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In reply to the discussion: I'm tired of hearing about what Democrats should have done to reach the electorate. The choice was clear. [View all]BluRay76
(54 posts)Thank you for this post; I completely agree, and you said it so well. Harris, Walz, and the whole team put together a remarkable campaign in a very short time. They told us who they are, what they stand for, and the specific policies they want to enact. They held huge rallies, and they went to small businesses. She won the debate by a mile, she gave interviews, she went to the swing states repeatedly. The website had information about her policy proposals.
What I am going to say here is more than a little idealistic; I hold no illusions that this is where are country is now, and I doubt it ever was this way. It is our job as voters to educate ourselves - to get truly informed and make reasoned decisions based on whose policies are likely to take our country in the right direction, and to actually show up and vote accordingly. Beyond that, there should be minimum standards of ethics that a candidate for elected office should have to meet - and if our laws and our Constitution don't require it, then we as voters should take the responsibility for ensuring that the person they elect is up to the task, in terms of capability and ethical standards. I feel like this is what our very best candidates have done, and I absolutely count Harris and Walz among that number.
I understand that the Republicans don't do that. For probably my entire lifetime, the Republicans have been playing a long game. They have acquired media outlets and abandoned any sense of truth in their version of "news." They probably saw in advance the inherent electoral college advantage that comes with getting rural voters aligned with them, and they targeted that population accordingly. They have increasingly created the narrative that the opposing party is an enemy; is less American; is less human. Every time the economy is down, or when there's war, or when there's a natural disaster, they take the opportunity to stoke any tendency toward grievances, and they give their viewers a target - Democrats or immigrants or people of color or the LGBTQ+ community. And their viewers believe it because they heard it on the "news." And as echo chambers have become more prevalent, it's even easier for them to believe the wildest conspiracies because they're seeing the stories in multiple places. They don't know that their news sources are all skewed, and they don't care. And of course, there's a massive problem with disengagement from the process. Too many people don't even bother to vote, or they decide whom they'll vote for as they are in the booth filling out their ballot. They just choose to be checked out, completely abdicating their responsibility as a citizen eligible to vote in this country. Then, there are the voters who want to vote but they can't take the time off work to stand in a line for an hour or more (and in some cases, many hours), or who do stand in that line and then there's a problem with the machines, or they were purged from the rolls. Between the electoral college, gerrymandering, and the cap of 435 on the House, there are numerous ways in which segments of the population are disenfranchised. These voter suppression efforts only add to it.
Personally, I was stunned at the result. I was as enthusiastic about this campaign as I have ever been, and I thought she hit almost all the right notes. And honestly, given trump's comments about cheating and "I have all the votes I need," and given his ties to Russia and to Musk/tech/voting machines, I would not be at all surprised if there was cheating. I am not making accusations because I don't have enough knowledge about the data to point to specific irregularities; I would like to believe that if there are irregularities, someone is quietly investigating and they are keeping it under the radar until they know more. But I would also not be at all surprised to learn that there was no foul play; it was just a matter of an electorate with, as you said, shitty priorities and shitty principles.
I don't want to continue to lose elections - of course not. I want our country to stop sabotaging itself and to actually care about helping people to build better lives for themselves. I want to find a way to actually get voters to do their job as participants in our electoral process. But I fear that it isn't simply a matter of politics or messaging; it would involve completely dismantling a system of indoctrination that the Republicans have been building for multiple generations.
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