Blame can be shared.

If one person left a bunch of oily rags in my home, and then when they caught fire, someone else refused to fight the fire but in fact let it actively continue, then I can blame both people.

As long as a majority of Americans see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, Sanders’ economic policies have less mass appeal and offer more opportunities for attack ads than you think. It needs to be stressed that people voted for Trump not just because he’s a loud-mouthed racist and sexist and they like that, but also because he inherited the (irrational) image of Republicans being better for the economy.

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/trackers/fame-and-popularity-bernie-sanders

He’s more popular than either Trump or Kamala Harris was, and people seemed to think both of them had enough mass appeal.

The image of Trump exists more or less in a media vacuum, because they can’t say much of anything about either Trump or Kamala. Bernie speaks directly about the economy, in terms that people can understand, and every time he says things, he draws wild amounts of appeal from the both the downtrodden right-voting people and the downtrodden left-voting people, who are otherwise left with nothing but responding to the vague promptings of the media within the vacuum.

Even Trump has to imitate Bernie’s type of speaking, talking about draining the swamp and fighting for the little man, but he can’t do it very well. The media has to fill in the blanks for him. Bernie can do it directly, and from what I’ve seen, it works very well. Do you remember when he went on Joe Rogan and what people’s reaction was to that?

Public opinion on Israel was, even among college kids, very different in 2016, before the current wave of massed anti-Israel propaganda from Russian, Chinese and Iranian bot farms sweeping over social media - and even now most voters (as in: people who actually vote) are still more pro-Israel than pro-Palestine (which makes sense, given how important of a partner Israel is to the US) - and it’s still not high on the list of priorities for most, not even remotely high enough to be mentioned side-by-side with economic policy, which is and almost always has been the number one priority.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/611375/americans-views-israel-palestinian-authority-down.aspx

You might be right. I think a huge factor is that on left-wing social media, which is what you and I use, the Gaza issue was hugely amplified and linked to Biden/Harris, in a way that other issues that were much more favorable were not. For the normie social media, I think they did the same thing with the economy, which also worked gangbusters.

Are you saying that the polls are completely wrong? What are you basing the idea on that the “majority of the people” (reminder: the majority of voters just elected Trump - he actually got the popular vote this time, which is deeply, deeply troubling) have left-leaning positions on the economy and Israel?

I am saying the polls are, in general, completely wrong, yes. I think the most recent election which was anything but the toss-up they predicted is a good example of that.

Bernie’s economics are “left,” but within the spectrum of the average American voter, they aren’t seen as left-only. He doesn’t care much about Democrat branding issues. He cares about people’s pain and how to stick it to the crooks, and he speaks well about it. That’s why the Democrats didn’t like him.

I think a lot of it hinges on what a “moderate” is, in the American political frame of reference, and whether one of those is good enough for most of the American people who don’t live in Washington or NYC to ever have a chance of living a decent life.

You’ve got a point, I guess, about some of it. But I still mostly stick by my statement that Hillary fucked it, when Bernie would have crushed it, on economic policy and sanity in our Israel policy among several other key issues where the majority of people feel very differently than the people in DC and on the news do.

What were her big accomplishments in the senate again?

Here’s Bernie:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Legislation_2

I’m not against her because she is blue, or a lady. Those are both good things. I’m against her because she was the last wave of the Clinton-era conservatism that poisoned the Democrats and lost them supporters which led in large part to our current catastrophe. For more, see the source article.

Bernie would have won the fuck out of 2016.

Hillary almost won, and she had essentially nothing to bring beyond being blue, a lady, and continuing the status quo. On top of that she is too fake for politics, which is a high level of fakeness. Bernie would have been an upgrade to everyone who doesn’t work in DC.

How he would have done as president, I have no idea. But he absolutely would have won.

I’m usually the one defending the Democrats against whatever accusation, and I completely approve this message. It’s the 2016 DNC’s fault, and a lot of them are still around making equally bad and corrupt decisions.

The difference being that it takes the standpoint, “We need to take over the Democrats or make something better, so the world doesn’t burn.” It’s the similar but very different standpoint, “It’s the Democratic Party’s fault that the world is burning and I’m not helping until they get better” that is unhelpful.

Edit: https://lemmy.world/post/21721606

I absolutely did not read your entire comment. The hypocrisy just stuck out to me from a glance. I wasn’t planning to continue to read.

Along with, of course, the hypocrisy of the fact that you’re now applying a purity test before you will vote for a Democrat, even in hindsight, even if she has only the vaguest of connections with the holocaust in Gaza, and even if the alternative is a hundred times worse including for Gaza.

It’s done. I’m not sure why I’m still talking about it. I think I just still have some nervous energy left over because of the question of what the fuck I’m going to do now.

I’m pretty sure that if they are doing that on Lemmy, it’s not without a human in the loop. I’ve been doing some experimentation with it, and I don’t think it’s a fully automated response.

I have some thoughts on it, along with a whole series of unfounded Fediverse conspiracy theories. I don’t think they are doing fully automated bot responses. They might have LLMs helping to craft long, hostile messages that always carry the right framings and narratives at scale, but there wouldn’t really be a way to detect that as far as I can see, so I’m not sure how much it bears thinking about. I do think systematically hijacking posts and making sure the comments look “right” is part of their system.

Take a look at this:

https://ponder.cat/comment/835655

I’ve spent enough of my arguing about politics energy for today, especially now that the horse has left the barn.

https://ponder.cat/comment/839212

https://ponder.cat/comment/837488

https://ponder.cat/comment/835981

That’s my response. There’s some good stuff in there. I do not require any kind of response on any of it.

• Media fault: 20%
• Putin / Musk / etc interference fault: 25%
• America dumb fault: 30%
• Long history of shitty Democrats fault: 15%
• Kamala Harris fault: 10%

Sure, you can say she shouldn’t have done the 10%. Would it have been enough? After watching what Biden did and how people reacted to him, probably not.

But anyway, we’ll never know. Also, I don’t know why the 10% is the most important part, to you. The other parts are fixable, going forward.

Well, maybe not now.

(Edit: Math is hard)

That still doesn’t address the fact that many people were less likely to vote for Harris if she continued to want to arm Israel.

There have always been holocausts going on, somewhere in the world. A lot of times, the US is involved.

For a certain audience, the narrative was that Biden caused inflation and Trump would rescue them and make their economic lives easy. And look at that, they bought it. Even though it was opposite-land bullshit.

For a certain audience, the narrative was that Biden caused the holocaust in Gaza. And look at that, they bought it. There was some validity. But the new thing was that it was hugely important, all over their social media, and Biden was responsible, and it defined his presidency in a way that 100 other things he did failed to do.

It only got presented and spread so widely and presented so singularly as a Democrats-only issue, without acknowledgement that Trump will be ten times worse, a hundred times worse, because that presentation would hurt the Democrats.

There were other narratives in the same way. Immigration, either that Biden was too kind or too mean. Oldness and feebleness. Policing. The truth or falsehood didn’t matter. They were expertly crafted.

And the result? Now, after people bought and acted on them, hook line and sinker?

Buddy just you fucking wait. Gaza will get much worse, of course, but it will barely even register as a major problem, by the time all of this is said and done.

Whoever made the narratives got their fucking money’s worth, and then some.

Edit: It should be said that I think “It’s not the voters’ fault. It’s Harris’s fault that she didn’t earn the votes.” is another of those narratives. You’ve probably seen it a few times today. Why they’re spending effort on pushing that new one, all of a sudden right after the election, I have no idea. It barely matters. But if you take a step back and think, it’s a pretty weird thing to decide is important to say, if you’re trying to do anything other than further depress support for anything left that’s in power, and soothe the consciences of people who might have been involved in this catastrophe from the voter side.

most of the people you have probably argued with online about Harris and genocide probably did in fact hold their nose and vote for Harris

Did you?

“Don’t blame your allies.”

Proceeds to blame his allies, picking out the one wedge issue which the opponents used to greatest effect to split the left in this election.

Nothing in particular that would help anyone pick up the pieces, or figure out what happens now or what to do.

The media literally told the voters what to do if they didn’t want whatever new law enforcement Trump invents kicking down their door to take them away, and they didn’t do it.

There’s some blame to apportion on a few different sides.

"It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America’s answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close… "

“If the current polls are reliable… Nixon will be re-elected by a huge majority of Americans who feel he is not only more honest and more trustworthy than George McGovern, but also more likely to end the war in Vietnam. The polls also indicate that Nixon will get a comfortable majority of the Youth Vote. And that he might carry all fifty states… This may be the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it — that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. The tragedy of all this is that George McGovern, for all his mistakes… understands what a fantastic monument to all the best instincts of the human race this country might have been, if we could have kept it out of the hands of greedy little hustlers like Richard Nixon. McGovern made some stupid mistakes, but in context they seem almost frivolous compared to the things Richard Nixon does every day of his life, on purpose.”

-Hunter S. Thompson, 1972

And that was Nixon. Trump is infinitely darker, more twisted and dangerous.

You know what else is weird? I don’t go to the big communities on Lemmy.world because they are stupid. I looked at [email protected] today, and holy fuck is it weird.

Look at the comments in that one about Hasan Piker. Try sorting by “old.” I came very early, with skepticism and horror and my little .gif, and I got about 1/3 downvotes and 2/3 upvotes. That seems fair. My meme wasn’t even necessarily a fair thing to say, because I’m not even sure that it’s warranted when directed at the OP. But the reaction shows a healthy split of opinion. There were some people arguing. Some people think the Democrats are awful, some think it’s a horror that Trump won and it’s the fault of the people that didn’t vote. Normal stuff.

Then flip it back to “hot.” It leads off with a slick recitation of all the standard talking points about how it’s all the fault of the Democrats for various reasons, and some bad things about them a lot of which aren’t true. Right away that comment got 37 upvotes, and 1 downvote.

It’s weird. If you look at the default sort of the comments, there’s this whole alternate reality created, that wasn’t the consensus of all the early commenters. You’d get the idea that everyone thinks the Democrats are just bad and useless, and we’re all in agreement about that.

And, probably, that’s how the comments will stay, for posterity.

It’s weird. It’s not what I’m used to, from the smaller communities, even the ones that have a big population of anti-electoralists, or whatever, that I am arguing with.

We may see military or militarized police knocking down doors.

We absolutely will. What did you think mass deportations meant?

Do you think that every one of these millions of “illegal” persons being deported or otherwise detained will get due process to prove that they are actually a citizen? They barely get that now.

Do you think it won’t expand beyond the immigrants who are on that list, once it gets going and no one’s put a stop to it when it was “immigrants”?

I talked to someone in my family today who said he’s probably safe, because of certain reasons and the category that he’s in. I’m not convinced that he is.

No. She lost because a massive Russian and US-fascist campaign corrupted the state of the media until people couldn’t tell up from down.

“I care so much about the Palestinian people that I have no choice but to become ‘unexcited’ about the only candidate of the two who doesn’t actively want Netanyahu to exterminate them even harder” is yet another example of the nonsense-logic they managed to get into the conversation. If Biden had been taking a hard line on weapons shipments, the big catastrophe about the left candidate would have been something else. I can almost guarantee it.

“Even aside from this genocide, it’s been difficult to get Harris to take a firm stand on other things I’m concerned about like trans rights; having some sort of meaningful, humane immigration reform; and taking a stand on climate change,” Meghan Watts, a North Carolina voter told The Intercept last week. She was deciding between Harris and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. She ended up leaving the presidential section of the ballot blank on Tuesday.

Edit: Just in case I need to clarify what meaning I take from this, I think this person has diarrhea where her brain should be. How can you blame Kamala Harris for not “taking a firm stand” when you won’t even take a firm stand on whether or not the US should become Nazi Germany? When it would have cost you nothing at all?

Even if you don’t watch the news or anything, you were there for 2016-2020.

Edit2: I thought about it a little bit more, and I don’t think that anymore. I think this person is made up. 0.4% of the voters picked Jill Stein in North Carolina. I doubt much more than that know who she is. I don’t know what percentage of those 0.4% thought about picking Jill Stein but then decided to leave the ballot blank, but it’s probably even smaller. I think it’s pretty unlikely that The Intercept happened to pick this person out of the 248+ they would have had to go over in order to find that voter, and asked her only to coincidentally have her spout this perfect narrative. It’s too neat. Maybe it’s true, and they just found the perfect victim who could articulate the narrative in perfect form, but I’m skeptical.

Borg borg borg

You can combine it with a FUSE mount of the Google Drive, I’m not sure if that works but I don’t see why it wouldn’t.

“What do you mean, I have to WORK to make progress in the world. Like, every single election? And then also OUTSIDE the election? Or else things will keep getting worse because some bad people have a lot of power? Fuck that. I think I’ll just let things get as bad as they get. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like anything bad could happen in the world, if I just refuse to participate.”