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The is the correct energy, and exactly the correct thing to say. Thanks for saying it. Now I can type this shorter message instead!

All very true.

I do think it's worth mentioning that the "lesser evil" politics that she ran on has never worked for anyone, not even once? She aligned herself with several popular conservatives positions (deportation, stronger border policy, continued financial and armaments support to Israel). But conservatives had no reason to vote for her over Trump. This swath of voters who wanted what she offered does not exist. The ones who want those things want other things too, things that Trump offers them.

So her best position was being the lesser of two evils, being better than Trump but still not a progressive candidate. That political angle failed the DNC in 2016, and it failed them again. This is entirely the failure of the DNC to be a progressive party. They chose neoliberal conservatism to the bitter end and threw us all under the bus with it.

The number of leftists and muslisms who didn't vote for Harris on principal is far lower than any amount that would have saved her. She resoundingly lost this election in every possible way. Blaming people who didn't vote for her on principal is ridiculously misunderstanding what happened here. The majority of America is okay with bigotry. The majority is fine with violence against women and minorities. Either that or they have constructed conspiracies that Trump hasn't actually said or done those things. Either way, they are unbothered by the things he has said and done.

being angry at voters who didn't vote the way you wanted them to isn't going to actually achieve anything, though

harris didn't even win the popular vote. it wasn't even a particularly close election. you can't not blame the dnc after a defeat like this.

While everything you said is true the DNC is also equally to blame. For better or worse FPTP means we only have two parties, which means there's an onus on them to appeal to as many voters as they can (to do anything less is to guarantee their loss). The DNC for decades now has followed a policy of appealing not to the general public, but to a wealthy subset in order to maximize their own ~~bribes~~ campaign contributions. That has seen a steady rightward shift of their economic (and to a lesser extent social) policies. This rightward shift naturally alienates a large block of those that would otherwise support them. After all if you're a supporter of right wing policies you would already be a Republican, thus if you aren't it's because you're looking for left wing policies. Something the Democrats increasingly do not have.

There are three possible outcomes for each potential voter. You can vote Republican. You can vote Democrat. Or you can not vote (or vote 3rd party, the outcome is identical either way). Because voting isn't mandatory, the default state is not voting. Republicans have spent the last couple decades erecting roadblocks to voting, passing ID laws, closing polling places to increase lines, encouraging their followers to harass voters, purging voter rolls at the last minute, etc.

All that means that it takes actual effort to go out and vote. For an increasingly exhausted public, that is struggling just to survive day to day, that might have to take a precious day off from work to stand in an uncomfortable line for hours at a time while being menaced by unhinged MAGA, they need a strong encouragement to put up with all that.

From a purely logical standpoint the threat posed by Trump and MAGA should be sufficient motivation. But people are not always or even often logical. Republicans have spent decades fine tuning their propaganda. They've weaponized AM radio, and talking head "news" shows like Hannity, to convince their voters that Democrats are perpetually moments away from rounding them all up and having them executed. That's the reason Republicans always show up to vote, no matter how onerous the process becomes.

Democrats in contrast have been hesitant to call a spade a spade. They should have been blaring the threat posed by Trump from day one of his campaign in the most explicit language possible. Every opportunity should have been taken to replay highlights of every unhinged statement Trump made to highlight exactly how dangerous he was. Instead they use euphemisms, saying things like "extremists" rather than terrorists, or "Insurrection" instead of attempted coup.

Added to all of that is dissatisfaction with Democrats policies right when they needed to be doing everything they could to convince people that if they just got off their asses and voted things would significantly improve for them.

So yes, this is very much a failure of Democrats. The party failed not just themselves but the American public. Unfortunately now everyone pays the price for that, not just the apathetic voters that sat out, but even those of us that did the sane logical thing and voted for the lesser evil.