Ericthescruffy

For what it's worth: I think most of those people are also crushingly lonely and alienated...because those things are due to material conditions more than what you've read.

Reading tons of shit and educating yourself doesn't make you any more lonely and alienated so much as it helps you correctly diagnose and identify the source of those things. Also doesn't give you any sort of special power/ability to fix it on your own though.

Kind of what I was thinking. I think if I want to be charitable he's not saying he can't write at all, or even that he can't write capeshit, but that he can't write from the optimistic perspective that these larger than life symbols can inspire us to do good and be better versions of ourselves. IE: Alan Moore was right all along (what a shock).

What's sad is that it almost seems like his immediate instinct is that he has to phone in and fake that optimism because that's the limits of the genre he's working in. Personally I hope he does some soul searching and realizes that a cynical turn for his voice is entirely acceptable and not necessarily a decline.

My response would be, that's a cynical tactic you could opt for but I don't think it's a winning message both because:

A) while you can spin it that way: I don't think the data we have really bears that out and I think it's easy to call out as spin.

B) this cycle has left me especially cynical about converting the democratic party. Even though the spoiler effect wound up not mattering in the grand scheme, the Democrats definitely were nervous about it and they still opted for this direction. Given the choice between losing and shifting left, it seems to me like they will choose losing.

Sure, that's not a non factor...but I think you'd be hard pressed to quantify that in any sort of objective/concrete way.

At that point you're basically saying "If more people had shown up and voted for Kamala, she would have won". Like...no shit. Cool story bro. The fact is: they didn't show up and you can't really definitively say why. I actually wish I could say it was because of Gaza but I think that's extremely wishful thinking. The reality is there were probably a whole host of reasons people didn't turn out.

Get ready to repost these fucking numbers ad naseum every single time a liberal tries to scapegoat leftists.

Their next cope when they realize the math doesn't math enough to blame leftists is gonna probably be to blame the millions of voters who sat this one out rather than doing their civic duty and voting for Harris. The obvious response to that would be that we could have just as easily had President Claudia De La Cruz if we're just allowed to add non voters however the fuck we feel like but while it will be fun to dunk I don't see that getting through to them. Something something can only be failed.

It seriously just fucking boggles my mind and I desperately want to know what data they had which told them this was a good idea.

I recognize this is entirely anecdotal but: basically multiple generations of my entire family for like the first 24 years of my life were die hard suburban Republicans. Lifetime members of the NRA, Absolute Reagan worshippers, and they all even voted twice for fucking Bush. They all love Liz Cheney to varying extents but guess what: every single one of them voted twice for Obama and rebranded as staunch resistance Libs in 2016. They haven't voted republican in over a decade!

She was run out of the republican party for a fucking reason. Again I genuinely want to see fucking numbers because I cannot understand who this would appeal to that wasn't already registered to vote as a democrat. Baffling.

The most frustrating part of this sentiment is that it frankly gives us too much fucking credit. I genuinely wish we could take credit for this result...but there's a bit of a problem with trying to scapegoat lefties this time around. Hilary wasn't owed green votes in 2016 either but it was at least true that if she had gotten them the election was close enough she could have clinched it. Michigan was basically the one state in 2024 where the spoiler effect really could have been enough of a factor to deny Harris a win but it turned out they didn't even fucking matter in the end.

2024 is a clear decisive Trump victory. There's no way around it. They're in just in full on denial and finger pointing trying to say the radical left cost them this one.

Mostly reddit/twitter. I don't know anyone in my personal life who feels this way...but aside from certain members of my family I don't personally interact with anyone who didn't hold back vomit seeing Harris campaign with Cheney.

They’re running the same excuses as 2016. It’s the Stein and other 3rd party voters that made Kamala lose

Votes are still being counted but when all is said and done: that excuse might hold even less water then it did in 2016. Obviously in this community we all recognize that the premise that "a green vote is a vote stolen from a democrat" is complete bunk...but it is at least true that if you gave Clinton the green votes in 2016 she would have won the election. Is that even gonna be true in this situation though??? This seems like a pretty clean sweep.

I care! Happy Birthday comrade! Sorry the world is in a dour mood!

Not a chance. Libs worship power and procedure above all else. More than for any other material reason: they hate Trump because he violates norms and etiquette. Even against Trump Jan 6 is a bridge too far because as good at mental gymnastics they might be: even they can't square the circle that to do a Jan 6 is to challenge the very foundation and legitimacy of the American system. The Jan 6 crowd may have done it for the absolute dumbest possible reasons but they have no such scruples.

In reality I think there's probably not just one reason you can point to. Inflation, refusal to do a primary, abysmal campaigning, et al. All of it is probably a factor to one extent or another.

End of the day the one thing I do hope all of us on this site can agree to is that whatever the actual material reasons for it: the Democrats absolutely unquestionably deserved this loss.