, publicly contradicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has denied such allegations.
Opponents of the Israeli government and some global media have accused Natanyahu governments of boosting Gaza rulers Hamas for years, including by allowing Qatari financing of Gaza.
"Yes, Hamas was financed by the government of Israel in an attempt to weaken the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah," Borrell said in a speech in the University of Valladolid in Spain without elaborating.
45 votes -
Emotions are running high in EU foreign policy – and that's ok
6 votes -
A weakened Hezbollah is being goaded into all-out conflict with Israel – the consequences would be devastating for all
27 votes -
USA: "The undecided voters are not who you think they are"
37 votes -
Your politics are boring as fuck
17 votes -
Anti-immigration mood sweeping EU capitals puts strain on bloc’s unity. From Germany’s border checks to France’s vow to restore order, rejection of open borders could threaten Schengen zone.
13 votes -
US Republicans’ electoral college edge, once seen as ironclad, looks to be fading
23 votes -
How the Islamic State weaponizes imitation in its propaganda
4 votes -
Data finds US Republican areas search more frequently for transgender porn
41 votes -
The shapeshifter: who is the real Giorgia Meloni?
7 votes -
Finland's President Alexander Stubb has called for expansion of the UN Security Council, abolition of its single state veto power, and suspension of any member engaging in an “illegal war”
41 votes -
An Israeli and a Palestinian discuss 7 October, Gaza – and the future
8 votes