The argument was made in social media areas that are tailored specifically for you. This is going to sound snarky, but I sincerely don’t mean it that way. Even a 5 years ago, algorithms were tailoring your feeds.

Clearly one of the two of us had the correct ability to take in and process information to develop the understanding that with Harris’ position on Gaza, they were going to lose the election. You didn’t see it as a priority or a major component of their electability. I did. So you got this wrong. And that signal was clear as early as November of 23, when it was clear that Israel was going to conduct a campaign of extermination. Like you said, you didn’t think this was a priority.

If you saw getting Harris as elected as being the top priority for stopping fascism, and missed this critical signal, you might consider that it is you yourself who is living in a social media blinkered reality. It sounds like you missed the most important signal of the election. And like, come on. We know this isn’t true. We know how much you were on lemmy at that time. We can go read your comments and posts from November 23 to November 24. I know you saw the signal. Its not that you didn’t see the signal, its that you chose to ignore it.

And that signal wasn’t only present journalism and social media. It was also present in polling data. Biden had been drowning among Democrats on the issue of Gaza for the end of 23/ 24. And beyond polling data, but there were quite literally political movement who got these data into election results. Did you miss the entire “undecided” movement? And I know you didn’t. You are a politics and news junky. You see and read everything.

Schrödinger’s anti-genocide vote. Simultaneously able to have determined the outcome of an entire election, but also not important enough of a coalition to address their concerns and bring them (back) into the tent.

You said basically, “We told you so!” and I wanted to know who the “we” was.

The perspective that Biden/ Harris needed to shift her position on Gaza, and as we approached November 24, that they needed to shift this position to win the election was in practically every political comment for almost 2 years before the election, and not just on Lemmy. Youtube, reddit, instagram, and especially tiktok; wherever you went on the internet, this argument was being made, consistently and regularly, on political content.

This was especially true for more left-ish media, where almost all of the Democratic or leftist aligned media, recognized and covered the tragedy which was Israels genocide in Gaza much more extensively than other media. If you were a potential Democratic voter, you were assuredly far more exposed to the recognition that there was a genocide in Gaza, that it needed to be stopped, that the administration wasn’t doing anything to stop it, and that neither the Biden nor Harris campaign made even the slighted overture that they would stop it in a future administration.

“We” is anyone, commenter or content creator (or journalist, if you aren’t into the whole brevity thing). People were ringing the bell that if Biden/ Harris, and later Harris/ Walz didn’t change their positions on the genocide in Gaza, they would lose the election. I consider myself to be a part of that contingent.

You’re also complaining about Harris a lot

As long as people continue to blame voters for something that was a controllable mistake on the part of Harris, which was well known and well communicated for being a mistake at the time it was being made. Its important to keep bringing the focus back to the only party with sufficient agency to have made a different choice.

Only Harris had the agency, as an individual, to make a different choice to change the outcome of the election. It was clear they were losing the election by continuing to support Israel over Palestine. My comment history is right there. I was full blown coconut-pilled as soon as Biden stepped down. And as it became clear that Harris wasn’t going to take the opportunity to shift on Gaza, it was urgency to move the candidate became paramount. It was obvious that the Democrats would lose the election on the issue of Gaza as early as November of 2023.

Whether you or I personally did or didn’t do is beside the point. I’m making a claim about how incentives and strategic choices produced an outcome, and that claim stands or falls on the evidence about the system, the candidates, the actual election that happened, not on any individual behavior (with the exception of individuals in explicit positions of power). When you make it about individual behavior, your whole ass is showing. You are trying to distract from actually valuable conversation about what it would have taken to win the 2024 election for Democrats.

Yes. We gave the Democrats a straight-forward path to winning. They simply needed to shift their policy on Gaza. We communicated that here, there, everywhere. We got kicked out of the DNC convention saying it. We said it before Biden stepped down, after. We wrote articles about it. We did podcasts. We wrote editorials. We made it so incredibly clear, that there is really no excuse for not knowing that it was a choice on the part of the campaign to maintain an electable position.

This is the dumbest fucking take on the planet. Shut the fuck up.

No u.

I’m torn. Do you think what you are doing is more like the ‘Tu quoque’ fallacy or more of a ‘red herring’?

‘Tu quoque’ would be like, because we think you did thing X, your argument about A or B is invalid.

‘red herring’ would be like, instead of engaging the actual claim (that the campaign lost for strategic reasons), you’re trying to drag the conversation onto something about personal preference, which doesn’t answer the strategy argument at all.

Or it could just be an appeal to hypocrisy / circumstantial ad hominem, where you’re implying I don’t have standing to make the argument (or that my argument should be discounted) because of what you assume about my personal behavior.

Any which way, it doesn’t do anything to detract from my claims.

Lotta fucking responding for someone not continuing this conversation.

You are both a fascist and pro-genocide. You advocated for electoral strategies which conclusivly led to fascism. You spent the entirety of 2023/ 24 demanding Democratic voters support genocide. You’ll never escape from that.

This isn’t a train station fam. No need to announce your departure.

You and yours handed this country to fascism.

There was one path to stopping Trump: The candidate needed to change their policy on Gaza.

You advocated against that path. Trump is yours.

You’ve consistently argued against strategies that would have resulted in a Democratic W; there is no debating this.

You are a fraud, a fascist, a genocidal apologist, and should probably just go be a Republican. We could actually win elections if it were not for your involvement.

Bruh you are literally arguing with like, THE ratchet.

SatansMaggotyCumFart is a fascist and pro-genocide. All that matters to them is that they mantain ideological control of the party.

Its not a relevant question. We’re talking about Harris and their campaign. I actually don’t give a shit if you answer me, because you live with your whole ass exposed. Its no secret you didn’t really give a shit about stopping Trump or you would have advocated that Harris change their policies.

Are you able to answer the question or are you dodging it because the answer doesn’t line up with the narrative you’re pushing?

They said, as they dodged the question.

Did you want to win the election or not?

The world now recognizes that the only path to winning was to get Harris to change her stance on Gaza. Do you?

Did you want to win the election or not? The only path to winning was to get Harris to change her stance on Gaza.

IF you are going to make that argument, you also have to provide a mechanism which can change the minds or engage the millions of voters necessary for Harris to win, otherwise its irrelevant.

Harris could have changed her policy to win the election. She’s a single individual, in the exact position of power to do precisely this.

If you can’t offer a credible mechanism for changing the minds of 6 million plus voters on the issue of genocide over the course of approximately 4 months (July/August 24 to November 24), you must cede that the only path to Harris winning was to change their policy.

You don’t control the electorate. You don’t have to like the way people are to recognize that they are in-fact that way. Stop confusing how you want the world to be with how the world is.

Candidates can either address the issues of those single issue voters or they lose the election.

I’m not shifting the blame. I’ve always blamed fake “centrists” (read: reactionary rightwing voters who wear a blue hat) for losing the election. Its your fault.

Did you want to win the election or not? Because there was a path to doing so: The candidate needed to change their policy on Gaza.

You have to decide if you wanted to win the election or not, and its never been clear to me that you ever actually wanted to win. What its always appeared to be, is that you wanted to mantain ideological control of the party (which you did do, and have continued to: the party is still pro-genocide).

But what is clear, is that the party could not win with the general election with a Democratic candidate supporting a genocide.

I don’t think video games rape children. But you are apologizing for an organization that does.

gestures vaguely at all the independent media coverage from 2023-2024

You leftists scream about the genocide but what exactly did you accomish?

What did you reactionary centrists accomplish? You handed us Trump. We gave you the path to winning and you chose not to take it. Its on you.

Well now everything is fucked, the US has zero creditability, our allies hate us, ICE is officially the Gestapo, and concentration camps are being built.

Yeah, your fucking fault dude.

But hey. Continue the tired ass line about “well we should have had a candidate who was against the genocide.”

You couldn’t win the election otherwise. Did you actually want to win the election or not? Because it follows that if you defended the candidate while they held an unelectable policy position, you were doing the work to get Trump elected.