Dr. Lucky Tran 
The US now has no vaccine advisory committee, no CDC director, and an anti-vaxxer as Health Secretary.
SilvertipGrizz@luckytran ……… please spare a thought for the highly principled and righteous Democrats who voted third Party or stayed home in order to NOT vote in support for past policies of the former President. Their insight has proven to be nothing short of country shattering. #theyaskedforit
Jargoggles@browngraham243 @luckytran
Are you saying that those votes were a critical factor in the election results and yet the Democratic Party did absolutely nothing to try to win their vote? Speaking as someone who voted for Democrats down ticket as the least bad option, that sure sounds like a dogshit campaign strategy to me.
So where's the anger at the people who ran such an utter failure of a campaign? Feels like that's probably a more productive target for your ire. Or is it your strategy to browbeat millions of individuals until they vote for people who can't even be bothered to pretend to give a fuck about them?
SouprMatt@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran Yet another person blaming Democratic politicians for the ignorance of voters and the actions of MAGA politicians.
It is beyond stupid to be throwing shade at Democrats right now. People who voted MAGA or who skipped the vote need to be shamed; they DID THIS. Too bad so sad the Democrats didn’t “care” enough about their idiotic pet issue that kept them from voting, if you care more about [insert ANYTHING here] than STOPPING NAZIS then I have zero use for you.
Anybody who voted MAGA or didn’t vote should be swearing a public oath to do everything in their power to make sure no member of the GOP ever wins the presidency again. But we know it won’t happen. After all, sending National Guard after protesters was done in 2020 as well and they all forgot.
the gripe ibis@mls14
(goose honking) what were some of the pet issues
@mls14 @browngraham243 @luckytran
Yes, political campaigns *would* be much easier if everyone just voted the way you think they should.
Meanwhile, in reality, if you want to win elections, you actually have to figure out what all of those little "pet issues" are and incorporate enough of those pesky little things into your platform to encourage those people to vote. If only people didn't get so upset by tiny little things like, I don't know, massively increasing cop budgets (ICE included) and arming genocide.
@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran Thanks for the idealistic view of politics from decades ago.
When Nazis are running, all that 💩 goes out the window.
Hopefully all the “Kamala didn’t earn my vote” rubes will learn something. Trump 1.0 was bad enough; he is even worse this time around.
@mls14 @browngraham243 @luckytran
Wait, saying that you have to work with the voters you have, not the voters you want is idealistic, but saying that it shouldn't matter how you campaign, voters should just vote for you regardless isn't?
lolwhat?
@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran I don't want anybody to vote for me.
I want people to vote against Nazis. Isn't that what we all want?
If voting against a Nazi isn't enough motivation for somebody, then what magical speech or policy promise from Democrats would have won them over? Nothing.
MAGA voters did so because of bigotry. Non-voters did so because they thought themselves immune to the coming mass deportations and other oppression from 45.
It's not politicians' jobs to convince people that Nazis are bad. They should have enough of a moral compass to do that themselves. Democrats not only warned people of everything that's happening now, they offered a lot of positives too. It's just that SOME people wanted something else, and decided letting Nazis win was worth whatever that piddling 💩 was.
@mls14 @browngraham243 @luckytran
I am not disagreeing with the idea that when the choice is between Nazis and not-Nazis, you should choose not-Nazis. Simply from a harm-reduction standpoint, there's nobody that Democrats were hurting that Republicans weren't going to hurt worse.
That much is obvious *to us*. I know it would be nice if that was obvious to *everyone*, but clearly it isn't. We've known that's not how things work since forever ago. That's not the world we live in, so we don't get to base our decisions about what's happening in that universe.
It *is* politicians' job to convince people to vote for them. That's literally the main prerequisite to be an elected official.
Now try applying your exact same logic about them. If they really thought this was an existential election that they had to win at all costs, which you and I agree it was, then every single time they ignored their polling data in favor of much more unpopular positions, they were telling you, me, and everyone that those choices mattered more to them than preventing a fascist takeover.
Think about that - simply just distancing themselves from Biden's support for an active genocide was too big a price for them to pay. They gambled with our democracy *for that* and they lost.
@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran They should have responded to the polls better?
Fact: mass deportation was literally Trump's most popular idea. Should Democrats have agreed to do that too? I thought most people on the left thought Harris was TOO dependent on polls, and it shifted her to the right more than they wanted.
As for Gaza, you had 2 groups of people - one saying Harris was being too nice to Israel, and another saying she was helping Hamas. A no-win situation by definition.
The fact that people made a decades-old issue into the ONLY issue they cared about? I hate to use the word psyop, but I don't know what else you can call it when you had right-wingers specifically targeting groups that cared about this issue trying to keep them from voting.
@mls14 @browngraham243 @luckytran
Are you suggesting that Democrats had polls showing that if *they* adopted a mass deportation policy, it would get them more votes? Because that's how election polling works. Only an incredibly incompetent campaign would simply look at polling that broadly shows how popular a policy is without actually accounting for *who* it's popular with. Campaigns spend millions and millions of dollars gathering that information.
Also, it's ironic that you're mentioning this as an example of something really obviously stupid for Democrats to do, because this is literally what they've tried to do with things like stricter border policies. Moving to the right has been a huge electoral failure for Democrats and yet they keep doing it more and more in the hopes that they can make up for losing their existing support from more progressive voters by peeling off voters from the Republican base. Guess what, it doesn't work, we know it doesn't work, but they decided to keep doing that even in the face of a fascist takeover.
As for Gaza, we know that they had very clear polling data. This isn't something where the only way to know for sure is in retrospect. They *knew* that staying quiet about the fact that we were supporting a genocide would cost them votes and they did it anyway.
@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran Democrats saw polling data, did the opposite of what was suggested, and that’s why they lost? If they just fixed their messaging, they would have won?
It would be great if we lived in a world like that.
However: tribalism, hatred, bigotry, long-term propaganda, and one dude spending a quarter billion on an election makes a lot bigger difference than “Harris didn’t get the Gaza policy right”.
I hope someday voters wake up and realize it’s like you said: harm reduction! Instead they voted for the guy who promised them a pony. Of course they kind of knew he had no ability to or intention of getting them a pony… but that is the level of dumb we have in the good old USA.
winter@jargoggles @mls14 @browngraham243 @luckytran Democratic establishment defenders have no fucking thoughts in their heads, just blame for anyone who didn't do whatever the hell they wanted. They've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas... and it's everyone's fault but their own.
Ilka 🌐@mls14 @jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran I agree, non-voters have caused this misery. They are the ppl who could have prevented the desaster despite the huge maga cult. Both groups are sickening to the bone.
@jargoggles @luckytran ……… no need, let the Republicans do it.
Starraven@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran
Millions of individuals DID vote for people who can't even be bothered to pretend to give a fuck about them. How's that working out for you now?
Such ignorance has no place online.
@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran it is a fact, that democrats would have won, if all the lazy bums would have voted. Instead 22 Million democrats could not be bothered. Yes, they are worse than maga heads.
Mercurius Goldstein@jargoggles @browngraham243 @luckytran
After being warned by millions of voters for a whole-ass year that they wouldn’t vote for my party if it continued to enable genocide, I am now big mad at those self-same voters who did exactly what they warned me they would do. I am very intelligent.
Bubba Harrison@browngraham243 @luckytran let’s all spare a thought for the righteous leadership that has guided the party to its current position during the past 10 years. #theyaskedforit
@Jwharrison @browngraham243 @luckytran oh you are drinking the maga milk. Does it taste as brown as it looks?
@Ilka4You @browngraham243 @luckytran That MAGA stuff is toxic. That doesn't mean i have to like the covid is over kool aid.