Comment by palmotea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by palmotea | Hacker News Reader

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> Factually, Harris as a candidate was orders of magnitude better than Trump: a boring, competent, left-leaning centrist.

OK, so now we know how you voted. What fraction of the electorate are you?

> The problem wasn't really Harris, who got very close to half the vote.

Which in this case is called "losing." Trump even won the popular vote that time.

> The problem is that half the voting population does not think that electing a fascist demagogue is that big of a deal, or compares favorably to electing a boring centrist.

IMHO, one of the Democrats' many fuck-ups was they overdid the "fascist demagogue" line of attack, basically neutering it.

It's pretty clear roughly what your political views are, but let me hazard a guess that you're far away from being a swing voter. IMHO, another one of the Democrats' fuck-ups was being unwilling to make their most loyal voters uncomfortable, and instead demanding that persuadable voters tolerate discomfort, which is a tough sell.

> This suggests that our civic culture is fundamentally broken at the moment. You can't run a society like this!

How very convenient! Doesn't that mean you don't have to adapt in any way that's uncomfortable to you?

The most common vote in any presidential is an (implicit) abstention.

It's very important to try to persuade centrists that you're a better candidate than the opposition, but it's also very important to persuade your voters that you're worth going to the polls for. The latter requires making your loyal voters comfortable at the expense of the swing voters.

This entire comment is a giant strawman that fails to address the point I was making.

Half the voting population elected a fascist demagogue. Fundamentally, swing state voters are not the issue: that's just a weird artifact of our electoral system. The issue is that something like 40-45% of the population will literally vote for *anyone* in the Republican party, even if they're "America's Hitler". Project 2025 made it blatantly obvious what they were voting for.

Even if the Democratic party better adapts to swing voters' needs -- even if they win! -- that 40-45% remains a ticking time bomb. A democracy can't survive when close to half the voting population values party victory over democracy.

"To drive the point home she [Pelosi] picked up a water glass next to her and said: “This glass of water would win with a ‘D’ next to its name in those districts.”"

Let's not pretend that only one 40-45% part of the population votes on a party line.

There is no evidence that Democratic voters would vote en masse for somebody running on a platform of *undermining democracy*. (In fact, there's evidence that they would reject such a candidate, given how quickly candidates with any sort of problematic past -- like Platner and Franken -- are discarded.)

In contrast, MAGA Republicanism is fundamentally centered on accruing power and codifying hierarchy at the expense of everything else.

> This entire comment is a giant strawman that fails to address the point I was making.

Frankly, the point that you were making was dumb. Complaining about the voters will get you nowhere.

> Half the voting population elected a fascist demagogue.

You're high on your own rhetoric. That's not smart.

> The issue is that something like 40-45% of the population will literally vote for anyone in the Republican party, even if they're "America's Hitler". Project 2025 made it blatantly obvious what they were voting for.

So why is that? Try not to reach for some explanation that makes you feel good about yourself or your guys, because that's self-deception.

What do you have to do to change situation? If your answer is something that's comfortable and easy for you to swallow, it probably won't work. You're prioritizing your own comfort over an effective action.

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