I misread, sue me. Yeah it was inflation which is again an across the board issue. Again not a lefty issue. And yeah, lefty issues made up 60%, but nowhere in that paper did it state how much overlap between issues. Again, we don’t have the numbers to back it up, but I bet you all the money in my pocket versus all the money in your pockets that at least half of the people who reported that Gaza swayed their decision ALSO reported that climate change, and abortion swayed their vote. And nice try adding in immigration and democracy as ‘lefty issues’ as if they’re not ALSO across the board issues.

And not trusting a party on an issue is only really relevent if there’s only one or two issues that people don’t trust the party on. When people do not trust the party on 90% of the issues, they don’t trust the fucking party. Which is exactly why 62% of democrats want new leadership in the party and that’s just DEMOCRATS. Not even counting left leaning independents.

Oh yeah, for sure. At least some of the voters that didnt vote were lefties. My b if I took what you said the wrong way. But the thing that has been driving me insane the last 6 months is all the liberals who’ve been blaming the left up and down and blaming the voters while having 0 flame for the Washington establishment that is quite literally the reason why so many people have checked out of politics. Like, yeah, be mad at the people who didn’t vote, for sure. If that’s irritating you, that’s valid. As a leftist who did hold my nose and vote for Harris, I’m a little mad at the people who didn’t vote because it hurts minorities like myself and others. But to hyper fixate on the people that didn’t vote and brow beat them for not voting isn’t going to solve ANYTHING. They’ve shown us what it takes to get them back to the polls. Now we either gotta speak their language or die. Love it, hate it, doesn’t make a difference in the end. And being an ass about it isn’t going to make them go ‘Oh, wow, you’re totally right, lemme go vote next time’. If anything it’s going to split the left more (as is evidenced by this entire thread) and cause an irreversible spiral into fascism no matter if we have free and fair elections again or not.

“Next, think back to your decision not to vote in 2024. You will see issues that some say may have impacted their decision whether or not to vote. For each of those, please say how you feel about that issue.” And in every category, the data YOU provided shows that most people who didn’t vote WEREN’T GOING TO VOTE ANYWAY.

“This issue was important to me, and candidates positions on this issue swayed me not to vote.” Gaza - 20% with 80% not being swayed or not caring about the issue that much.

Abortion Access - 22% with 78% not swayed/caring

Jobs - 14% with 86% not swayed/caring

Inflation - 25% with 75% not swayed/caring

Democracy and voting access - 15% with 85% not swayed/caring

Immigration - 21% with 79% not swayed/caring.

Climate change - 22% with 78% not swayed/caring

the issue which swayed most people NOT to vote wasn’t a lefty issue like gaza, climate change, or abortion access, it was IMMIGRATION, which is an issue literally everyone on the political spectrum cares about in some way shape or form. Furthermore, YOUR study that YOU linked is pretty clear that most people didn’t stop voting because they didn’t like the issues, it was because they don’t trust EITHER party to run the government.

“Neither party is trustworthy on this issue”

Economy - 38% compared to 31% for Dems and 18% for Repubs

Housing - 45% compared to 37% D and 8%R

Russia/Ukraine - 36% compared to 31D and 18R

Gaza - 49% compared to 18D and 16 R

Immigration 38% compared to 24D and 28R

Income inequality - 43% compared to 40D and 6R

Foreign threats - 38% compared to 25D and 21 R

In fact, the only times ANYONE is seen as more trustworthy than not on ANY issue is Climate Change and Healthcare.

Lmao. You might live in the USA but your posting history tells me exactly what I need to know about how much you actually talk to IRL people. Dude you moderate like 20 communities and spend your days posting on HERE. You don’t actually speak to irl people. And yes, as someone living in a ruby red state, volunteering with mutual aid groups and political action groups in a ruby red state, yes I HAVE actually spoken to conservatives lately, along with liberals, leftists, and people who have showered since this election. Get off the computer every minute of every day, actually go out and touch grass and DO something material in your life, because you look like a rage-bait bot with control issues who hasn’t spoken to another living human person before. Assuming, ofcourse, that you’re not just a shill account meant to spread propaganda.

Do me a favor pal: show me proof that it was leftists who didn’t vote this time. In fact, show me proof that the people who didn’t vote were against harm reduction. Show me any proof any evidence from ANYWHERE that the people who refused to vote… were refusing to vote? Show me any evidence that says that says anything with any certainty about ANYONE who did not vote?

Oh, you can’t? Well that makes sense, because we don’t actually KNOW who left the electorial arean. We don’t know WHY they left the electorial arena, and we don’t know WHAT they were thinking. So, I’d love to know why everyone seems so certain that it was the left who stopped voting entirely as opposed to the non-MAGA right or even the liberal center. And the reseaon everyone is CERTAIN it’s the left if because that’s been the reused talking point that’s been dragged out every time there’s been a lull in the insanity since Jan 20th. Almost like somebody doesn’t want the subject to die. Almost like someone profits off of the left and the center fighting each other instead of fighting the 1%.

People who stopped voting entirely may be facism enablers, I’m not disagreeing. But, there’s no actual, solid evidence to blame that shit on any one group in particular. And even despite that, it’s absolutely INSANE that we’re hyper focused on the imagined people we THINK didn’t vote for the reasons we think they didn’t vote, and yet IGNORE the people we KNOW voted for this and IGNORE the reasons they’re telling us they voted for this.

Like tf? Thinking billionaires have been and are continuing to demonize any actual progressive candidate and are propagandizing broad swaths of the electoral is an inane conspircay theory when it’s something we have seen evidence of time and time and time again, and in the same breath saying that people who voted for trump are lying about why they voted for trump based on ‘just trust me bro’ is absolutely ludicrous.

I’m gonna try to reply to this in good faith as you seem to be wanting to engage in a good faith discussion, so let me tell you my experience.

I’m a trans girl.

Before I even have memories I was always (according to my mother) asking for skirts and dresses and playing with dolls and makeup. These moments were always taken as a joke or as me ‘being in a phase’ and were brushed off and ignored. My earliest memories have me confused why my sister gets to wear pretty dresses to church but I have to wear a boring suit. I remember ‘borrowing’ my sister’s nail polish, makeup, and dresses as early as age NINE. Did I have the understanding of what I was feeling? No. This was in the 90s, trans people werent as widely known in the US, especially the South. But if you’d given me the option to transition at age 9, I would’ve taken it in a heartbeat.

How do I know?

I’d slip out of my window EVERY NIGHT after everyone had gone to bed to wish on the first star I laid eyes on to be a girl. Sure, it wasn’t the first star to appear, but it was the first one I saw! That counted, right? I remember watching the episode of Sabrina the Teenaged Witch where she made a potion to turn herself into a boy to figure out what her boyfriend did in the auto shop. What did I do immediately after the episode ended? Went into the kitchen and tried to make my own potion with ‘sugar and spice and everything nice’. Glitter is nice! Oh and soda! Soda’s very nice.

I went to bed daydreaming of going to hogwarts and finding a potion that could make me right. I dreamed and dreamed and dreamed for a way to change my gender that when I finally heard about trans people at age 17, my reaction wasn’t ‘hmmm, this is interesting. I wonder if this is what I’m feeling’, instead it was ‘Oh, THAT’s what this is? There are other people like me?!?!?!’

Scientific studies have shown that a child’s concept of gender is already developed by age 4. Studies have also shown that a child’s understanding of who they are ALSO develops pretty early on. And, yes, in cases of children going on hormones, it is all done in conjunction with the child’s experiences, the doctor’s EXPERTISE in the matter, and the parents’ consent. They aren’t just walking into a doctor’s office and boosting little timmy up with E. Before any medicine has been taken there is EXTENSIVE screening through therapy and physician visits over the course of YEARS.

This isn’t a question that nobody has ever asked. It’s studied. It’s tested over the course of DECADES. And lastly, it’s (frankly) none of your business unless it’s YOUR kid, at which point you have complete control over whether your child goes through with any of it (up until age 18 at least).

My brother in christ, could you strawman any harder?

NOBODY thinks bernie ‘actually won’. Pretty much everyone who saw the 2016 election knows that Hillary won the primary, due to smear campaigns against bernie backed by establishment democrats. You know, the EXACT same thing that’s going on with Zohran Mamdani RIGHT FUCKING NOW. He WON the primary, and not by some secret cabal type shit but by the will of the voters by running gasp populist policies that actually help out the working class. And the establishment DNC is doing everything they can to smear him even AFTER getting the will of the voters, in favor of Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams.

“If liberals are so fucking smart then why do they lose so god damn always?”

Instead of blaming the leftists who may or may not have voted (which for what it’s worth, I have never met a leftist irl who abstained voting even in a ruby red state) why don’t you fucking blame the people who are actively driving the bus off the cliff?

Or how about you LEARN from the last decade?

Because this right here is why establishment dems AND republicans ain’t doing too hot. You look at Trump’s victories and never ask ‘why did all these people vote for this fucking asshole?’. Instead, you write everyone who voted Trump as a racist or a sexist or a NAZI and while they’re perfectly willing to associate with NAZIs, it’s important to fucking learn why the fuck they voted for that asshole. And yeah, some of them definitely voted for racism or sexism reasons, but you’re absolutely braindead if you think the fact that he ran on eliminating corruption (‘drain the swamp’) and ran on making things better for the working class (‘price of eggs’). Was he lying? Yup. Is he a corrupt fascist? 100%, but unlike literally everyone else in the 3 presidential campaigns he ran in (excluding bernie ofc) absolutely NOBODY was speaking to the working class or populist policies. It was ‘I’m with her’ or ‘Trump bad’ or ‘It’s my turn’.

So, feel free sitting on your high horse saying ‘oh, well if the voters weren’t so dumb we would be at brunch’ instead of focusing on the people whose entire job it was to inspire people to vote for them, and keep dividing the working class more and more. You’re only playing into their hands, and yes I am talking about the billionaires that you’re sucking off rn.

In a system that values profits over peoples’ lives, stealing is a morally good act.

No Clue, I was just trying to speak to why the og commenter may be calling this based.

I think the intent was ‘based girl standing up for herself to the point of killing a dude’, but I could be wrong.

The ‘Maga communism’ is still alive and well, sadly. The ACP took over the r/socialist sub on reddit.

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You have no clue why I’m mad at the people who invited in the fascists.

Really.

Again: I voted for Kamala. I just recognize that the people who didn’t are not the enemy. Stop attacking other normal people instead of the ones who are actively trying to divide us over stupid shit (like this).

Yep, and a large number of people decided to just hand over all levers of power over to those people! At least it wasn’t the DEMS who got the levers of power! That would have been the REAL atrocity.

We don’t owe anybody our votes. Not you, not Kamala, not Trump. The reason Trump keeps winning is because he makes people think he’s for them. The democrats are actively ignoring the voices of their base and saying that they’re going to do nothing for us, but hey, at least they’re not trump! If you want any actual recognition on why people are not voting maybe it’s because our votes are not mattering when we cast them. We vote lesser evil and we still get evil. That is not something to vote for. That’s when you just pack your bags and leave the fucking country if you’re able to do so. And if you’re not able to do so (like me) you’re getting fucked over no matter what you do, and dumb shits will berate you for not suffering in silence.

You’re putting the blame for a fucked population on an amoral self-centered party apparatus. The amoral self-centered party apparatus would all be hanged in a just society, don’t get me wrong - but they’re not the core of the fucking problem. The core of the fucking problem is the widespread acceptance of dogshit right-wing ideology in the population - yes, including the working class - and pretending that if only we had a DIFFERENT party apparatus, or different people in charge of it, would change that fundamentally FUCKED issue is delusional.

Holy fucking shit, you really are dumber than a sack of bricks. The core of the problem is the billionaires. You know, the ones who have been systematically demonizing left-wing ideologies since FDR dropped dead? You know, the ones that have been systematically funding and promoting right-wing ideologies because they were trying to get to this point? Nothing will get fixed while billionaires have this level of control over our government. If you’re not voting for an anti-corruption or anti-billionaire candidate, if you’re not organizing in your communities, and if you’re content with actually voting for the lesser evil every few years instead of expecting better (or preferably DEMANDING better) of your elected officials, YOU are fucking delusional. Maybe do like the fucking lefties and go out and try to show people a better way and convince them to back anti-corruption, anti-corporate candidates at all levels of government instead of coming online to shit on the people who are actively trying to fix the problems in the government.

Jesus fucking Christ. “The GOP loves the will of the people” is not a new one, but it always astounds me how many “left-wing” commenters eagerly swallow that fascist shit in their fervor to make sure everyone knows they think the SHITLIBS are the WORST OPTION POSSIBLE.

Stop putting words in my mouth. I never said the GOP loves the will of the people. I said they listened to it, which is far more than the dems have done recently.

Cool, so now fascists have, what, over a supermajority in this country? After all, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. How many socialists do you think there are in the US? Bernie fucking Sanders is considered a radical here. Not just by “The Establishment™”, by actual voters on the fucking ground.

Yeah, and what have you done to actually try and help matters? Get out of the basement you’re dwelling in, go talk to people, and give them the education to get us out of this system and inspire the future you’re so certain can never happen. What’s the old saying ‘Be the change you wish to see in the world’? Except, you won’t, because you don’t actually want that. You don’t want a better society for anyone. You come in here bitching about leftists claiming “think of the minorities” and when a minority comes and calls you out for using people like me as a pawn in your ideological LARPing you turn on the minority (who voted for your dogs hit candidate may I remind you) while doing absolutely nothing to get us out of this batshit reality. Liberals are so content to sit around while it’s other people’s children dying to bombs or starvation that they’ll sit around with a thumb up their ass ‘dunking’ on leftists who are asking for better. Some of y’all ain’t never known suffering and it shows.

“Hey, let’s fight the literal fucking fascists!”

“Fuck off, shitlib! I’d rather see the fascists win than fight with you!”

Excuse me, but how many times in this thread have I asked you to stop attacking your fellow human beings and focus on the real enemy here? Billionaires. The 1% causes the rise of fascism every time, because fascism is the end result of unchecked capitalism. Fight the ones who put us in this situation or keep arguing on the internet while the world burns. The choice is entirely yours.

Look, I’ma be real: I have no fucking clue what you are mad at us for. There are people who are actively trying to kill us. There are people who will sit around and watch us die without meaningfully trying to forstall it. The people who hold the power to help everyone have consistently failed to enact any meaningful change and have consistently failed to listen to the working class begging for relief. If this had happened in 1996, I could almost understand your viewpoint because at that point this would’ve been a surprise. But the simple fact of the matter is is that the working class has been begging for relief (and has watched DEMOCRATIC presidents bail out billionaires that drove us deeper into poverty)and every time we ask the DNC or the RNC for any kind of relief we have been systematically ignored and told to vote for the lesser of two evils with literally no choice to not vote for evil.

At what point do you realize that so long as the DNC and the RNC run the show, we will never find a good position? In fact, that’s exactly how we got Donald trump in the first place. The RNC didn’t like him any more than we did, but he got the nomination because working class Americans are sick and tired of corrupt representatives who don’t give a shit about us. But unlike the RNC, when the Democrats were being challenged by an anti-establishment candidate, instead of listening to the will of the people fairly and unbiasedly, the dems do their damnedest to torpedo the campaigns of progressive candidates any chance they can.

Scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds. Get your own fucking house in order and fight the people who put us in this mess. They’re the enemy. Not me. Not you. Them.

Leftist here who voted for Kamala and is also a minority:

So glad you taught those Dems a lesson, I’m sure the elite in the DNC are going to be very harmed by this, and not the numerous marginalized groups on the ground.

You recognize that how you’re describing the situation is eerily close to the definition of collective punishment, right? “Don’t argue with the people in charge who have been screwing us over for the entirety of our lives and who are actively doing a genocide because at least they’re not gonna hurt us as bad”. That’s not an argument for keeping those people in power. Stop defending the people who are willfully causing the deaths of children halfway across the world because at least less people will die here. Stop trading Palestinian lives for American ones.

We have one enemy right now and it’s the billionaires who are actively and maliciously trying to keep us fighting against each other so that they can r*pe and decimate the working class. Shut the fuck up about who voted last election and for whom and actually gear up behind candidates that actually want to solve problems. The dem establishment does not give a shit about the working class. How many fucking articles have to come out basically spelling out for you that they are abandoning the working class? They’re courting corporate interest too. Get off the sinking ship and hold your fucking public servants accountable for their actions for once.

Part of the appeal for more sc justices/more house of rep members, etc is twofold:

1. It reduces an individual lawmaker’s power and (in the house of rep’s case) makes an individual rep much easier for the public to pressure as they will be beholden to fewer constituents per rep (less constituents, the less support you need in order to rally people to oust the incumbent).

2. It makes corrupting the government with money a little bit harder: more reps = more people you need to pay off, and it’s not like every additional vote you need only costs $1 or smth, we’re talking you need to get everyone enough money to keep them on board, which could be an extra couple million/billion than corrupting people now.

That being said: you’re right, we need more than just that. We need avenues to hold votes of non-confidence (which will both allow us to get rid of bad/not helpful public servants, and also force politicians to stop straight-up lying on the stump). We need to institute public funding of elections to keep things both balanced and less-easily corrupted. We need to end gerrymandering. We need term limits.