this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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I have problems with people who abstained. The hard thing is, how do you change voter behavior?

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[–] ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world 30 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (12 children)

Okay I'm getting sick of the whole "the dems failed us" bullshit.

WE failed. WE let this happen. WE had the choice between an obvious dictator or continued democracy.

You can shift the blame all you want but at the end of the day it was an obvious choice. You can come up with any other excuse you want. If you didn't vote for Harris you are to blame. Period. End of fucking story.

Edit: The dems should've been able to run a wet paper bag against Trump and win. The fuck is wrong with people to not see that?

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (12 children)

While I can understand your perspective, it's one of those unfortunate cases where ideology clashes with reality.

Yes, Trump never planned on following through on actually helping people. He lied, and people bought it. And yet it's no ones fault Harris's that she decided to tell people "things won't change if you vote for me".

A nation of voters isn't made up of individuals who you can convince, it's a crowd of people following certain dynamics, just like any other large grouping of things. You can either accept that and work with this fact to steer the crowd, or you can ignore this fact and lose because you're trying to go against the flow. And in the end, the only people who had any meaningful control was Harris' campaign.

Imagine you're a shepherd, and your flock is running towards the edge of a cliff. Sure, you can plant your feet and say "they shouldn't run off the cliff", but the only end result will be losing all your sheep.

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[–] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 4 days ago

The dems should've been able to run a wet paper bag against Trump and win. The fuck is wrong with people to not see that?

Everyone sees it, thus our point that the Dems are to blame because they didn't fucking win. You guys trying to absolve them of their sins act like the reality of voting is that everyone will vote perfectly logically for the lesser evil when that has never been how voting works

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[–] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 25 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Ultimately yes, its the fault of the voters (and non voters) who let their emotions cloud their judgement. Thats true whether you like it or not. Especially if Gaza was your main issue; if you saw both candidates and thought Trump was better for the situation, you need to seriously look inward and consider your reasoning abilities.

That being said, the opposition party does not get off the hook so easily here. The fact that Trump could win despite everything he said is a total and utter failure. Their strategy is bad, and they refuse to acknoledge it because to do so means that they need to upend their internal heirarchy. They have buried their heads in the sand when it comes to accepting the playing field of politics right now, and quite frankly as a party they look incredibly weak.

In other words, to not acknoledge that the election was theirs to lose is also denying reality

[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Democrats also have a fair share of blame for refusing to work with the left, and instead siding with war criminal Dick fucking Cheney.

If they had made any effort to inspire people to vote for them they would have gotten more votes.

Honestly I'm surprised they got as many votes as they did seeing as they actively worked to alienate their vote base.

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[–] Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone 85 points 4 days ago (21 children)

How do you change voter behavior?

You don't. If you want someone to vote for you, you need to provide something that they want. The point of democracy is not to change the people to fit what the rulers want, it's to change the rules to what the people want. If you can't do that, the people don't want you.

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[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 58 points 4 days ago (43 children)

This push to demonize the strawman protest voters is an ongoing propaganda campaign to cause poor people to infight.

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[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Portraying abstaining, third party, and trump voters in the same group is pretty lazy, if not intentional.

The electoral college exists: Every person I knew in swing states voted Harris in exchange for someone in CA or WA voting Claudia de la Cruz or otherwise.

But I guess even Harris voters can be made into Trump supporters with enough effort at this stage.

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[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (14 children)

"We offered nothing and lost to a liar who said they would get something if he came back into office. Why did we lose?"

"We said everything was going great when the public was facing hardships and being targeted by systemic and economic inequality, and the dude lied and said he'd solve it. Why did we lose?"

"The last guy was unpopular and didn't push back on Trump to get him jail. And then we said we'd do nothing different as Americans are facing homeless and their bodily autonomy being ripped away from them. How did we lose?"

"We courted Republicans who openly hate our voter base, alienated them by saying we don't need you, and Republicans are too brainwashed to vote for anyone but Republicans. Why did we lose?"

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 22 points 4 days ago

"We let the campaign be run by the same people who already lost against Trump in 2016. Why did we lose?"

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I started having bad feelings about the election when I was watching a progressive podcast and they all cringed when talking about Harris campaigning with Cheney, then shrugged and said "what other choice do we have?"

That is not how you energize your base.

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Why energize a base when you can force the people who have to vote for you to effectively vote for the war criminals who aided in the death of the kind?

The DNC knows they have anyone who is targeted by Republican policies, so they can treat them as a safe secured voting base. They bully anyone who doesn't vote for them and then wonder why no one likes them in a national popularity contest weighed by land over people.

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[–] moon@lemmy.ml 34 points 4 days ago (20 children)

Democrats then: "We'll win without appealing to Arabs in Michigan or anyone who demands we stop funding Israel. Shut them out of the DNC and scold them at every turn. Who cares how they react or that they're forming PACs like 'Arabs for Trump.' We don't need their votes."

Democrats now: "We lost because you STUPID Palestine-lovers wouldn't vote for us. Your country needed your votes, Gaza needed your votes. It's actually your fault that we didn't bother appealing to you."

[–] eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 4 days ago (5 children)

"We don't need you! We never needed you! Every one of you is a paid Russian actor! We will win with Chaney and Romney!"

"GOD PLEASE WE NEEDED YOU! WHY DIDN'T YOU TRUST US?! WE CHASED AFTER THE REPUBLICANS TO MAKE YOU LOVE US!"

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[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 43 points 4 days ago (9 children)

Honestly, the election was three months ago, and we have bigger fish to fry right now. My default assumption now is that anyone still trying to relitigate the Gaza voters is a Russian troll trying to sew division among the left.

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[–] dukeofdummies@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (31 children)

I just don't understand people railing at the non voters and the people who voted for Trump. It seems as backward as a rocket scientist raging at drag and wind breaking their rocket. "How dare the wind do this! Don't they know this will progress humanity!?!"

It's your job to build a rocket that can withstand the air at those speeds. The air is always a problem you have to deal with, and no, you can't shame the air into doing what you want.

Genuinely the democratic campaign seemed more like they were pushing a trolley problem than a future. So why is everyone so shocked it failed?

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[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

From my perspective, as someone who didn't have a vote in US politics and wanted you guys to vote to kick the can down the road until next time, but also understood the sentiment of those who didn't bother, it wasn't a belief that Trump would do any better so much as a loss in faith that the Democrats were who they claimed to be.

When hope dies, it might be replaced by despair, anger, and desperation, or it might be replaced by apathy.

And while that was going on, there was also propaganda going on where people were trying to push the idea that Trump would be any better. I don't believe that there were a significant number of voters who voted for Trump or stayed home because they believed that to be true.

Right now, it looks like the main conflicts about this I'm seeing on this platform are those with hope trying to rally the troops, while those with anger are mainly upset at those with apathy.

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[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world 29 points 4 days ago (85 children)

I will never look down on someone who voted or refused to vote because of thier conscience. Obviously for this specific question, that excludes people claiming to care about gaza, but still voting for trump. There was no illusion that trump was going to do anything positive for gaza.

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[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (19 children)

The genocide(and poor national level performance) was the last straw for many people who have been lifelong democrat voters. After 30+ years of seeing dems bring ferocity and strategy and boldness to primaries only to sit in office, renege and fail on many of those promises even in times when they have a ~~supermajority~~ majority. Then to see only a few dems actually screaming on the floors of congress. As well biden refusing to use the bully pulpit.

I don't believe any of them wanted this outcome. I do believe they felt their vote was only going to promote a regime that would continue the trend of genocide and protecting wall street over the needs of desparate citizens. Billions to kill and profit then pennies to the people.

I believe the fault lies entirely on the DNC and not the voters who saw no benefit in promoting the party over the other.

It's wrong, a dem in power is worlds better, but i understand seeing it as pointless in the moment. There is no good answer, only a less wrong one...

To answer the question, pass useful legislation and don't promote genocide. Legislation like universal healthcare, constitutional abortion(and other women's healthcare), raising minimum wage, universal pre-k, Union support, decriminalize drugs(esp. Weed), and to reverse inflation to name only just a tiny few..

TLDR: 30yrs of "lesser of two evils" kills voter motivation. Blame the party not the people.

Edit: technically not a supermajority...

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[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 48 points 5 days ago (42 children)

I have a (conspiracy) theory that those “genocide Joe” and “killer Kamala” folk are astroturfing for MAGA.

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[–] peregrin5@lemm.ee 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Looks like the tankie instances have invaded with their downvotes. Lol. It was pleasant to see the conversation being at least somewhat rational for a while before they discovered this thread.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

The quiet downvote of the tankie is a new one.

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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 44 points 5 days ago (5 children)

The time for voting is over. It’s time for fighting now, and I don’t think “I told you so”s are helping us unite and work together right now.

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[–] loudiamond@lemm.ee 30 points 4 days ago (14 children)

Seems like this is more of a candidate problem than a voter problem - Joe and Kamala were very aggressive to anti-genocide voters and protestors - Gov Shapiro even wanted them arrested

Vote shaming will not get these voters to your side, but you know what will - candidates who will listen

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