Democrats should pay attention to Kristen McDonald Rivet's election postmortem

[u/cathbadh]

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/kristen-mcdonald-rivet-democrats-win-rcna184010

[u/DeafJoo]

Then explain why the GOP can spew far right nonsense and put their most crazy up front - and face zero consequences

Why is it Dems only are liable for their fringe

That's what they need to figure out. That's the key.

[u/wes424 → u/DeafJoo]

This is the same nonsense that led you to losing in the "most consequential election in our lifetime".

Instead of rejecting the left fringe, dems are trying to mainstream it even more and America rejected it. That's what you need to realize.

[u/blewpah → u/wes424]

This is the same nonsense that led you to losing in the "most consequential election in our lifetime".

This kind of guilt-trippy rubbing left wing people's face in the election loss without any attempt to engage with valid points is incredibly lame, especially when you make it this personal. It's pretty unlikely the person you responded to was part of the Harris campaign or the Democratic party.

Instead of rejecting the left fringe, dems are trying to mainstream it even more and America rejected it. That's what you need to realize.

You're ignoring the point - Republicans hardly rejected their fringe, often it was actually a centerpiece of their campaign. For some reason it didn't stick in the minds of voters or Republicans generally weren't punished for it.

So why the difference? This is obviously relevant to what happened this election, even though a lot of folks don't seem to want to engage with the question.

[u/wes424 → u/blewpah]

Their prior reply made it pretty clear who they supported. And yes maybe they should have the loss "rubbed in" so they stop and consider why they have a losing message. That's not personal. Instead, they are doubling down.

Democrats are too afraid of the extremists in their party that they can't say that calling for the genocide of jews on a college campus is bad. America voted against that.

[u/permajetlag → u/wes424]

I've seen no evidence that this election swung on the Israel issue. In fact, what I've seen is Kamala being too pro-Palestine close to the bottom.

https://blueprint2024.com/polling/why-trump-reasons-11-8/

[u/wes424 → u/permajetlag]

Look at swings in margins in predominantly Jewish counties across the country. Of course not enough to tip the election on its own. And even non Jewish voters probably didn't look at the liberal handling of that and go "yes, that's reasonable".

[u/permajetlag → u/wes424]

In terms of electoral outcomes, it's possible that Kamala loses more Muslims than she gains Jews if she moved right on Israel. We'll never know for certain.

But the main point is not direction, it's magnitude. It's just not salient enough to claim that "America voted against that".

[u/wes424 → u/permajetlag]

She lost major ground on both. See Dearborn, Michigan.

You're right, but it's only one example of many of the Dem party catering to their fringe elements which was the original thread here and what I think was electorally rejected.

[u/blewpah → u/wes424]

Their prior reply made it pretty clear who they supported. And yes maybe they should have the loss "rubbed in" so they stop and consider why they have a losing message. That's not personal. Instead, they are doubling down.

There's more to this than Dems' message, that's the whole point. They brought up a valid point and instead of engaging with it you're resorting to trying to make them feel bad. Yes it is personal if you're admitting you're trying to rub someone's nose in a loss but you can't even engage with their point. There's no real argument to what you're saying and it's much less clever than you seem to think. Please don't get hurt patting yourself on the back.

Democrats are too afraid of the extremists in their party that they can't say that calling for the genocide of jews on a college campus is bad.

Great example of how it isn't really about Dems' messaging. Both Biden and Harris explicitly did this, as did lots of Dems (and FWIW Harris' husband is Jewish) - but you're still falsely claiming that they didn't with lots of undeserved confidence about it.

So the question is how can Democrats improve their messaging when many people will so easily fall for these falsehoods about them, and will completely avoid even thinking about negative messaging from Republicans?

[u/wes424 → u/blewpah]

They were silent about the campus violence for a long time until they realized it was politically unpopular.

[u/blewpah → u/wes424]

Nice try moving goalposts, but that's wrong too - they addressed it early on with this release from November 2023

So again, to that person's point - a lot of the popular narratives about Democrats' supposed bad messaging are just wrong. Why do you think that is?

[u/wes424 → u/blewpah]

A month to address racial violence. So swift and decisive!!

[u/blewpah → u/wes424]

Ignoring that the Biden admin would have first been focused on responding to the actual October 7th attack, that the campus violence didn't just start outright on October 7th, you're examining this with hindsight over a year later, and that it was within the context of much broader protests:

Again you have to move goalposts. First they never said anything, then when shown you were wrong they only said something after a long time, and then when you were wrong again they didn't say it swiftly and decisively enough for whatever arbitrary standard you're using.

You have a preconcieved idea that Dems were bad, and what they actually did is secondary. I'd strongly suggest you stop using such a patronizing tone about this.

[u/wes424 → u/blewpah]

You are probably the only person on earth who thinks liberals, including Biden and Harris, supported Jews in the US after October 7th. The only reason those soft statements went out was because they knew it was politically toxic to ignore but nothing was really done. University presidents went in front of congress and refused to say that calls for genocide against Jews are against university codes of conduct. Students on campuses set up Jew free zones and waved flags of terrorist organizations.

Replace Jews with any other minority in the US in this scenario. You think their little press release a few months later would be enough?

[u/blewpah → u/wes424]

You are probably the only person on earth who thinks liberals, including Biden and Harris, supported Jews in the US after October 7th.

You're very wrong. They've directly supported Israel throughout the war. And regarding messaging I just gave you evidence of it but it doesnt seem to matter what they did. It will be discounted no matter what.

The only reason those soft statements went out was because they knew it was politically toxic to ignore but nothing was really done.

Okay so now even the statements and messaging aren't good enough. First off - they did outline the actions they took. Second - what would you have had them do? Send in the national guard to shut down protests on college campuses?

University presidents went in front of congress and refused to say that calls for genocide against Jews are against university codes of conduct.

Now you're moving goalposts away from anything Biden or Harris even did.

That question was obviously posed in such a way to force the presidents into an awkward position and ragebait no matter what they said, because "calls for genocide against Jews", does not have an objective definition and some people's opinion what that means includes things things that overlap with things that would fall under protected free speech. If a university president tried to discipline students for supporting BDS for example that would definitely violate the 1st amendment.

Students on campuses set up Jew free zones and waved flags of terrorist organizations.

Replace Jews with any other minority in the US in this scenario. You think their little press release a few months later would be enough?

Waving the flag of a terrorist organization is protected free speech. A presidential administration can not stop that without violating the constitution. I'm only aware of one instance of a so called "Jew free zone", in April 2024, and they issues several statements denouncing antisemitism then as I linked above.

[u/wes424 → u/blewpah]

And here we go again. Supporting Israel in the war is different than supporting US citizens that are Jewish. I was told that many times when people were trying to justify their antisemitism by saying they are anti zionist.

If college students put up a black free zone, you think they'd shrug it off like they did for weeks? Oh but it was only one that you know of, no big deal, right?

[u/blewpah → u/wes424]

And here we go again. Supporting Israel in the war is different than supporting US citizens that are Jewish. I was told that many times when people were trying to justify their antisemitism by saying they are anti zionist.

They did that too as I have shown you above.

If college students put up a black free zone,

This isn't a good analogy because it wasn't exactly a "Jew free zone" - it was targeting Zionism. It's still unacceptable to deny people entry to places they have a right to be but who they were targeting is a bit more complicated because of the intersection of religion and politics.

you think they'd shrug it off like they did for weeks? Oh but it was only one that you know of, no big deal, right?

Exactly how many weeks did they "shrug it off" for? I never said "no big deal" but obviously there's a difference between one time and multiple times.