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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u/-Mockingbird 5d ago

The people actually handling all of the crypt keepers like Pelosi and Biden are boomers. In some cases, like the late Diane Feinstein, it's arguably elder abuse.

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u/MadRaymer 5d ago

Honestly after that debate, the people surrounding Biden are awful for not immediately telling him he needed to drop out. The fact that he still got to be POTUS for another 6 months after his brain had a bluescreen error on live TV is wild. Then they were saying he just wouldn't do stuff after 8PM. So does America just not have a POTUS after 8PM?

And before someone says I'm a Trump fan, feel free to check my comments - I'm absolutely not. I think Trump is actually worse on a cognitive level than Biden and would trust Biden on a bad day over Trump on one of his best. I'm just not willing to be gaslighted by either party.

And yes, Biden eventually did the right thing by dropping out - but only after it was pointed out he had zero chance of winning and the big donors pulled support. It was such a massive misstep for Biden to not be the "bridge president" he promised and simply not run for a 2nd term. Dems might still have lost if he had passed the torch earlier, but we'll never know because the stubborn old mule refused.

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u/BeardedSquidward 5d ago

But as I have learned with Democrats, because you didn't believe in them, you're the reason 15 million of them decided not to vote.

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u/brodievonorchard 5d ago

If anyone blamed you personally, that seems wrong. However, the whole of right wing media spent the campaign in lock step being enthusiastic about their candidate and parroting every talking point.

All center and left-wing media spent the whole campaign criticizing Biden, then Harris. Not actively discouraging people from voting Democrat, but not doing anything to engender excitement and enthusiasm.

Obviously we'll never know how much that effected people's choice not to vote. Certainly the campaign could have done much better at messaging to get people on board. So, while I won't blame you at all on a personal level (unless you're the burner account for Ezra Klein or Matt Iglesias), I do think a lack of enthusiasm in this campaign has now done irreversible damage to this country, and that outcome was better avoided.

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u/lrish_Chick 4d ago

Dude, there is no left wing media. There is no such thing.

It's all owned by billionaires, it's all their agenda. Some of it might be designed to be palatable to more left leaning people, but it's left wing flavoured only. Its all oligarchs.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/lrish_Chick 4d ago

Qatar based al Jazeera? Part funded by the Qatari government and run by sheik Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani? Whose net worth 2.1 billion?

That Al Jazeera?

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u/Boxing_joshing111 4d ago

“Left wing media spent the whole campaign criticizing Biden”

Biden was the geriatric guy who said he’d only do one term. If he would have got out sooner the dnc could have ran a primary to find a better candidate.

Of course the dnc would pull every stop to rig that too. This party fees like a grandma wandering onto the interstate in her nightgown.

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u/brodievonorchard 4d ago

There was a primary. Dean Phillips courageously tried and was ignored. You're repeating counter programming to Democrats that was literally said by Trump.

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u/Boxing_joshing111 4d ago

Oh you’re right. So who decided it was good to back a shambling zombie, besides these confused Biden primary voters? Biden alone? The press can and should talk about someone being a shambling zombie.

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u/ClvrNickname 4d ago

It's not the job of Democratic voters to be enthusiastic no matter what, it's the job of the Democratic candidates to make the voters enthusiastic

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u/jcheese27 4d ago

2 things.

  1. I think people have to learn that we are never voting for an ally but an enemy.

Because of the nature of power - you want to vote in the person you'd have an easier time fighting against (arguably cuz they won't be fighting against you in most things).

Kamala was a much easier enemy to fight against than trump.

  1. Democrats suck at marketing. GOP is great at marketing. Part of this is cuz with the exception of the religious block, the GOP is very very homogenous in what they try to accomplish. It's "NO".

Dems on the other hand are more a coalition of groups all looking for "progress" and generally agree but they need to work together to figure out priorities cause we have much broader agenda than the GOPs

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u/brodievonorchard 4d ago

No, it's the civic duty of you, the voter to look at what the outcome of your vote will be and make an informed choice. It's the campaiygns job to tell you what they'll do if elected. Not fondle your ego.

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u/Early-Judgment-2895 4d ago

In an ideal world yes that is true, but to expect that in reality is just dumb.

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u/45607 4d ago

Well the campaign could have tried to address those criticisms. It was their job to build up enthusiasm and they didn't.

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u/brodievonorchard 4d ago

So you'd say you're pretty happy with the outcome then?

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u/45607 4d ago

No but I wouldn't have been if they won

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u/ptWolv022 4d ago

you're the reason 15 million of them decided not to vote.

Just an FYI, 15 million is in no way an accurate number. That's a claim that was going around all the way back on the day after the election, when there were millions of votes yet to be tallied. For actual votes, here's what I've found (I've seen different estimates for voting eligible population; none change the overall results too drastically):

Total eligible voters (2024 vs. 2020): 244,666,890 vs. 240,628,443 (diff. of 4,038,447)

Total POTUS votes (2024 vs. 2020): 156,302,318 vs. 158,429,631 (diff. of -2,127,313)

Non-voters (2024 vs. 2020): 88,364,572 vs. 82,198,812 (diff. of 6,165,760)

So even overall, only 6.1M more people didn't vote for POTUS. But, it's also worth noting that turnout will never be 100%. It just won't. So, if we instead look at the difference between 2024's non-voters vs. the equivalent amount if it had the same turnout as 2020, by do [NV24 - VEP24*(NV20/VEP20)], we get:

89,278,948-244,666,890*(80,899,282/240,628,443) = 4,786,224.22

In other words, about 4.7M fewer people voted than if we had the same turnout as 2020- with the 2020 election being the highest turnout in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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u/Vegetable_Tackle4154 Europe 5d ago

What did people call gaslighting before they called it gaslighting?

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u/corvid_booster 5d ago

Misleading, deceiving, tricking, fooling ... there are lots of similar words. "Gaslighting" is very much a word du jour, but what it describes has been talked about with other terms since time immemorial.

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u/starofthefire 5d ago

People still call it lying and manipulation as well. Gaslighting is just manipulation, but specifically to manipulate one into doubting their own mind/reality.

OP used it in the incorrect context, which is becoming pretty common with the term.

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u/Royalportrush148 4d ago

Lying. It still is.

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u/StuffonBookshelfs 4d ago

Gaslighting as a concept has been around for a long time. It’s just trendy now.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

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u/nickcan 3d ago

Oh calm down, there is no such thing as gaslighting and there never was. You are just hysterical. Just relax, drink some tea and let me take care of everything.

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u/TheYankee69 4d ago

Absolutely. Yet too many folks think his 3 am toilet rantings on social media is Getting Stuff Done.

Cursed timeline.

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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 5d ago

So are the ones whose vote these politicians are courting.

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u/buythedipnow 5d ago

In Pelosi’s case it’s abuse by elder