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Because what a candidates actual platform is doesn't matter at all. You can write up whatever you want on your campain website, nobody is ever going to read it. Campaigns are built upon rallies, tv appearances, and social media. In all three spaces, Harris continually reached out to conservatives and ignored key progressive issues.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that her platform as written was fine. Some of her policies were interesting, but that's not what she campaigned on.
Harris shouldn't have needed to reach out to progressives. We have two parties in the US. We have one vote only. Progressives had a choice to say "let's let Trump win and move the country significantly further right" or "I like most of Harris's policies and something is better than nothing". The choice for progressives was crystal clear. Let's not pretend otherwise. The progressives that didn't vote let everyone down, including themselves. Their argument is completely invalid when you look at the real world in front of us.
If anyone calls themself a progressive and didn't vote in this election, I have news for them: you're not a progressive.
Think about what you're saying right now. A politician shouldn't have needed to motivate their own base? Treating progressive votes as a given is absolute bullshit, especially after progressives were already put into the same hostage situation last year.
Maybe stop treating progressive votes as a given, actually campaign and try to court them, listen to their issues without dismissing them at every turn, and then you can get angry when they don't turn up. Telling everyone to shut the fuck up and hold their nose while they vote is clearly not working though.
Her platform had plenty that progressives agree with! Progressives need to not act like toddlers when they don't get everything they want; we're only going to move to the left gradually. They need to stop asking everyone to treat them like the prettiest girl in school and instead start understanding that politics isn't all or nothing. We almost got Bernie, gradually. We could have potentially gotten someone like him if we didn't let Trump catapult US politics so far right in just 8 years. (Yes I know the the Republicans have been moving in this direction since Reagan, but the acceleration in the past decade is crazy)
I don't buy that any progressives looked at both platforms and avoided voting in good faith. That's absolutely ridiculous. It makes no logical sense at all. Anyone who did that is simply not progressive. That's not a no true Scotsman argument either; it's just bananas that anyone who agrees with progressive ideas would let Trump win.
Think about what you're saying. If a politician doesn't bend over backwards for progressives we should let fascism win? What the fuck? People love saying Republicans are voting against their own interests. Well, progressives who don't vote are also voting against their own interests by abstaining.
I will repeat it one more time; what politicians write out as their policy platform on their website does not matter. American elections are based purely on emotions, there is no logic or reading. Nobody is asking Harris to "bend over backwards" to support progressives. I don't think openly condeming the genocide in Gaza and publicly promising to take steps to end it would have cost her the election. I don't think calling out the corporations that are keeping prices inflated would have cost her the election. I don't think taking a firm stance on LGBTQ rights would have cost her the election. I don't think promising to enshrine abortion rights into law would have cost her the election. I think running a campaign that ignored those issues and championed "more of the status quo" while ignoring or attacking anyone who offered genuine criticism did lose her the election. You can point to everywhere in her platform that guarantees she would definitely try her best to support these progressive issues once elected, but if she's not saying it at rallies, on TV appearances, and on social media, then it does not matter. That's not how elections are won.
If the progressives are too dense to read a website, read between the lines, and make even a modicum of effort to understand the actual political reality of their country we're fucked.
Americans are fucking stupid, have you met us? People have been increasingly less capable and less willing to do basic amounts of reading for like a generation. Critical thinking is all but dead. It's nice that you have high expectations of citizenry, but that just doesn't comport with reality.