“It wasn’t because Biden voters shifted to Trump—but because so many of them stayed home.”
We must not repeat this same mistake again. Remember to always vote in every election and consider volunteering to knock on doors. It can make a difference. There are elections that are decided with just a small number of votes.
Because the Democrat Party pretty loudly told people who supported an end to Palestinian Apartheid that they did not want their support let alone their input. That they thought it was more important to court Liz Cheney and other Republicans and lock the Uncommitted delegates out of the convention despite exceeding their goals by 10 times to show that not listening on this issue had enough votes on the line to close the 2016 Clinton-Trump gap, let alone the 2020 Biden-Trump gap that it got over halfway to. The party said they wanted more support from lean Republican voters than the voters asking for a Democrat candidate who would speak out against genocide, and, even with record turnout in one of the main states for the issue, the there were more voters for Trump then either of his previous runs. But, yeah, blame the voters, they only turned out at the second highest rate since 1908 (with only the 2020 election being higher) and even Democrats had better turnout among the voter-eligible population that any of the second-place candidates since the 60s (and better turnout than more than half of presidents since then as well). If you’re putting the onus on the relatively small proportion of non-voters instead of either the moderate showing of the Democrats, or, you know, the people that actually came out to vote for Trump, then you’re not really focused on the issue.
I’m saying that everyone who didn’t vote Harris is at fault. And very, very few people had a good reason not to.
It certainly a convenient place to lay the blame. Makes it real easy to tell flattering narratives. No need to examine what role the party has, since clearly they’re doing what they must to get their candidate elected. Why should they carry any blame? They voted for Harris, after all! Surely, pouring millions of dollars into candidates that don’t resonate with the people and that are unwilling to push the needle against the direction conservatives are pulling it has nothing to do with their consistent messaging that people should just settle for the options they’re presenting the country with?
Clearly, the DNC has some serious misunderstanding of the electorate given their choices over the past quarter century. But something tells me they’re gonna roll the dice on “we’re your only option” again and act surprised when that wasn’t enough to garner support rather than lukewarm acceptance. Maybe if they really hammer how little they’ll do to offset the damage Republicans have done over the past half century and tell us that they just want to get back to “working across the aisle” on “business as usual”, it’ll actually work this time!