2mo ago

The democrats did this to themselves

The democrats haven’t held a legitimate primary since 2008!

In 2008 it was a genuine competition between Obama, Hillary, and a handful of other lesser known politicians. Obama won the general in a landslide.

In 2012 Obama ran unopposed. Obama won the general.

In 2016 the democrats rigged the primary against sanders for Hillary, and to absolutely no one’s surprise who was paying attention, Hillary lost the general. Why? she didn’t genuinely win the primary. Shocking!

In 2020, refusing to learn mistakes from 2016, the democrats once again screwed over bernie and didn’t run a legitimate primary - rigged it so that all the candidates except no-path-to-win Warren exited the race to split the progressive vote away from bernie. Joe biden won by the skin of his teeth, and he would of lost if it weren’t for the country reacting to trumps handling of covid.

In 2024, once again refusing to learn the democrats didn’t even bother with a primary, ran an old demented geezer as a presidential candidate, realized that wasn’t going to work, and then anointed unelected Kamala Harris who didn’t even need to compete in a primary.

And they’re shocked they lost?! These people make way too much money to be this stupid.

185 comments

I can't stop thinking about how in 2016, my conservative grandmother watched the primary debates and told me she actually thought Bernie made a lot of good points.
And then she went on to vote for Donald Trump in November.
This, I think, is the disconnect the DNC keeps failing to recognize.
We just keep nominating milquetoast centrists whose message is little more than "maintain the status quo", when nobody is happy with the status quo.
But we have to run centrist candidates, they say, or else we'll lose all the voters in the center!
If that's how it works, then why is the GOP winning by doing the exact opposite?
In a world where rent keeps going up but wages stay the same, people are scared and frustrated, and they don't feel like their frustrations are heard.
Along comes a smooth-talking con man who tells them, "I know you're angry at the world, and I'm going to give you a scapegoat to blame it on. It's the immigrants' fault. It's trans people's fault. It's the woke left's fault. It's whatever target I tell you to hate next's fault. And if you elect me, I will stick it to these people in order to Make America Great Again!"
Meanwhile, the best we can do is "Vote for me because everything that other guy said is horrifying." That's it. That's the only real sales pitch we have for Harris. But no matter how terrible the other guy is, it reflects horribly on us that we can't even talk about our own candidate's merits at all.
We need to run a candidate who can say, "I too know you're angry at the world. And I'm here to offer real solutions, not snake oil, and more importantly, not the status quo either."
The difference between the right and left here is that the right actually likes their guy. And if not even we like our candidates, why should voters?
Alas, we learned nothing in 2016 and I suspect the DNC will continue to learn nothing now.
- The dnc is absolutely not gonna learn a god damn thing except to once again give a tongue lashing to the left while making out with corporate America and the military industrial complex.
- Every Republican family member except one that I've asked about Bernie has said more or less the following:
  I like him, I like that he's not Dem/Repub, he's got the country's best interest at heart, etc.
  Then it's usually followed by how he'd never get a chance, and then it revolves back to why Dems suck and repubs rule, or at best, "they're both the same."
  You are 100% right: people want change, they want progress, and regardless of how shitty he is, Trump got things done that his base wanted.
  Clinton, then Biden, and now Harris, promise marginal improvements to the status quo while dismissing large swaths of their electorate that don't fall in line.
  If they ran progressive candidates with progressive policies, they'd pull voters from all over. But they wont, hence, fascism.
  
  Interesting. Every Republican family member that I have talked to has said Sanders is a Marxist.
  
  I know a ton of republicans and people sympathetic to republicans. All of them thought bernie was a decent guy and they would of preferred him over Hillary.
  Then after the primary he increasingly took up democrat talking points and would occasionally finger wag at them while not materially doing anything other than get angry in a speech. His embrace of democrats on gun control was a mistake, if he just maintained his view that he had most of his political career he’d court a lot of crossover voters. But now he’s far too old and the damage is done.
  I voted for him multiple times, in primaries and eventually as my senator, but his milquetoast stance on Gaza made me for the first time vote against him for an independent. He’s really disappointed me over the past almost decade - I went from raising money and canvassing for him to finding him to be a has been and sell out. I still think he’s the best elected official on the national scale that we’ve got but I’m so disappointed in him.
- I mostly agree. I do think that a lot of folks on the left liked our candidate, though, and that a lot in the right disliked Trump but sucked it up and voted for him because they thought they "had" to. Harris' likeability rating is way higher than Trump's in the polls.
  I don't think any of this would have been an issue if Bernie was the Dem candidate in 2016.
  
  I think the problem is that plenty of people might like Harris, but not so much that turnout for her matched Biden. The people who like Trump love him, and they turned out in the same numbers as 2020 basically. He didn't need to meaningfully grow his base if people weren't motivated to show up for his opponent.
  It's definitely a demonstration that having the most palatable candidate doesn't matter. It might if voting were compulsory, but it isn't.

The 14th amendment should have been the end of Trump, period. But Democrats don't want to look partisan and now look where we are.
- I seen to remember a bunch of 14th amendment lawsuits that got shut down by SCOTUS a few days before primaries started.
  
  Yeah, that's why Obama should have packed SCOTUS, fuck the optics and just do what's right. We saw this coming and still Democrats assumed terrible people won't be terrible given the chance

The billionaires, who already owned the whole thing, did not want it. We got what we got. This downfall started long before 2008.
- You act like they'd have "lost" if Kamala won...
  They win either way, just different amounts.
  Meanwhile the average American always loses, just different amounts.
  It doesn't have to be like this, we don't need to run shitty conservative Dems that billionaires like, because then we won't need to spend a billion on ads that don't even change anyone's minds.
  We ran a Dem candidate that wants a border wall, doesn't want universal healthcare, and is pro-genocide...
  Because that's what the billionaires wanted. And because we listed to donors over voters, we lost an election
  
  Got a serious question re genocide angle, how is trump well known for being anti-genocide?
  
  C'mon. Like any politician, she had to try and be electable if she were to accomplish anything. How can it be that this is not obvious?
- No matter who wins the election we all lose and the capitalists win, they own both parties. It’s a billionaire pissing contest.
  Also I agree about the downfall being far before 2008, but my point is about primaries and earning the popular will of the voters, something the democrat party could care less about. They would rather the country fall to fascism than allow any kind of progressive let alone leftist leadership come to power.

My view: yes, the Dems could have some better, but they still put up a legitimately good candidate. The GOP put up a pile of orange dog shit... And the dog shit won. How is it the Dems fault that more than half the population enjoys dog shit?
For the Dems to win, they need to run a fucking perfect campaign and the GOP doesn't. Why? Because media fragmentation and propaganda. The bulk of the population doesn't want to be informed. How is that the Dems fault? How did the Democratic party reach those voters that don't give a shit about truth?
This isn't a failure of the Democratic party, this is a failure of our society.
- I think Harris and Walz were good candidates but their pitch was simply unappealing. The average american has been hurting bad the last 4 years. Harris' pitch was to maintain the degrading status-quo while trump promised to do SOMETHING. Whether or not that something is successful doesn't matter, people are sick of slowly getting crushed by costs of living.
  
  And so they chose to vote for the candidate who will only make COL worse. Pathetic.
- The left needs to stop making the perfect be the enemy of the good, or we will never get anywhere.
  
  Is what we're doing right now getting anywhere?
  
  You can try to change tens of millions of potential voters minds so they vote for worse candidates than they want...
  Or we can convince the double digit number of wealthy and connected people running the dnc that what they keep shoving down our throats isn't what voters want.
  Which do you think is easier?
  And as a bonus:
  Which one results in a better America?
  
  Good fucking luck with that. Too many people view their spotless moral record as being more important than outcomes or improving lives (/not actively making things worse).
  Misanthropy is the only real outcome to this sort of behavior.
  
  “How could the Germans allowed the Holocaust to happen?!”
  Look in the mirror, fool.
  
  I don't think anyone is asking for perfection just basic human decency, but I guess that's like asking for a thousand talking unicorns in politics.
  
  Uh... Harris wasn't good. Harris was fucking shit. Perfect will always be the enemy of fucking shit.
- Everybody’s fault but the candidate huh?
  I’ll see you in 4 years for your encore performance
  
  Candidate and the DNC for encouraging this anti democratic gaslighting bullshit.
  
  Fuck you, I literally said the Dems could have done better.
- Maybe the Dems candidate and platform aren't as good as you think they are if over half of the country would rather have dog shit than your candidate?
- The candidate wasn't bad, at least not as bad as 2016. The process was bad. The Democratic primaries have been suspicious for a long time - so they aren't trustworthy.
  Don't forget all the Democratic shakiness, just because of the Republican shakiness. Democrats needed to gain trust.
- Let’s not pretend that anyone supporting genocide is a ‘good’ candidate.
- they still put up a legitimately good candidate.
  Its hard to imagine any greater evil than the mass murder, systematic rape, and targetting of innocents of all kinds that the Israels have done using our direct military support, and this candidates unflagging support.
- “Good candidate” is your opinion. She did not compete in a primary, she was given the nomination, and shockingly /s she lost. Turns out she was not a good candidate!
  God y’all are delulu
  
  I don't know why you are getting down voted. She lost , so she was a bad candidate.
  She might have been a good candidate, but she was never chosen in the primaries, so why would the voters choose her.

Dems are the greatest ally the GOP could ask for. Lost to Trump at his weakest, literally doing a Nazi rally. Being spineless doesn't get you wins. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar won re-election by comfortable margins and the rest of the party are fighting for their lives in these states. Some Red States still voted to protect abortion rights and just choose not to vote for Harris.
Even if Jill Stein voters had picked Harris she still would have lost. There is no-one to blame but Harris and embracing people like Dick Cheney anrd The Blue No Matter who crowd themselves. You let Republicans unapologetically be themselves but your're whole brand of politics makes any group who works with you expendable and centers a chance for that 1-2 GOP voters joining. I hope it was worth it.
- It's past time everyone realized the people running the DNC just don't really care if a republican wins.
  The only danger to their careers or quality of life is if a progressive wave takes over the party, because they won't keep pro-corporate people in leadership positions.
  And they legally control the primary, so they never have to give up power.
- Harris and embracing people like Dick Cheney
  I knew it was over at that point. Whoever suggested that was a good idea for Harris that late in the campaign definitely has a MAGA hat in their closet.
  
  I knew it was bad at the debate, where Trump even called her out for adopting his polices like the border wall and stuff. But the Dick Cheney thing was crazy because not only was he rejected by Liberals in the past. But he is still one of the most hated War Criminals of all time. He isn't going to sway over GOP people when you're active in genocide. It just makes you look like the type of people he likes.
  
  Tbh, if she went all progressive, we would have been in here dating she needed to reach across the aisle. It's hard to be both and I'm not sure it's just the dnc to blame here, misogyny, ignorance and racism is hardly their fault,she the dnc has a role here, but...

Its cos they are scared of what will happen if bernie where to win the primary
- Honestly not much would of happened. He still would of had a neoliberal congress to contend with, and as much as he pretends to be a fiery independent progressive, he’d capitulate to them anyway.

The electorate swung solidly right, giving Trump the popular vote. Much as I'd like a more left-wing administration in the US, the evidence does not support the theory that a left leaning campaign would have helped. The US apparently wants an authoritarian government, and it got it.
This is not just the US either - globally we are shifting rapidly to authoritarian regimes. In my own UK where the center left (at best) Labour won the election, but only because the right wing parties were split by FPTP. The Tories elected a far right leader last week and got derided for it, but for them, it's absolutely the right move, and the next election will likely deliver a far right Tory or Tory/Reform coalition. For reference, Labour got less votes than the previous election that they lost in a land slide.
Same where I currently live, Germany, and my fiancé's France.
Dark times are ahead. Prepare for the worst.
- I don't know if sentiment swung or if Dems just didn't show up.
  Biden had over 80 million votes in '20. Trump had like 74. Trump got less total votes this year than in '20. Only problem was like 15 million Dems didn't show up.
  If there is one thing you can count on from a Democrat "voter", it's for them to not actually vote.
  
  That’s bullshit. Obama won in 2008 with record turnout. Take the loss and learn from it instead of blaming voters for refusing to vote for a candidate who didn’t earn it.
- I don't agree with Zizek on everything, but in his 'debate' with that lobster Kermit guy he said something to the effect of 'China is a tragedy because it is a model for the future of governance.'
  
  Zizek is the only person who can contradict his argument twice in one sentence and still retain credibility. It's an art
- We are going through the worldwide death throes of neoliberalism.
- Trump got about a million less votes than 4 years ago. Harris got about 15 million less. So the population didn't swing right 15 million Biden voters said fuck it and stayed home.
  Everyone said this was going to be a close race. So we can't even use the Clinton excuse that nobody thought Trump would win.
  She was a bad candidate with no message beyond Trump bad. That was enough for me but not 15 million other people.

Fuck no, the republicans shouldn’t even be close. The fact that they're tolerating Nazis and other similar views is why they felt comfortable voting for Trump. I will NEVER forgive them.

On top of that, dems have done a load of jack shit in power, even with a majority for half of the last term. Most of the policies Biden promised never came to fruition. Just sitting back and slowly letting the people shrivel. Advertising themselves as "maintaining the status-quo" isn't appealing for the average voter. As a Harris voter, I say that dem voters have an apathy problem.

I don't think it's exactly a matter of appealing to progressives, but an inherent difficulty in trying to appeal to a wide variety of people with a wide variety of interests. You end up having to make vague promises in order not to offend anyone, which comes across as being boring or disingenuous, like you are only saying stuff in order to get elected and not because you actually belive in it. Conservatives can have much simpler and more straightforward messaging because their base is much more homogeneous.
- I disagree. Championing progressive policies in most instances actually appeals universally to a majority of the electorate.
  I'm not suggesting they'd be able to follow through because I think a significant number of Democrat representatives can't stomach actually progressive policies... but I think they'd win more elections.
- Progressives carry the campaign. They are the enthousiam. They recruit others. They are the mouth to mouth advertisement. They drive people to the polls.
  Democrats do not need them though. They can win without.
  
  Democrats do not need them though. They can win without.
  thats sarcasm right?
  
  Right! Look how hard they’re winning!

they did it to everyone
- Sadly 😭 that’s why I can’t take the liberal pearl clutching. They hurt us all - especially those they claim to care about most, minorities of all stripes - with their political malpractice.

Weird you didn't post this before the election results came in, since it was so obvious.
- I’m banned from most popular social media for being anti fascist. This is my very first post on lemmy, after IRL friends are losing their goddamn minds over this when I’ve been saying it since biden nominated himself. The day he announced he was running for reelection. Then in the last hour he drops out and Harris is nominated without a single vote… how could anyone not seen this coming?! I’ve ranted and raved about this to anyone who would listen IRL for months and I was told I was crazy.

They both have their corporate masters. It's just RedPubs run a pro corporate ticket and Democrats have a platform that is perceived as anti corporate. RedPubs get into the office and do exactly what they promised, Democrats get into the office and have to pretend to not bite the hand that feeds too hard (more of a gentle lick).
This is why the Democrats strategy is to lose. They are essentially paid to lose. Corporatism is what is getting in the way of democracy.
- 🎯

Actually, the American people have done that to themselves.
Every American eligible to vote had access to all the info about both candidates. And the majority of voters chose to vote for Trump.
More than 70% of eligible voters chose not to vote against Trump.
There's no reason to believe the election was rigged.
Americans, you've made your bed. Now lie in it.
I just hope that my country's government will finally find their backbone and realize we can't rely on or trust yours any longer, and draw the necessary consequences.
- The candidate selection process on the democrat side is rigged, which is why voters voted wrong in the eyes of liberals.
  Democrats are just as responsible for making the bed we’re all forced to sleep in. Running a god awful candidate that didn’t even go through a primary process and then being shocked at the loss is key out to brunch idiocy.
  Also if your whole government stops relying on us (for weapons, obviously, that’s our only export) maybe our taxes will go to universal healthcare instead of being the worlds policeman.
- Wow super sharp edge you got there. Does your mother know you're online?

2024 lack of primary - this one I blame on Biden. Either he insisted to have the right to run because "this is a tradition, that incumbents run for second term" and/or the party held that view as well.
Every time Dems got owned by Repubs was due to this reliance on tradition
- Agree, at the same time, biden didn’t act alone, nearly the entire democrat party establishment and operatives worked to make that happen and block out any real challengers who don’t have brain worms…
  That’s why I ended my post with these people get paid way too much to be this stupid, I’m referring to the swamp monsters of the democrat party.
  
  Biden had claimed he would be a transition president, a bridge to the next generation-- an allusion to being a one-term president.
  This is from June, just before his debate:
  https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/4718993-did-biden-break-his-one-term-pledge/
  The tone of that article, with the clarity of hindsight, should be obvious to anyone.

It's been on my mind too, especially 2016 and 2020. My first vote was for Obama in the primary in 2007 and it got me interested in politics. What we have now just... sucks. I wanted Warren in 2020, but states that don't even vote blue decided Biden was the pick.
Had there been a primary in 2024, though, it'd have likely gone to Harris anyway and we'd probably have had the same results. I don't think we'll have a good primary until the electorial college is abolished and the red states who vote on primaries actually have say that matters, or we change how primaries work so that it's reflective of states that actually vote blue (and while we're at it, have it on the same fucking day so it's not first come first serve).
- We don’t know how a 2024 primary would of went, because the democrats refused to run one. Anyone who doesn’t think this played a major contribution in their loss has their head in the sand.
  That is the point of my post.
  As for 2020, all the candidates except Warren sanders and biden dropped out right before Super Tuesday. Warren had no path to nomination, sanders did. It was deliberate sabotage against the progressive wing of the party. Had it not been for the horrendous covid response trump would of won that year. The fact that it was even close was an embarrassment.
  
  Oh I'm 100% with you and there is never a way to confirm how things would have gone. We were doomed since 2020, I knew Biden would have a hard time with a second term. I just hoped Trump would have died by now.

Good post. People have a hard time learning from past mistakes. So will the Democrats learn their lesson this time. Maybe, only time will tell.
- Narrator: They won't

Your mistake is thinking the Democratic Party is trying to get members elected. Their primary goal is to keep the top brass in positions of power and then to keep their donors making money.
That second one is true of every political party, they just have different ways of going about it.
- You’re completely correct. It explains their otherwise inexplicable behavior towards roe v Wade, where they ran on it as a wedge issue for decades always promising yet failing to make it law, and then shocked pickachu face when it’s overturned. And the nerve of them to continue to use it as a fundraising issue? It’s straight up offensive to my intellect.
  Also it’s not a mistake in thinking, I’ve thought your comment for a while. If they cared about saving democracy they would do everything in their power to do so, like making concessions to the left, not courting dick fucking Cheney, stopping the arms sales to Israel. They don’t give a shit about winning, they care about money and power and keeping their owners happy, who own both parties.

There was a 2024 democractic primary. I voted for biden. Barring that they use the super electors so yeah its basically rigged. They actually rigged it to make it hard for extreme canidates to win which is just another reason why the dems are not the left party but the centerist party. Its just there is no left party that wins the way the right wins. That being given though the super electors have been around for awhile so the all the primaries including 2008 are equally legitimate or illigitimate and have been so by and large since 1984. They really should get rid of the superdelegates as it was a knee jerk reaction to reagan "democrats".
- Lol, biden against who? RFK Jr; the fake candidate that was a trumper the whole time? Who the democrats tried to block? Or who else, some no name nobody running a vanity campaign? There wasn’t a legitimate primary like there was in 2008 full of qualified competitive candidates. And so they lost.
  
  Getting on the candidate ballot is something the candidates do themselves with signatures. Its not on the party. The democratic leadership did not pick the candidates that ran in 2008.

- Lazy. Replace Gaza with “refuse to court base” and it would be a hell of a lot more accurate.

Anyone who didn't vote for Harris is either evil or too stupid to be let outside.
How in the fuck do you look at the GOP and say "That's what I want"?
- How is dismissing a genocide working out for you?
  
  How is having voted in a convicted felon as president that's going to actively support a genocide working for ya?
  
  Good for you, you got Trump in! Yay! 👍

They lost so hard they lost the popular vote, like you can't even blame me for voting PSL, if you took every third party voter and added them to Kamala in every swing state, she still would have lost the ones she lost anyways.
- You’re getting downvoted for this but literally same. I proudly voted the same as you (in a blue state not that it matters) since she lost the popular vote by a wider margin than all the third party voters combined!
  Liberals are in complete denial that liberalism is over, it is a failed ideology.

Clinton destroy sanders. The worst thing anyone can point to is that the dnc said mean things about Sanders in an email, and Clinton got some debate questions early (some she was likely preparing for anyway). It wasn't rigged by any stretch of the imagination.
It really throws into question an ability to reason it objectively view the facts if one is still touting the propaganda that it was rigged against Sanders. It's the same stupid that 2020 was rigged against trump.
- LMFAO continue to bury your head in the sand and lose elections. How many coin tosses went in Hillary’s favor during the caucuses? That one example is statistically impossible and it’s just one of many.
  
  Clinton crushed Sanders by 12 percentage points. Telling me "lose elections" because I don't fall for your conspiratorial nonsense makes no sense. And lying about coin tosses doesn't make your position any more reality based.
  Face it, reality matters to you as much as it does to a trump supporter.

How was the primary rigged for Hillary in 2016?
- Super delegates pre-pledging to make it seem like the race was over before it began.
  Also, fuck super delegates in general.
- You can start with Bernie winning every county in West Virginia, and Hillary still got 11 delegates
- The caucus (I believe it was Nevada but I’m too lazy and busy to look it up) coin tosses where most of them went in favor of Hillary (statistically impossible) is just one of many examples.

185 comments