When you start locking protesters up for a year, they’re going to start doing something worth getting locked up for a year.

Why does the US need to solve the issue?

I agree – the U.S. should stay out of the conflict by immediately ceasing all shipments of bombs and money to Israel.

With a policy as popular as abortion, a good radicalization tactic is asking people:

• What would you lie to the cops about?
• What would you get fired for?
• What would you get arrested for?

E.g., “would you lie to the cops to protect someone who had an abortion?”

A small population also makes it easier to successfully repress budding social movements.

If there’s a silver lining, I don’t think this is limited to leftist spaces, or even to online ones.

Think it’s more that there’s too much evidence of killings, it’s gone on too long to deny, there are too many statements from Israelis at all levels to the effect of “yes we want to erase them,” and that there isn’t any plausible excuse anymore.

If you still think Democrats actually care about a potential mass deportation, ask yourself why Biden hasn’t simply pardoned all undocumented immigrants.

Immigration offenses are federal crimes, the president can pardon federal crimes, and you don’t actually have to be charged with anything or convicted to receive a pardon (see Nixon).

Everyone I know voted. No one I know irl felt democrats didn’t go far enough left.

Yeah, if they thought Democrats were too far right they probably were among the 11 million who voted for Biden but stayed home this time.

Harris didn’t run as a Republican and you know it.

She touted an endorsement from Dick Cheney, said she’d put a Republican in her cabinet, and said she’d pass Trump’s immigration bill.

for a party supposedly fighting against the rise of fascism, they didn’t try very hard at all.

They’re also still in power until late January. Settling aside the very large question of “why would you willingly hand over power to fascists?”, does anyone think they’ll do anything to even make it harder for Republicans to do all the awful things they ran on?

Biden could pardon every person charged with a federal immigration crime tomorrow, with the stroke of a pen. He could then order everyone in ICE custody released immediately and fire everyone he can in that agency. If I was seriously concerned about Republicans deporting tens of millions of immigrants, this would be the bare minimum I’d do.

Yeah, having more than half the US population vote for fascism

Far fewer than half of eligible voters voted for Trump. This election was decided by people choosing to stay home rather than vote for Harris. Trump got about 74 million votes in both 2020 and 2024, but Biden got 81 million votes while Harris got only 70 million.

Americans are not getting more fascist, Democrats are just completely failing at offering them anything positive.

Yeah, it might just be that people are too comfortable to entertain radical change. Millions sitting it out altogether instead of looking at a minor party would certainly fit with that. Looking into those Biden-to-staying-home people could be promising for the left.

“Ignore the problem, hope you get rich enough to keep ignoring the symptoms”

About 16 million, I believe.

Bernie’s coalition was filled with the exact type of voters who are now flocking to Donald Trump… It turns out, the Bernie-to-Trump pipeline is real!

Except this election wasn’t decided by voters switching sides, it was decided by something like 16 million Biden voters not showing up for Harris or Trump, who himself lost about 2 million votes from his 2020 total.

For those 16 million who sucked it up and voted for Biden in 2020, the choice this time wasn’t Harris or Trump, it was Harris or staying home.

people that voted democrat in 2020 voted republican this time

Both parties lost millions of voters since 2020. Trump lost about 2 million, Harris lost about 16 million.

It wasn’t people switching parties, it was people not voting because Biden didn’t make a difference in their lives and Harris promised more of the same.

“The Democratic Party cannot fail, it can only be failed”

-Smart people who are interested in winning

About 16 million more people voted for Biden in 2020 than voted for Harris in 2024. The Democrats found a way to take 16 million people who cared enough to vote last time and get them not to vote this time.

Shit, Trump lost 2 million voters from 2020, too. This should have been a layup.

I voted PSL, and I’m glad there are at least the embers of an open socialist movement, but I don’t think we should fool ourselves about how bad this showing was. We’re right to point out how Democrats should be having a reckoning and a total reassessment of strategy – that criticism should be applied to PSL, too.

The party put together a nationwide campaign and didn’t even get as much support as the Greens (also north of 600k). Why? What approach should be changed moving forward to improve? Because an honest look shows the approach we had this time around was a complete flop.

I think we should be constructive talking about this, but 100k votes in the context of being far outperformed by other minor parties, and the context of almost 20 million fewer people voting altogether… this wasn’t in any way a success.

Unfortunately, the most realistic read on the PSL campaign is that it was a significant failure. PSL got about 100k votes nationwide, compared to about 626k for RFK Jr. When you’re far outpaced by a guy who dropped out months ago, you have to call that what it is. And this was an election where maybe 20 million fewer people voted than four years ago – you can’t pull in any meaningful chunk of that?