Vincent Oriedo, a biotechnology scientist, had just such a question. What lessons have been learned, he asked, from Harris’s defeat in this vital swing county in a crucial battleground state that voted for Joe Biden four years ago, and how are the Democrats applying them?

“They did not answer the question,” he said.

“It tells me that they haven’t learned the lessons and they have their inner state of denial. I’ve been paying careful attention to the influencers within the Democratic party. Their discussions have centred around, ‘If only we messaged better, if only we had a better candidate, if only we did all these superficial things.’ There is really a lack of understanding that they are losing their base, losing constituencies they are taking for granted.”

“We have set ourselves up for generational loss because we keep promoting from within leaders that that do not criticise the moneyed interests. They refuse to take a hard look at what Americans actually believe and meet those needs.”

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    159 hours ago

    Dems lost, because Americans are idiots. There’s no deeper meaning. Americans elected a con man for the second time. Con man, second fucking time. They knew how bad he is, because he already was president, yet they still voted for him. It blows my mind. No other explanation is needed, Americans are literally the dumbest pieces of shit on the face of the planet. I wish them the worst. They deserve what’s coming to them.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      58 hours ago

      That is true, if you ignore voter suppression, winner take all, the electoral college, disenfranchising felons, redistricting, and all the other bullshit.

      Of course Americans still need to step up and solve the problems, but if all you can do is blame the victims … to put it nicely … it tells us a lot about your personality.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        11 hour ago

        The fact that he won the popular vote this time makes most of those irrelevant. Not the voter suppression and felon disenfranchisement.

        Although one felon is super-duper enfranchised!

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      28 hours ago

      If they were such idiots and so easy to manipulate then the responsibility still falls on the democrats for fumbling and such a supposedly easy demographic

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      28 hours ago

      There is a way in which you are right. Americans elected the worst possible candidate who will make drastic changes that hurt them in the long run, but also that’s because the system in general, including democrats have been unwilling to make changes rapidly enough to address the major problems of the country. So, they took fast, bad change over slow, mediocre good change.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    2313 hours ago

    The small concession is that Trump is almost undoubtedly going to trip over his dick, so we’ll probably end up with a blue wave of some sort in 2028. Nothing will change for the DNC and no lessons will be learned, so 2032 looks bleak as shit.

    We need to understand that Dems are not going to fight for anyone besides their donors. They’d rather lose than take pointers from someone like Bernie

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      53 hours ago

      From now on, the elections are rigged. The media is almost entirely fascist- or oligarch-controlled (to the extent that there’s a difference). The courts are so corrupted that there will be no justice from them until they are purged.

      But yeay, just sit there complacently and wait for the pendulum to swing. That’ll work.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        12 hours ago

        Lol @ the people who think they can vote themselves back out of this mess. Trump made it quite clear that “You won’t have to vote anymore” after this term. I for one believe him. Even if he dies you’ll just get saddled with one of his sons, daughter, son-in-law, …

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      6
      edit-2
      8 hours ago

      I’ve been hearing blue wave since 2016, it’s almost 10 years now. Where is this blue wave, democrats barely got majorities, but hardly what I would call a wave. It’s not going to happen in the next midterms, just another razor thin majority where some of the supposed Democrats vote alongside republicams to fuck over the people.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
      link
      fedilink
      English
      811 hours ago

      we’ll probably end up with a blue wave of some sort in 2028

      Don’t worry, that will get fucked up, too. A bunch of blue dogs who the DNC supports will win and they’ll claim that it’s a evidence that progressives can’t win.

      I’ve been through this bullshit enough times to have learned the pattern

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    1513 hours ago

    Corporations and Republicans control the media. Putin deployed psyops on the social media of the bar room and bowling alley crowd. They controlled the narrative and will continue to control it until people wake up and realize they have become wage slaves who have a shit-hole standard of living.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      410 hours ago

      If Democrats hadn’t made a bunch of unnecessary and unforced errors, then we could blame it on the corpos and the Russians.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      813 hours ago

      And what are you going to do about it next time? Otherwise the same thing will happen again.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        38 hours ago

        Same thing they do every cycle. Move as far to the right as possible and tell anyone who doesn’t like it that they will be voting as instructed because the alternative isn’t second worst.

        It doesn’t matter that they have seen that strategy fail twice against the same guy. Centrists would rather have fascism than move to the left for any reason on any issue.

    • KillingTimeItself
      link
      fedilink
      English
      112 hours ago

      and until lefties learn that bitching about whether it was actually the DNC that made them lose or the fact that it was actually just minorities not voting hard enough or whatever cope people are using these days. This will keep working, that’s the problem.

      Everybody loves to shit on the left and the DNC when it’s convenient, and then leech off of them when possible, while ignoring all the positives that have been gained through even an admittedly flawed institution.

      Unfortunately none of this matters if the republicans psyop everybody in america, at the end of the day we have to win not winning, IS losing, and losing is simply not sustainable.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    6
    edit-2
    10 hours ago

    Dems will keep losing until they figure out which demographics they can’t afford to betray.

    They thought LGBT and women would buy the last election and betrayed Unions, Nortenios, and Muslims. Like it wouldn’t have a consequence, then they lost the southwest (Nortenio) and midwest (Union and Muslim).

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1
        edit-2
        3 hours ago

        Yep, like Trump does it. Just change your message depending on the exact crowd you’re talking to. It just requires a level of cynicism that the Democrats (and civilized people in general) seem to find distasteful.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      48 hours ago

      I think they’ll keep backing their corporate funders until the people bail on them and all move to a different political organization. Someday.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    5618 hours ago

    Trump pretty much won on optics alone and positioning himself once again as looking out for people despite not being true at all. Dems didn’t want to address people’s issues with the economy and did the weird thing of tap dancing for right Dick Cheney voters who don’t exist.

    Just stand for something, even if the risk of loss is high. It pays off in the end.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod
      link
      fedilink
      English
      411 hours ago

      Trump won on optics because the optics on the ground matched what he was saying. Democrats insisted the economy was fine when people were hurting, and lost because of that.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      311 hours ago

      The slimy bullshit artist politician that lies about everything seems to be what people expect, like it’s the devil they know.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1016 hours ago

      I am convinced that the assassination attempt secured him the win. I’m not American so maybe I’m way off, but over here that felt like the pivotal moment. It’s still annoying how GOOD that picture is.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1514 hours ago

        As a democrat who still voted for Harris, i think it was the fact that Biden promised to be a 1 ter president, but the DNC didn’t want to run another primary because that would show how unpopular the neolibs in control of the party are, and they risk losing control of the party.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          712 hours ago

          Yeah! I very vividly remember him saying he will be a 1 term president. Haven’t read about it anywhere

      • OBJECTION!
        link
        fedilink
        611 hours ago

        Nah. At the moment it seemed like a really big deal but then it just kinda faded into the background after a news cycle. Nobody can tell you what day it happened on without googling.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        915 hours ago

        It helped bounce back with momentum. Harris was actually doing good when she was on the attack and pointing out how weird modern republicans are. Trump is the text book example of failing upwards.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    63
    edit-2
    19 hours ago

    Every breakdown and postmortem i see make it pretty clear:

    If you paid close attention and were well-informed, you voted for Kamala.

    If you believe things aren’t true or didn’t pay close attention, you voted for Trump as a sort of totem for wealth and success, not because of a specific policy of his you like. He just represents making lots of money to you.

    Any grappling with what went wrong or improvements needed within the DNC first needs to reckon with the reality that people aren’t seeing left-wing messaging and are instead exposed to a fake version of leftism pushed constantly by right-wing actors on social media.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      43 hours ago

      They didn’t vote for Trump as a totem of wealth and success. They voted for him as their embodiment of rage, performative cruelty and payback against all the people in the US who make them feel like backwards losers. They identify with him because he’s a raving asshole, and they instinctively kiss his ass because he presents himself as a grotesque WWE caracature of the rich.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      712 hours ago

      Left wing messaging is all focused on logic and targeted to the well-informed. They have no emotional message for the poorly educated, and that’s a stupid mistake. I thought these were supposed to be the smart people? Zero EQ.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      3018 hours ago

      Everyone complains about poor Democratic messaging but when are we going to admit that as long as Republicans own all major media platforms, any messaging by Democrats is going to be distorted into nonsense by the media?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        210 hours ago

        If American bombs kill American citizens shit will hit the fans. Gaza was going to kill Biden no mater what and the dumb bastard doubled down.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      2518 hours ago

      I think a lot of people have problems with the Democratic Party being bought by the billionaires as well …and supporting genocidal regimes.

      I voted for Harris but you boiled it down to a few lines and missed a lot of reasons why I think a significant amount of Americans didn’t vote at all.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        310 hours ago

        Nobody cares about genocide, man. Nobody is even talking about it anymore. Trump wasn’t the “ANTI-GeNoCIdE” candidate, and anyone with half a brain knew that ensuring Trump’s candidacy was not going to stop GENOCIDAL REGIMES.

        Now we have President Pump n Dump promoting a shitcoin for his inauguration, because the SCOTUS wrote Trump a blank check for corruption. Anyone idiot enough to believe Trump was gonna stop genocide should go long on his memecoin.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          29 hours ago

          You’re missing the point. No one thought Trump was the “anti-genocide” candidate. The people who DO care about Palestine knew that Biden was arming and facilitating genocide, and they heard Harris when she promised more of the same. Trump also supporting the genocide clearly wasn’t enough to get lots of those people to vote against him. You can call them stupid, or short-sighted, or whatever names you want, but the reality is that it’s not enough to point at the GOP and say that they’re also pro-genocide.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        1016 hours ago

        I voted for Harris, but I think that they’re missing the point. They needed to win over more people with their candidate. You still have to be popular and you don’t have a divine mandate because your opposition is intolerable.

        I am a demographic Dems claim to champion, but I haven’t ever seen that support materialize. Somehow they never help me. I vote Dem because I like Rep less. I get not liking Dem as a party. I don’t like them either. This is very prevalent within my communities. It drives voter apathy and pushes moderates to the right. They’re viewed as incompetent in addition to being just bought and paid for as Reps.

        They haven’t had a genuine primary in decades. They haven’t tried to connect with small-midsize cities in decades. They’ve completely failed to communicate with their average voters and that is THEIR job to do that. The last minimum wage increase was signed into law by Bush and then Dems sat on their thumbs for three terms. I do not accept “I tried.” I need a party that can win those battles. I’ve tried engaging with my local Democrats, but I get boilerplate responses. I’m fairly sure they’re all chatbots at this point.

        And most importantly, it’s hard to root for a perpetual loser. Even when they win they still lose and can’t do anything. It’s never their fault. They just never do anything. I need someone intelligent enough to win. Dems don’t provide that.

        They’ll get my vote until anyone else who isn’t a Rep/Fascist has a chance of winning and not a moment longer. It’s so wholly undemocratic that I have to choice between a Kleptocrat or a Fascist.

    • KillingTimeItself
      link
      fedilink
      English
      111 hours ago

      the key breakdown here is: people concerned for the health of the country either voted for trump or kamala. Everybody else didn’t vote because they either don’t care, or would rather bitch about other things for no particular reason.

      It truly is the biggest shitpost of the century.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    19
    edit-2
    17 hours ago

    The only lesson to be learnt from this is that forgiving debts, pardoning marijuana offences, wanting fair elections, etc don’t work.

    The only lesson they could learn from this is that they weren’t conservative enough.

    Fuck that lesson.

    • @droporain
      link
      17 hours ago

      All that shit happened after it was to late.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1519 hours ago

      They don’t learn the lesson, because they don’t want to. And your examples imo show the problem.

      forgiving debts, pardoning marinuana offences

      These are not solutions, they are bandaids that like a drug keep you dependent on politicians repeating them again and again. Which of course is nice when your only goal is to get relected, but longterm that magic wears off.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        23 hours ago

        Also, Biden’s management of debt forgiveness was a sequence of half-measures that gave the impression of having been hastily improvised. It wasn’t a single policy implementation, presented as such. It came across as tinkering and fine-tuning, doing the minimum to get by, like many other Biden policies. It seems to me that he was more interested in not rocking the boat than delivering anything of real value to the American people.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        6
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        Biden rescheduled marijuna and Kamala promised to completely legalize it. Making medicine free requires 60 senate votes.

        People turned down the solutions even after receiving the bandaids.

        The people who aren’t learning are voters.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          13 hours ago

          Making medicine free requires 60 senate votes.

          And killing the unconstitutional rule that it requires 60 Senate votes takes 51 Senate votes. Biden and the Democrats wanted to keep the filibuster more than they wanted to deliver progress.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          317 hours ago

          Biden promised it on his first campaign trail… and did almost nothing to that end.

          The Parsons for cannabis that actually mattered happened after the election. And the “starting to consider maybe pushing the fda to maybe consider it” came 3.5 years after election.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            2
            edit-2
            16 hours ago

            Cannabis was rescheduled under Biden and he pardoned thousands of offenders, Idk if anybody has crunched the numbers yet but he’s probably pardoned the most people of any potus LINK.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              715 hours ago

              Cannabis is NOT rescheduled. It is still a schedule I drug.

              The consideration, to maybe reschedule started about 8 months ago.

              The pardons before the election only impacted about 50 people, and didn’t include expungement.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                1
                edit-2
                11 hours ago

                Dang looks like the DEA delayed it again as of last week:

                Administrative Law Judge John Mulrooney canceled the hearing that was set for January 21, extending the process to ease restrictions on cannabis for at least three months, online weed news source Marijuana Moment reported on Monday afternoon.

                Many impacted by the Marijuna pardons were not released, but it will still give back certain rights and help in the case of background checks. On a separate occasion, Biden did commute 1500 nonviolent offenders, as well.

      • AbsentBird
        link
        fedilink
        English
        317 hours ago

        They have also been legalizing marijuana and pressured the DEA to reschedule it, those are lasting solutions.

        Democrats also support tuition free college, but haven’t been able to get the bill passed yet. Student loan forgiveness can be passed with executive orders, but tuition free college would require a bill passed by Congress.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      9
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      The only lesson they could learn from this is that they weren’t conservative enough.

      I don’t think this is even remotely the lesson.

      The right wingers already go on social media spouting that “the libs” are socialist, sure, but that’s just because it’s what their media tells them.

      The lesson should be that propaganda wins elections, not logical answers. You have to appeal to quick witty replies with even more quick witty replies. You have to use loads of smoke and mirrors to promise outcomes without any tangible methodologies.

      The democrats should promise to fund the military… and then use the military funding for humanitarian ends like we did with covid vaccines. The line item looks great to dummy middle america voters to say “wow the democrats want a strong military” even though the spending really is to build homes for the poor or provide subsidized healthcare through federal military pop up hospitals (with contracted civilian doctors.)

      You have to literally provide handouts about a year out from election time to subsidize a topic like gas prices leading up to the election. The day the elections are over you can remove all of those things and start replenishing it… so release that strategic reserve big time. Focus on extra subsidies in places where you can actually win the vote, so fuck deep red and deep blue. Hate to say it… the battleground is all that matters.

      If you want to appeal to the common voter it can’t be by pushing for educational values or refunds for people with degrees. It has to be refunds for people with high grocery bills, high utility costs. Hell, remove the SALT deduction entirely in the name of “small government” because that’s one thing even lower class republicans think would be a bad move to raise… but this is still way too detailed for the ignorant voting masses to grasp… so you should probably say you are going to lower taxes rather than say you’re upping it for billionaires. The latter is always assumed even though it never actually happens.

      Bring out all the news about how republicans are actually raising taxes. How they actually result in higher gas costs, higher housing costs, higher grocery costs. Why the fuck “Tariffs” weren’t brought out as MASSIVE tax increases for the common working person is bewildering to me! Dumpy loves tariffs but describe it in simple terms as a tax - IMPORT TAX - and suddenly it will be very unpopular. “Dumpy says tariffs are good!!!” but the news is plastered with “import taxes called tariffs”… why are they raising taxes again? for common hard working people? “You mean i’m gonna have to pay more money at the grocery store AND the pump???”

      Campaigning on city values isn’t working because the battleground states aren’t uber dense. You have to appeal to the rural people with promises that can be delivered in the short term and that will cost them in the long term, because they are HORRIBLE at gauging long term impact. They can only remember what just happened and what is happening now. Dumpy is promising that the future will be great, why are you promising that things are gonna be tough? Things are tough right now for most people, why are you saying that the economy is great? I know by many metrics we are succeeding but the complexity of economics goes over almost everyone’s head. Instead you should have been campaigning on the fact that dumpy lowered taxes on the rich and that the rich didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain and are stealing all the money from the hard working middle americans.

      No die hard blue state is going to vote red so it’s time to abandon intelligent values for dummy propaganda. Let’s fucking go.

      Oh and on the sidelines talk about the real policy you want to implement akin to project2025 which actually has the real DNC agenda, just like how P2025 is the GOP agenda.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        213 hours ago

        Say you will lower taxes for the working and middle class. Everyone knows what that means.

  • Cyrus Draegur
    link
    fedilink
    English
    2019 hours ago

    The Democrat aristocracy do not care about winning.

    They only care about marketing the disaster of their losses so that they can launder billions of dollars in “vote blue” spam campaigns.

    All those donations are going somewhere - to “consultancy firms”. To “ad agencies”. And then they get to enjoy kickbacks from this mutual relationship.

    THEY DON’T NEED TO WIN TO RAKE IN BILLIONS.

    and so they don’t even try.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    3021 hours ago

    Neoliberalism is done, it’s fucked. The liberals wanted and thought they could pull another Bernie and people would just go with it, fuck that.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      33 hours ago

      You clearly have no idea what neoliberalism is if you think it has anything to do with liberals or, even more, with Bernie Sanders.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      2421 hours ago

      The left is fucked overall, they have splintered and hate each other more than they hate trump. Meanwhile the right is united.

      This election in particular, the American left has become toxic. If you’re even slightly left or right of any other leftist and you may as well be a nazi to them. No leftist was left enough for the other leftists. “No, I’m the true left, and fuck the rest of you, you’re fascists!” Was basically what every leftists was yelling at each other while not voting, and allowing trump to win. If you’re left and you stood aside and didn’t vote, fuck you.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        17
        edit-2
        14 hours ago

        The left doesnt exist in America my dude. Read what the other commenters that replied to you said, I agree with them. There is neoliberalism and fascism. Thats why Bernie was and is still popular.

        Run on healthcare, stopping the genocide, run on raising wages, and anything really to help workers and people and you win easily.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        2320 hours ago

        Bullshit. Run on healthcare and ending genocide in Palestine. Those two issue alone would catapult a candidate into office. The Left has a lot of unfortunate infighting. That doesn’t mean we would reject a good candidate over small differences.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        313 hours ago

        Neoliberals will say the most racist things and then act like you have a moral imperative to never criticize their policies.

        I think it’s just a vocal minority that is overrepresented online causing the issues, but I promise that’s why most of my extended family votes for Trump.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3522 hours ago

    Left vs right or democrat vs republican — that framing is a distraction in this political reality. The war is between the 99% and the 1%. It’s the working class vs the billionaire class. Your republican neighbor may be a MAGA religious crazy, voting against his financial interests, but he’s been successfully manipulated by a corrupt party controlled by billionaires. Your other neighbor may ‘vote blue no matter who’, ignoring or ignorant to the fact that most democrats at the state and federal level are also influenced or bought by corporate interests and the 1%. These neighbors are clearly not the same, but they are both supporting the interests and agenda of a billionaire class that is oppressing them.

    That is not to say that republicans or religious extremism are not threats — they very much are — but they have been allowed to gain power due to a broken and corrupt system of government.

    The system is broken because unlimited money gets funneled into politics. It’s destroyed our checks and balances, as well as the incentive structure for our judges and our representatives — most of whom no longer have a primary interest in representing the 99% of us. We are being taxed, robbed, poisoned, oppressed and enslaved by our own government, without even proper representation to show for it.

    We cannot expect that our elected representatives will act in our best interests; they require our constant input and scrutiny of their actions. Either we as a people become more involved with politics at all levels of government, or we start a revolution. The problem of corruption in all levels of our government will not be solved by the corrupted. A continuation and increase of wealth inequality will destroy this country.

    The corporate-backed fascist MAGA-America regime starts tomorrow, but we are not powerless. The 99% has power. We must come together, organize, educate, exercise empathy and patience with one another, and take action; we can take back control. We have to.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      619 hours ago

      Nothing will happen until there is a major crisis of some kind. Life is way too easy for most people. Occupy was a failure for this reason. You need Great Depression style suffering or better yet early 20th century labor conditions in order to get any ball rolling. Great Society was nothing really.