politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Gaza is almost certainly not the only reason. We also have Latinos for Trump, the Right Wing Podcast pipeline, endemic sexism, and endemic racism to thank.
This is a good point. The Democrats also abandoned the idea that immigration was a moral issue or that building the wall was based on racism, and instead tried to run on, "We're the real border hawks" and it won over approximately zero moderate conservatives while alienating Latinos.
Another good point. Right wing podcasters and streamers are often promoted by the GOP, their politicians will go on their shows, even if they aren't 100% aligned. The good news is, there is one leftist streamer who has a big audience, on a similar level to some of the big rightist streamers, who could have been used to level the playing field at least a bit. The bad news is, because he supports Palestine, the Democrats wanted nothing to do with him, and completely failed to make use of him or even appeal to him.
Always trying to deflect it back in voters and never the candidates that don't represent the people that refused to vote for her
I mean... have you MET most voters?
Of course I'm blaming the voters. We had a job to do, a responsibility which we clearly failed to do. Our job is to make the best decision possible at the voting booth, not wait for idiots to make the decision for us while we make popcorn and complain we didn't also get candy and a soda.
The fundamental principal of "democracy" requires that "The voters are always right".
Any argument that the voters themselves are wrong is an indictment of democracy itself. It is a suggestion that We The People are incapable of governing ourselves, and require the external mandate of a benevolent dictator.
You can argue that a candidate failed to appeal to the voters. You can argue that the voting system failed to accurately reflect voter sentiment. You can argue that third parties unduly influenced the voters. You can point out the paradox of Trump being worse for Palestine than Harris would have been. But in a democracy, the voters are the source of truth. Laying blame on the voters requires rejection of the very idea of democracy.
To extend your metaphor, you want to go out to the movies with a bunch of friends. You and most of the group want to watch Oppenheimer. But most of the people who want Oppenheimer would rather just download it and watch it at home. We would only go to the theater for candy and soda and popcorn. Knowing that we aren't going to show up without all three, you vetoed two of them, and called us selfish assholes for wanting what we want. Now you're complaining that the people who did show up selected Barbie, and you're trying to blame us, even as you ignore that you're the reason why we didn't bother to go out.
If Palestine is getting bombed no matter what happens, the only voters who are coming out are the ones who want Palestine bombed.
That's a lot of words you seem to be putting in my mouth there friend. These aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I can blame voters for not showing up to the polls and still see the value in a democratic government.
And I thought I had the hot take, holy shit. This is simultaneously an argument to disenfranchise ourselves from the democratic process AND the assumption that those who did participate in the electoral process, regardless of their actual beliefs, are automatically pro-genocide. I'm actually astounded that this is your argument. This is a greater rejection of democracy than anything I said. It's insane.
Just because we didn't vote for your shade of fascism doesn't mean we didn't show up. The whole get in line and comply is a thing of the past, candidates can either earn our vote or can fuck off.
If a genocide isn't your red line anything you say after that isnt irrelevant or significant
Nah, I don't think it is your intention to say these things. I think that you didn't consider what you were actually saying when you tried to lay the blame on the voters instead of the candidate.
My point is that just because action was taken by the voters does not mean fault for that action rests with the voters. Here, the candidate's advocacy for genocidal actions is the cause for her failure to win election.
That's a common error: Abstention is not disenfranchisement. The voter is not capable of disenfranchising themselves. Disenfranchisement is a concept that can only be imposed on the voter against their will.
Demanding the voters select from two genocidal candidates is disenfranchisement: the only democratic choice remaining is abstention.
Expanding on the Latinos for Trump thing, lots of white liberals seem to be shocked at the levels of rightwing support from the Latino population. They speculate (wrongly) that it's due to Cubans in Florida; and while that group does support the right, it's not because they remember their time in Cuba and hold a grudge against communism.
No, the issue is one that has been around a long time now and has been completely ignored because most people don't speak Spanish. Almost all mainstream Spanish media, from shows, to news, to social media has been far, far, FAR right for decades now. Like, it makes Fox News look like MSNBC.
And the language barrier is a 2 part issue. Not only are English speaking liberals completely unaware of how bad the propaganda is, but people that are only fluent in Spanish don't hear any alternatives. All they get is the propaganda, there are no other sources. You tell them about the horrible stuff Trump or the GOP has done and they look at you with a blank face. They don't hear about it, because it's never reported for them. And people on Spanish social media tend not to talk about it for the same reason.
The rot is deep. Very deep. Telemundo and Univision have completely fucked the Latino populace by hiding reality from them and pushing pro-billionaire messaging.
Aside from that, they know they have a captive audience for many of their viewers, who are unable to go fact check them by consulting English-media. This is true for monolingual Spanish speakers, but also for many folks who have learned enough English to get by in their day-to-day lives, but who are not comfortable following or discussing something more complex like politics in English.
Pretty much every time I would watch the news with my mother-in-law, if they had an interview or clip from a politician dub over into Spanish, I'd catch them engaging in some fuckery with their translations. Either they would deliberately omit parts of what was said to make the translated part sound worse, or they would choose key words where they would pick a translation that is related to a more accurate word for the English word spoken, but with a much more negative connotation to it.
They'd also ignore when right-wing conspiracy theories get debunked in English, and just keep on pushing them for months after they'd been discredited with no mention of this fact, as though they were widely held, mainstream beliefs.
Then again, white Americans who don't interact with either group very much seem to consider all Latino and Black Americans as two monolithic voting blocks, ignoring the reality of the many different cultures, national backgrounds and ethnicities that comprise either group. Lots of white people just think of them as solid, unreachable Democratic voters, for some reason. There are plenty of people in either group who the Democrats can't reach, because despite agreeing with the rest of a Democrat or Progressive platforms, they hold deeply conservative religious or cultural beliefs on abortion and sexuality. Like, I hear people saying "¡Maricón!" on the daily more often than I heard edgy kids dropping the f-word on the middle school playground back in the day, and nobody bats an eye because rampant homophobia is still a cultural given in a lot of places, unfortunately. If you actually interact with any people of color on a regular basis, it's probably not as surprising to see how the right can pull in greater numbers of POC by playing to the right themes for those deeply held views and prejudices.
Thank you for providing this insight. My grandparents did not speak English, I can only imagine that they were similarly disinformed by the limited access to media from their native tongue.
Very few people voted for Trump. He didn't win.
Stop blaming voters and focus on fixing the voting system.
What? Trump has the second and fourth most votes in history in the US, plenty of people voted for him. That's literally the problem, that 77 million people could sign up up vote for this guy post covid fuck up.
What percent is that?
It's low as fuck. Almost everyone hates him.
That's true, especially right now. His polling numbers are like post covid low right now.
So breaking down 2024 (I'm not gonna use exact numbers for brevity, but the percentages are), let's call the population of the US around 340 million. Like 73% of the people who can vote were registered to vote in that election, 170+ million people. Only 65% of eligible voters either voted or had their votes counted (there was verifiable voter suppression and vote destruction, in addition to the billionaire doing illegal voter manipulation), around 150+ million.
Kamala got just over 48% of of those votes 75+ million, Trump got just under 50% with 77+ million. So at the end of the day Trump won with 31% of the total number of eligible voters and Kamala lost with 30%.
So yeah in the grand scheme of things not even close to a majority of people and only a very small plurality of voters got Trump in office the second time. It's also useful to note turnout in 2020 and 2024 were record high percentages of eligible voters voting (the former beating 1908, and the latter tied 1968).
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States_presidential_elections
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-presidential-election-voting-registration-tables.html
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voter-turnout-2020-2024/
Yes, if the US was a democracy that allowed a progressive candidate to run a normal race, they would win by a landslide.
Few people are moved by milk toast centrists nor far right fascists.
Also true.
Bruh he won the popular vote.
Because there was no progressive candidate at the debates
Based on his track record if I only viewed things through the lens of "What can you do for me?" then Trump should have lost. His first term was a travesty and the COVID lack of response a showing of his incompetence. But some of those voters still voted for him despite this and it confounds me how.
His name was on the checks that went out. It created a positive association that people didn't forget, but they did their best to shove everything that happened for the 2-3 years it was really really bad down the memory hole. Just to maintain their sanity.
Several things happened. One, he picked the most vulnerable swing states and focused on those, and delivered exactly the message people wanted to hear. Second, Harris in those same states instead of telling people what they wanted to hear, told them she wasn't trump, and paraded out unpopular conservatives to try to swing right leaning voters her direction. Instead of finding a massage to give people a good reason to vote for her, she leaned pretty hard on "well have you seen this other guy??"
People crave motion and action. So in those few states she got her ass handed to her. The rest of the country largely voted along the lines it always has. Democrats learned nothing from Obama's victory or Clinton's loss, they thought they'd successfully turned the tide after Biden swept up a fucking disaster and then went on to make a half hearted attempt at badly needed though still unpopular debt relief. Then he took too much cold medicine before a debate and got his ass handed to him.
Most people aren't thinking much beyond the roof over their head and the food on their table. If Democrats can't make those two things easier, the guys with a bad plan looks better than the guys without one at all.
I think that American society is still much more misogynist and racist than we realize. I don't like it, but I think that if the Dems had done most everything exactly the same except had given the nomination to a straight, white male, then Trump would not have won. Between this and GOP vote stealing, that is how Trump won. Otherwise, the dumpster fire that was Trump's first admin would have guaranteed that he lost in 2024. I don't know what else explains it except some combination of misogyny, racism, and vote-counting shenanigans.