Structural differences between the Republican and Democratic operations may have played a role, too. The Harris campaign, flush with cash, relied on a traditional turnout program that stationed field staff members in campaign offices across the battleground map. To some degree, the data suggest that program worked; Ms. Harris won more voters than Mr. Biden in four of the six battleground states where the count is nearly complete. But that increase was swamped by Mr. Trump’s gains.

The former president seized on new federal election rulings that, for the first time, let campaigns directly coordinate with outside groups focused on pushing voters to the polls. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, poured $175 million into canvassers for America PAC, whose team effectively took its marching orders from the Trump campaign.

This part jumped out at me. From where I sat Democrats didn't take advantage of the new rules. My org didn't know what other orgs were doing and they didn't know what we were doing. The Democrats are absolutely the worse party when it comes to actually running campaigns. We should learn from them to see what NOT to do.

Which is why I wish we had a Trump of the left. Someone who isn't a smarmy douche and comes off like this emoji

Gotta have high high hopes for a living!

If someone says this IRL I will become a "lifetaker"

That show is BS. Everyone is conventionally attractive which ruins the point of the show!

These people love to play dumb for the cameras

I see you. I hear you...

You said "Palestine should be eliminated" right?

There's a thin line between precarity and comfort here. We all have something to lose if we commit fully to a revolutionary project.

Maybe that's the difference? Life sucks but there's always YouTube and cheap (ish) treats

Is this settler mindset something we get at birth? Or is it passed down by most families? Just wondering how I avoided having complete burgerbrain despite living a middle class life in the heart of the empire...

I have an idea and will probably write an effort post on it later.

Good thing we don't need an overwhelming majority to succeed in revolution

Worsening material conditions + manufactured culture of individuality prime people to turn against each other?

I don't have a lot of spoons today so no long diatribes from me. I'm just wondering what it was about the proletariat in Russia and China that made them easier to organize vs. Elsewhere.

I don't get why everyone in gaming has to be so obsessed with the brand new stuff. It's so expensive paying $70 for the latest whatever, and that's before adding the "battle pass" and DLC and having to upgrade your PC or go for a new console.

Dudes have literally tens of thousands of games that cater to them available right now across decades of hardware and consoles!

No one is forcing you to play the new Dragon Age... go play Sonic. Or Peggle. Or read a book?

Seriously, the people who hold Precinct level roles in the party have a minimum age of 55. They physically can't knock on all the doors. They NEED young people to be gung-ho enough to be shipped in as "Field Organizers" and worked 80 hours a week for sub-fast food wages* to campaign the way they want to.

• At least I experienced that first hand in 2016. Hopefully wages have gotten better since then 👀

chuckles I'm in danger

There are also voter ID laws and other fuckery at play in swing states this year... Not enough to keep 15 million people from voting at all!

This thread is maddening. You all are in DC or wherever you are, have you canvassed lately? Have you made phone calls? Have you talked to your neighbors? We are in a completely different world and we are all acting like Dems in 2016. We can intellectualize the polls or whatever we think is happening, but it seems like you all don't know what's happening in Idaho, or Alaska or Iowa or South Carolina. Y'all, this is why we lose. Consultants and political people who think they know but never talk to the people. I really want you to talk to your neighbors, and then get back to me. Not rich neighbors, real people. This is why we lose - Gen Z is not having the Democratic Party and I don't blame them. This isn't a hard conversation, it's really simple. Have a better candidate, we win. I want to win, and the people we put up lately are bad. That's simply it. We need to get back to talking about what we can do for regular people, and not the most lethal military in the world.

This take is pretty good. Gonna have to chew on this one:

I think Democrats should have a populist platform, but if they need a populist platform then how did Biden win in 2020? When is the last time we've had a Democratic presidential candidate who won on a truly ideal populist platform? I mean, do we actually have any data that shows there were swaths of the youth vote that stayed home over, say, Gaza, that didn't stay home for Biden in 2020?

It feels like people have been promising that with the perfect candidate and the perfect platform with the perfect populist policies we would see a sea change towards Democrats. It's true, a lot of progressive policies poll extremely well across the board! **But people don't vote based on policies. **Trump is proof of that. He openly pushed for anti-populist policies while in office, his campaign was all about transphobia and xenophobia and sexism and nothing about the policies that people say they like, any voter who actually gave a shit about policies enough to research them knew he wasn't going to enact any of those policies that we're promised will swing elections if we just presented them in the right way. Why do we think that the the perfect platform and campaign will work for Democrats when an absolutely batshit platform and campaign didn't stop Trump? That's just another version of the double-standard the media applies to Democrats versus Republicans and it misses the forest for the trees.

All the research done about how people form opinions and change them and choose political parties shows it has nothing to do with facts (like who has what policy) and everything to do with identity. Who is like you? Who do you think vibes with your social group? Who are your friends and family supporting? When you say "I am a Republican" or "I am a Democrat" you are not identifying with a series of policies, you are identifying yourself with group culture and history as surely as you do when you say "I am Christian" or "I am Black" or "I am an Eagles fan". Saying "Your candidate believes this" or "But the other party has this policy" when it challenges the pre-existing beliefs that are part of their group identity isn't just asking them to take in new information, it's asking them to change who they are. It's asking them to disengage with their social group. This sounds very dramatic when you just want someone to believe extremely obvious things like yes, Republicans literally tried to take away the law that forced insurance companies to accept pre-existing conditions, but that's how the human lizard brain works. It has gotten even worse as the country's become more politically polarized because people cling even harder to these identities and their social groups become even more siloed.

(if you really want to believe it's facts and policies--the closer people follow politics and the more informed they are, the less likely they are to change their minds because they become better at coming up with reasons to discount every challenge thrown at them)

(Some of) the Libs are alright

I don't think calling out Hillary staffers for losing 3 times BADLY is a problem. Us losing is the problem, and they need to recognize what is going on. It is literally the genocide, no Natives voted for her, no Black men, less Latinos - what does that say to you? We can blame the voters all we want, (don't do that) but we have had terrible candidates and the last few cycles, that's on the party. Shoddy.