Harris could have won handily if she made a few concessions to the left wing. Not all, not most. Even one or two somewhat daring reforms would have probably helped secure otherwise non-voters and might even have swung over a few centrists. But what do you expect from the party whose totem animal is a donkey.
Every step "left" would have added ten percent to Trump's totals. Most American leftists are in the demographics that Harris already did well in. The groups that turned out for Trump hate and despise the left with the passion of a thousand suns.
That segment alone wouldn't have done it. It was brought up by several people yesterday, but the American left has been hoist by their own petard repeatedly.
The bit about driving young men into the arms of shitheels like Tate is apt. When you spend a quarter of a century telling men that they're intrinsically bad and evil, that masculinity should be destroyed, you are not making them want to vote for the people you support. It's been demonstrated time and again that one of the factors which primes a population for radicalization is destroying the sense of purpose for fighting-age men, convincing them that their society isn't worth defending and maintaining, demonstrating that they're unable to fulfill biological imperatives centered around protecting and providing for their family. That's happening regardless in a society where prices have inflated beyond control for 40 years while income has remained stagnant, but when you combine it by telling those fighting-age men that not only are they *unable* to express their masculinity in socially positive ways, they're wrong for even wanting to... yeah, no shit they're going to turn to literally anyone else. This is closely monitored by anti-terrorism organizations but it's much older than that -- economic collapse and mass disillusionment of fighting-age men are
the classic recipe for violent revolution.
I also agree with Sanders' recent comment except to say that he didn't go far enough. A portion of the left has spent 25 years spitting on men, but almost the entire Democrat establishment has been doing the same thing to working-class and rural folks, treating us like we're duty-bound to vote for them eternally for no return. In my life I have seen
one presidential candidate campaign on issues I cared deeply about (Gore), and none whatsoever who I was genuinely excited for. Every vote I have ever cast in a presidential election has been a "lesser evil" vote
against someone I
really didn't want in office, not a vote for someone I
did want there. The Democrat establishment has been coasting since 1992 on the assumption that their base would keep voting for them forever because hey, at least they're not the other guy. They've been told over and over that that's not good enough -- I'm shocked that even Trump's abysmal first performance was enough to push a center-right business-as-usual type like Biden over the line, which really shows how miserable his first term was for everyone. Then Harris came in this year and trotted out the same old "Hey, look at their guy! Guess what, at least I'm
not him," and here we are.
I fucking despise the Democratic party almost as much as our dysfunctional electoral system and the theocratic authoritarian thugs on the other side of the aisle. I can count with two fingers the number of times I have cast a vote for someone I genuinely wanted in office at a level higher than city council seats. If the political establishment on the right is insane and authoritarian, the one on the left is fat, diseased, and condescending.
I'm only half joking, because I don't know how. I don't think many of us are going to be able to afford a house and rent is insanely high. Now I'm hearing inflation is going to go higher, which means housing prices are going to go higher. The average house is already over $400,000 in the US. They don't want to give us remote work so we can't live in cheaper places.
Plus if you need to move for work it's a giant pain.
It's not just inflation and prices spiking, the incoming administration's been running on gutting the labor market for construction (and agriculture, and a pile of other things) on top of it all. All the supply issues involved are going to go from "very bad" to "looks like a cliff face" if something doesn't manage to stop that.
Housing's pretty likely to get much, much worse in a very rapid timeframe.
Don't forget the imminent collapse of social security funding if we see mass deportation of young immigrant workers who are currently paying to support the boomers.
Also, total side note, looks like I was off on the timing: the nonviolent hate crimes are firing off less than two days in.
Black Americans in more than 10 states, including many schoolchildren, are being spammed with text messages commanding them to report to plantation sites with their belongings. """Protestors""" at Texas State University added a new sign to the usual "God hates f*gs" lineup with "Women are property".