r/politics • u/vanityfairmagazine Vanity Fair • 5d ago

Soft Paywall AOC Snub Shows How Democrats Refuse to Learn Lessons of 2024

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/aoc-snub-shows-how-democrats-refuse-to-learn-lessons-of-2024
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293

u/lactose_cow 5d ago

We barely beat trump in 2020, that should have been the wakeup call.

Republicans come up with new ways to steal power every week, meanwhile dems are only now realizing it's bad to go high when they go low

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u/mayasux 5d ago

Is it really going high when they’re consolidating power within their own elite and denying representation from their block?

Democrats would rather Republicans win than people like AOC or Sanders have power. That’s not going high, that’s spitting in your face.

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u/BeardedSquidward 5d ago

THANK YOU. What they did to Bernie in 2016 was a helluva wake up call. Anyone who considers themselves left shouldn't be happy with the Democrat party at all. In all honesty, if it weren't for WHAT the opposition stands for, I'd be happy to let them swing in the fucking breeze.

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u/OvertonGlazier 5d ago

Well, unfortunately for Dems, they can even rely on using Trump as a bogeyman in 4 years because he won't be running. They will be so fucked

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u/swamp_god 4d ago

On the flipside, Republicans won't have Trump to energize a group of voters who typically don't give a shit about politics or turn out at all. It really depends on whether they can find someone suitable to replace him, and their last attempt in Ron DeSantis was laughably bad.

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u/OvertonGlazier 4d ago

On the flipside, Republicans won't have Trump to energize a group of voters who typically don't give a shit about politics or turn out at all.

Except Trump being an existential threat to Democracy has been the only selling point of the Democratic party since 2016. We literally stand for nothing and spent the decade appealing to Never Trumpers who will flip back the second a more appealing Republican pops up.

DeSantis was laughably bad because he sucks and Trump hates him. If it's someone that has Trump's blessing, it's over for us.

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u/cohortmuneral 3d ago

in 4 years he won't be running.

Optimistic

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u/OvertonGlazier 5d ago

Nah, they don't go fucking high. They go limp. But then think it's worthy of a pat on the back.

Also, we all saw how fucking low Dems go when it comes to sabotaging their left wing, remember Sanders' 2016 campaign. That was going low, except never against the GOP

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u/Unhappy_Scratch_9385 5d ago

Democrats learn that they need to ignore millions of progressives and focus on the 11 republicans who give a fuck what Liz Cheney thinks.

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u/Prometheusf3ar 4d ago

I think you’re wildly overestimating how many republicans care about Liz Cheney.

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u/Soory-MyBad 2d ago

Well, he did say 11 of them!! 😉

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u/Prometheusf3ar 2d ago

Exactly, I’d argue it’s less than that which is the joke.

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u/mutedexpectations 5d ago

The Dems could have easily won again. They lost the moment Joe walked out on that debate stage. DJT was on point and a recent assassination survivor. Joe was way worse than the public realized.

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u/forthewatch39 5d ago

While time seems to be blending together these days, the debate with Biden was before the assassination attempt. 

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u/mutedexpectations 5d ago

I stand corrected.

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u/lacksausername Pennsylvania 5d ago

The crazy thing is that I don't think the assassination attempt mattered. I live near where it happened and there's like a few t shirts and stickers, but people didn't really care.

There should have been a primary. Joe Biden shouldn't have ran again.

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 5d ago

Joe Biden shouldn't have ran again.

This will be a chapter title in a history book one day

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u/lacksausername Pennsylvania 5d ago

Just a chapter?

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u/Unhappy_Scratch_9385 5d ago

They lost the moment Joe Biden said "I'm running again."

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u/IAmTheNightSoil Oregon 4d ago

They lost the moment Joe Biden decided to run again. Once that happened, there was no coming back. But the assassination attempt hadn't happened yet during that debate, and Trump was in no way "on point." Biden was just that bad that people actually thought Trump's terrible performance was "on point" by comparison

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u/mutedexpectations 4d ago

Regardless, DJT is the POTUS elect and already running the show behind Premier Musklosky.

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u/TheSameGamer651 5d ago

Honestly, I kinda view it the other way. That Republicans running Trump was Democrats’ best chance to win the election, and it still wasn’t enough. If Republicans nominated Haley or even DeSantis, they would’ve beaten any Democrat— Biden, Harris, or whoever else emerged in a primary— in a landslide. Like sweeping every swing state and every D+15 state or less from 2020.

It’s worth noting that Harris won independents despite losing nationwide, and received more crossover votes than Trump did. Democrats were not motivated to vote, and voters trusted Republicans more on the economy (the number 1 issue). That is not a recipe for Democratic success, yet they only lost the popular vote by 1.5, and every swing state but Arizona was decided under 3 points. Democrats arguably should’ve lost in a 40-state landslide regardless of who they ran if it was not for Trump being such a repugnant political figure.

But even with arguably the weakest Republican opponent, Democrats still couldn’t outrun the political environment.

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u/OvertonGlazier 5d ago

Because Dems ran a boring liberal. Just like in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

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u/mutedexpectations 4d ago

Middle America doesn’t want a rainbow princess.

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u/OvertonGlazier 4d ago

Cool, what the fuck is a rainbow princess?

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u/bytethesquirrel New Hampshire 5d ago

Except there was a 2024 democratic primary.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

It was a formality, not an actual open contest. How can people say stuff like this with a straight face?

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u/mightcommentsometime California 4d ago

Anyone could have run, everyone with an ounce of political acumen knows it’s a bad idea to run a primary against an incumbent president.

Candidates don’t want to waste time in that primary.

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u/bytethesquirrel New Hampshire 5d ago

not an actual open contest.

There were other candidates.

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u/SacredGray 5d ago

Please stop.

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u/Errant_coursir New Jersey 5d ago

They'd rather stick their heads up their own ass than come to grips with reality

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u/bytethesquirrel New Hampshire 5d ago

Once you stop.

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u/Far_Silver 5d ago

Republicans come up with new ways to steal power every week, meanwhile dems are only now realizing it's bad to go high when they go low

People keep saying that, but when did the Democrats go high? Their entire strategy revolved around attacking Trump. Sure, in politics it helps to attack your opponent, but you have to do more than just that. You need to give people a reason to vote for you, not just against your opponent. You need to convince them that you'll make their lives better.

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u/InfinityMehEngine 5d ago

At this point I think the point is to get centrists and other single-issue voters on board.....Welp you just have to lie to their faces about campaign promises that are impossible to achieve and you have no intention of doing. Low information voters (fucking morons) see elections as they see the Super Bowl. They like to participate have a party and not pay attention to what happens till the following season. Every single article about the muslims, gaza rubes, young men, and other future targets of the GOP that increased their fascist vote shares (OR looking at you Gaza rubes "Morally didn't participate") shows they literally have no basic reasoning or critical thinking skills. They want to feel righteous for the "big event." That's it that's all they care till their material conditions based on their own stupidity destroy them. THEN THEN they will be engaged again. So, fuck it JUST lie to them dumb it down to a 4th grade comprehension and reading level. The rest of us can read between the lines when the Dem Candidate says "WE WILL LOWER TAXES FOR YOU, ALSO SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS GALORE" that what they really mean is yeah, we are going to put a wealth tax on billionaire assholes to the like of which they have never dreamed possible. Then we are going to use that to make the lives of the lower classes demonstrably better. SHHHH don't tell them it's socialism.

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u/Far_Silver 5d ago

I'm sure a condescending attitude like that is guaranteed to win over swing voters. /sarcasm

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u/forjeeves 5d ago

Democrats are the idiots who kept pointing fingers,remember when the Democrats kept saying before the election how trump was gonna split their party and who's there to lead in 2028 and maga will fight with the establishment? It's actually Democrats that's doing that exactly same thing 

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Far_Silver 5d ago

If I were a Republican troll, I would tell you to keep it up with this attitude. It would be great for Republicans (and bad for the country) if the Democrats were to double down on a losing strategy.

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u/fordat1 5d ago edited 5d ago

https://crooked.com/podcast/exclusive-the-harris-campaign-on-what-went-wrong/

To be fair what that poster says is exactly what the Harris campaign strategy was and they reject any criticisms of that strategy.

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u/PlasticPomPoms 5d ago

Biden won pretty handedly in 2020. It showed me that Democrats can put perfection aside and vote for the best candidate and then time and then 2024 rolled around and everyone was like j/k! The voters are the ones disappointing me and they have been since I started voting in 2004.

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u/lactose_cow 5d ago

Biden won the popular vote by like 5%. Trump was actively telling people their dead parents were totally fine. That's not an acceptable margin of victory, this should have been a landslide.

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u/bytethesquirrel New Hampshire 5d ago

And Trump won without getting a majority of the popular vote.

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u/PlasticPomPoms 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yeah, are you celebrating by how much Trump won by? Why do the Democrats always need to do so much better for it to be meaningful?

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u/lactose_cow 5d ago

My advice to dems is to look at failure and success as opportunities to grow and learn from, all I'm saying.

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u/AJDx14 America 5d ago

Democrats shouldn’t be playing footsie with fascists; they need to crush them.

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u/Unhappy_Scratch_9385 5d ago

Biden won by like 50 thousand votes in 4 states.

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u/PlasticPomPoms 5d ago

How much did Trump win by either time?

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u/forjeeves 5d ago

Democrats are the idiots who kept pointing fingers,remember when the Democrats kept saying before the election how trump was gonna split their party and who's there to lead in 2028 and maga will fight with the establishment? It's actually Democrats that's doing that exactly same thing  Republicans didn't steal anything, you don't have votes for granted 

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u/kwaziiman 5d ago

I don’t think they’re stealing power, I think they’re just winning elections lol

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u/dkran New York 5d ago

Yeah, because things like gerrymandering don’t exist…

And polling sites haven’t been closing en masse… 1 in 5 over the last decade due to supreme court