Activists say the reason for this is that they do not have the same juice within the Republican party as they do among Democrats, and have little ability to influence Trump’s policy approach. So they continue to focus on the party where their influence remains.
You can’t attribute it to any one thing. They absolutely contributed. If Democrats lost by double digit percentage. I’d say they didn’t contribute that much. Trump won by just a few percentage overall. The activists were clutch in fascisms victory.
On the surface, I get it. Biden and Harris were “optically in charge”. Just not really in charge when it comes to Israel. Congress is. It’s capture by Israel is pervasive and systemic. Changing out the president was never going to make it better.
Worse yet, Republicans have a super power. They get to be lawless while Democrats must be perfect. And in that way Republicans hypocritically weaponized and stirred the pot along with foreign actors. For something they were just as guilty of. This systemic problem was placed solely on the shoulders of the president. And not just by the activists. But by the wealthy owners of mass media looking for another tax cut to horde more wealth. Donald trump telling Bibi to ramp up the genocide went so minimally covered that many Palestinian citizens voted for him. Thinking he was better. The activists were played and manipulated masterfully. And all it took was Consolidated ownership of the media. Propaganda Works folks.
It’s extremely dishonest to frame not enabling genocide as not being perfect. No one excepted perfection, but a fraction of ethics and morals.
It’s extremely dishonest to have framed it as a choice in the election. Yet, here we are with fascism. I would have loved for ending genocide to have been on the ballot. It wasn’t. Never was. But making it worse was. And we got it.
First, it is the job of the political party to convince the voters to vote for them. But even then, we don’t actually know if the outcome for Gaza would be any different under Harris (I’m only referring to the two campaign ads shown, ignore the commentary after). Maybe the Democrats, with an eye toward the next election, could have said “hey we’re gonna lose Michigan unless you take a tougher line with Netanyahu”.
I don’t think it took much of a “masterful play” or much influence at all for the Palestinian and middle eastern origin populations in Michigan to demobilize or protest vote. They had been watching intense and horrific destruction of their families and place of origin for more than a year at that point and they watched Biden, with Harris as VP, transfer weapons and funding to Israel while reiterating their support for Israel and weakly “warning” them about going too far.
It’s a bit infantilizing to say that the Palestinian-Americans “got played”, as if they couldn’t see what was happening in one of the central issues of their lives and make a choice.
It’s also the publics job to be informed.
Even if it was identical under harris. It was still better under biden. He wasn’t actively cheering the genocide on etc. And at least gave some appearance of trying to support relief and peace. Trump can’t even.
That was our entire government. Not Biden and Harris. Focusing solely on them in the face of nothing but worse alternatives. Was an extremely bonehead move. The fact even with hindsight and in the face of this glaring failure. People like yourself still cling to it with a sunk cost mentality. Shows just how masterful the manipulation was. That you feel no responsibility or remorse. For helping to Usher fascism in. Yes the Democrats did plenty on their own for that as well. But the fact that to a person. I can’t find a single one of you who is heavily activist against Biden and Harris that can even admit the flaws of that plan. Or acknowledge that there are sincere and honest desire to do good was manipulated for the worst.
We’d get an informed public if people had enough time, material security, and agency to get involved in politics.
This is infuriating. The appearance of trying to support relief and peace? These people’s families are dying. The US is the number one funder and arms dealer to Israel. The few, milquetoast statements Biden/Harris made were only political cover to the overwhelming support for the genocide that the US provided. Look, you don’t have to personally care about this issue beyond appearances if you want, but it is a central issue to voters in a particularly politically-important location.
Don’t make assumptions: I was not an activist in Michigan. I didn’t tell anyone not to vote for Biden/Harris. I voted for them, even in a place where it doesn’t matter. I’m just a stranger on the internet who is tired of Democrats paying more attention to the right than to, well, even the center, let alone the left. They know that there is no alternative vote for us, so they keep tacking right to try and pick off a few so-called “swing” voters. But, doing that demobilizes their base! You need to get people excited to vote, volunteer, donate, and campaign. It’s basic electoral strategy. They refuse to learn that lesson and so they lose to someone who has a smaller, but rabid base.
Also, why are we focusing on only the Palestinian voters in Michigan as the ones who lost the election when plenty of other voters there and other swing districts also didn’t vote Biden/Harris? Because they’re “supposed to” vote dem? Assumptions like that are part of why the democratic party loses elections to Trump. They made a decision to cater more to pro-Israel voters than voters who wanted to at least halt the genocide, it was an important strategic misstep. Zooming out, why aren’t dems able to contest more districts? There’s plenty of blame to go around.
Finally, if you think this one thing is what ushered fascism in, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 30 years of politics. Trump’s election is not an aberration, it’s an expression of a large and growing right-wing and fascist movement in the US.
They are supposed to answer to us. Therefore it is our failing that they do not. We cannot expect them to give that sort of Education without fighting for it. And unironically they didn’t.
I agree. But it is also reality. When Fox news coverage of your protests is largely sterile and neutral. You know you’ve just fucked up. You should immediately start asking yourself what are you missing here. What do you do to adjust. Which most activists couldn’t do. I mean I have no idea if they all honestly thought that somehow Fox News and all these fascist media Outlets echoing their claims were on their side. That they weren’t the Romney to the fascist Obama this time. Please proceed governor, own yourself. Romney is a skeezy little cultish snake. But he wasn’t strictly wrong. Though that didn’t save him. Even if it worked in our favor that one time.
If you helped to amplify the one-sided accusations. You share a part in it. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Michigan or not. It doesn’t matter if you were in a red state, or a blue state. If you didn’t then don’t get upset about people pointing out that people who did are responsible.
In my 50 years on this planet. Those of us who are not fascist have owned ourselves repeatedly over nonsensical Purity tests. Especially when it didn’t matter. Such as this last election. This will just be another one for the list in the history books. If they allow us to keep history books too much longer.
I can see we’re not going to reach an agreement on how to look at this particular instance. Still, I wish you well and I hope people like you and me can find a way to effectively fight fascism going forward.
100%. I know that as someone who is somewhat on the spectrum. People sometimes misunderstand or take offense to the way I choose to phrase things. It was never my intent to imply that we shouldn’t criticize Biden or Harris. Simply that the hyper focus on them would be to our detriment as it was. That many people’s honest and sincere intent to help people was hijacked, as it was. Used to get the worst possible person in office.
The fact that anyone. Not just Palestinians thought that voting for Trump was somehow better than voting for Harris or Biden speaks to a complete and utter failure of messaging. I’d like to think that we would do better in the future. But seeing how we did dukakis, gore, kerry and so many others dirty with our inability to focus or message. I really don’t think it’s going to change. And that if we’re lucky enough to have an election in 2028. That we are going to struggle as hard as ever to keep the fascists out. Regardless of all the damage they’re going to do. But now is definitely the time to start planning and building for it.