this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2024
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Harris ran a perfect campaign. If she was running as a (pre-Trump) republican. However, we know that:
It's Harris and the Democrats. Should people have voted? Yes. Is it understandable why people didn't want to vote for the person telling them that she'll be a good republican and support a genocide? Also yes.
You're only providing half of the argument. The other half of the argument is the fact that if you didn't support her, then you supported a fascist dictatorship.
And what happened? We got a fascist dictatorship!
Let's preface with the fact I voted for Harris, and understand where you're coming from with lesser evil voting.
But the other half of your argument is that with the way that Harris was tacking to the right to try to gain moderate voters, the choice was between voting between fascism now and fascism later down the line.
By sitting at home happy that you did your job and 'defeated' fascism, until the next election where your choice is again fascism now and fascism a little less later down the line?
As the Dems keep drifting further and further right. At what point do you put your foot down and demand actual progressive policies? And how do you get those demands to actually be listened to when the party knows you'll vote for them because "at least we're not as bad as the other guys. What choice do you have?" Supporting her is a message to the Democratic party that their strategy of slowly becoming more conservative wins elections. And this is the reason that I was very conflicted about voting for her, but just held my nose and did it for the greater good.
I think you're wrong about how the party sees non voters. When you don't vote, the party treats you like a non voter and moves their platform to the right to appeal to the voters. When you sit home in an election the party doesn't go "how do we get these votes of people that only vote when the stars align perfectly", they go, "how do we get these votes of people that always vote". Every far left person mad about the country moving right can blame themselves just as much as the party. People who consistently participate shape the future.
Source: I've worked for the Democratic party and have a pretty good idea how they interpret voter turnout data.
Out of curiosity, how do they interpret 3rd party left-leaning votes, particularly in swing states? Obviously those wouldn't have decided this election, just curious since you seem to be in the know.
If I understand their outlook, first job is getting people who consistently vote for Dems to be reminded and motivated to go to the polls. 2nd is convincing consistent voters to vote for you (that includes Republicans and third party), a distant last is convincing non-voters or occasional voters. I think the problem with trying to get 3rd party voters to vote for Dems is that the type of person that votes 3rd party is very difficult to convince that you're an ally.
They could completely realign the party platform to fit with 3rd party and non voters biggest issues and most won't shift their vote for many reasons. Disgust for the 2 party system, distrust that the party will follow a more left wing agenda, conspiracy theories, the needs to be contrarian or protect their sense of moral purity, etc.
While I'm not sure I agree with the parties approach to disaffected voters. I do think the amount of investment needed to get those voters is possibly outweighed by the amount of voters you may lose in the process. And that sense of inherent risk is stopping the party from taking a chance. Maybe we get lucky and they no longer see an alternative, but I doubt it.