What did Democrats do wrong?

[d4m10n]

Republicans didn't win by...winning over undecideds.

2024 Post-Election Survey: Trump Won “Swing Voters” by 8 Points

Exit poll report focusing on swing voters and other key voting blocks that delivered Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.

navigatorresearch.org

 

[Brainster]

As for your whine about being accused of undermining democracy and abetting a takeover, when you spend your time amplifying every real or imagined fault of the Democrats while staying silent on the Republicans doing things ten times worse, what do you expect? You know exactly what that behavior accomplishes.

It's almost like this thread is dedicated to things the Democrats did wrong.

 

[ahhell]

Your principles don't mean a thing if they result in the people you claim to care about being stripped of their rights because you refuse to help them. If you let the worse option win because you think it keeps your hands clean, that's not principle, it's vanity.

As for your whine about being accused of undermining democracy and abetting a takeover, when you spend your time amplifying every real or imagined fault of the Democrats while staying silent on the Republicans doing things ten times worse, what do you expect? You know exactly what that behavior accomplishes.

I for one do not what to point out things the GOP did wrong as I'd prefer the loose. Also, the OP isn't "What did the GOP do wrong" and the GOP didn't lose the presidency to Trump, so much less interesting. What did the GOP do wrong, they let Trump win the primaries again, they didn't convict him during the second impeachment, they are in absolute denial about his blatant an obvious corruption, all true. That has nothing to do with what the Dems did wrong though. They must have done something very wrong to let that guy and that party beat them in an election though.

ETA: The response from a lot of folks in this thread has effectively been, nothing they did nothing wrong because the voters suck and GOP sucks. Ok, even if that is why the Dems lost the last election, what can the Dems do about that?

 

[wareyin]

Your attempt at mindreading here is shameful and embarrassing. In all the years the trans thread has existed, I've never once argued in favor of a state-level bathroom law, much less a federal one. Now that the search function is working, you are free to verify this for yourself.

Consider asking someone who is actually making that demand how they would hope to implement it—in the correct thread.

I will take this as your apology for bringing up and arguing why that specific law should be implemented then? Because it's not mind reading to read the words you wrote.

 

[ahhell]

The Primaries are another the thing both the Dems and Reps do wrong. Go back to the party leadership selecting candidates like pretty much every other democracy in the world.

 

[wareyin]

It's almost like this thread is dedicated to things the Democrats did wrong.

I think you missed "As for bringing up conservatives, when your suggestions for what the Democrats did "wrong" are things the Republicans did significantly worse, it's valid to compare them. Despite your inability to understand this, it was a binary choice. Plus, more than half of the "suggestions" here are coming from either open conservatives like theprestige and Emily's Cat, or from "independents" who spout conservative propaganda like jasonkilanski and... well, Emily's Cat again."

 

[wareyin]

I for one do not what to point out things the GOP did wrong as I'd prefer the loose. Also, the OP isn't "What did the GOP do wrong" and the GOP didn't lose the presidency to Trump, so much less interesting. What did the GOP do wrong, they let Trump win the primaries again, they didn't convict him during the second impeachment, they are in absolute denial about his blatant an obvious corruption, all true. That has nothing to do with what the Dems did wrong though. They must have done something very wrong to let that guy and that party beat them in an election though.

ETA: The response from a lot of folks in this thread has effectively been, nothing they did nothing wrong because the voters suck and GOP sucks. Ok, even if that is why the Dems lost the last election, what can the Dems do about that?

Elections have been close for a while now, and this one was no exception. A few hundred thousand votes in a couple of states would have swung things the other way. Saying that the Dems "must have done something very wrong" to lose a close election fundamentally misunderstands the game. If you can't win a debate when one opponent is free to cheat by lying and doesn't have to back up his claims, the loser didn't do something very wrong, the winner did.

As for your ETA, not one person in this thread has claimed that the Dems did nothing wrong. Not one. You just admitted the GOP sucks, and that’s true. So what do YOU think the Dems can do about a GOP that sucks and a bunch of short-sighted purity-testing children who would rather throw away their principles just to pretend to keep their hands clean? Should they try to court the bigots, as d4m10n and Emily's Cat suggest? Should they start cheating and be openly corrupt, since that worked for Trump?

 

[Donal]

The Primaries are another the thing both the Dems and Reps do wrong. Go back to the party leadership selecting candidates like pretty much every other democracy in the world.

Most of those are parliamentary systems that don't elect a separate executive. And the ones that do elect a sperate executive aren't stuck in 2-party, winner-take-all electoral college systems.

 

[dirtywick]

damion, just to add to my earlier post, the primary thing is another example. biden was the incumbent and chose to run again, so when he dropped out that they didn’t have a primary was supposedly a major factor and anti-democratic. but, the gop was basically a show primary and trump bought out his comp by offering them cabinet spots to drop out and endorse him.

so i would ask, why is that situation something that hurt the dems but not the gop, if fair and democratic primaries are important to undecided voters? answer i would get is it’s off topic and i have tds, but i think its a valid point.

 

[ahhell]

Yes, they should absolutely try to court bigots if that's what they need to do to win. But I don't think they need to, they could have courted reasonable people who thought border enforcement is an issue. They could try and figure out why some folks voted for Obama and Trump and why Trump did better among minorities after being called a racists for 8 years.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

You're still trying to frame a choice that certain voters made to stay home as something the Democrats "forced" them to do. Nobody forced them to do anything. They made a choice that their own moral comfort was more important than protecting the rights of the people they claim to care about. That’s the vanity I’m talking about.

Your anti-trans candidate hypothetical breaks down because it ignores how primaries work. For an "Emily's Cat" level bigot to be the "duly nominated" Democrat, the overwhelming majority of the Democratic base would have to have voted for them. If the party and its voters reached that point, we'd be living in a different political reality entirely.

You're using a fictional "what if" to justify people staying home in a real election where the choice was between a party that has consistently fought for trans rights and one that spent hundreds of millions of dollars to demonize them. You're trying to pretend there's virtue in not picking the better candidate, because that's what "least worst" is: better. Since there’s no such thing as a perfect candidate, refusing to support an imperfect but better alternative only hands the win to the worse option. That isn't a principled stand, it's a failure to understand that pragmatism is the only way to actually protect the principles you claim to hold.

You have quotes around the word "forced" as if that was a word I used, but I don't see where I used it or even implied the concept. Without that your first paragraph doesn't work. The rest of your post relies on similar strawmen. I tried to be clear in my argument, but if there's something you aren't seeing sense in just ask and I'll try to elaborate.

 

[Beelzebuddy]

As for your ETA, not one person in this thread has claimed that the Dems did nothing wrong. Not one.

You seem to have forgotten that we started this argument with someone saying exactly that.

Roger Ramjets:

Post in thread 'What did Democrats do wrong?'

Feb 4, 2026

With this thread now having close to 4,000 posts it might be time to reiterate that Democrats didn't actually do anything wrong. The voters had a clear choice between democracy and dictatorship. 68% of them chose the latter. 36% either didn't think their vote counted, didn't think it mattered who was in power, or were simply too lazy to do their civic duty. 30% would have voted for the Devil himself if he had an 'R' next to his name. Only ~2% chose Trump because they stupidly thought he would be better than Harris - which was enough to swing it in his favor.

We all knew what Trump would...

• Roger Ramjets

• 
• 

 

[wareyin]

Yes, they should absolutely try to court bigots if that's what they need to do to win. But I don't think they need to, they could have courted reasonable people who thought border enforcement is an issue. They could try and figure out why some folks voted for Obama and Trump and why Trump did better among minorities after being called a racists for 8 years.

They DID court people about border enforcement (even though that was still bigotry). And we KNOW why Trump did better among minorities: sexism and bigotry. Plus, Trump has been a racist for a LOT longer than 8 years. Like, open, proud, taking out full page ads about it type racism. I'm kind of surprised you weren't aware of that. Nixon's government sued Trump for racism, man.

 

[wareyin]

You seem to have forgotten that we started this argument with someone saying exactly that.

Roger Ramjets:

Post in thread 'What did Democrats do wrong?'

Feb 4, 2026

With this thread now having close to 4,000 posts it might be time to reiterate that Democrats didn't actually do anything wrong. The voters had a clear choice between democracy and dictatorship. 68% of them chose the latter. 36% either didn't think their vote counted, didn't think it mattered who was in power, or were simply too lazy to do their civic duty. 30% would have voted for the Devil himself if he had an 'R' next to his name. Only ~2% chose Trump because they stupidly thought he would be better than Harris - which was enough to swing it in his favor.

We all knew what Trump would...

• Roger Ramjets

• 
• 

I did forget that. Ok, we do have exactly one person saying it. That nit has been picked.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

No problem, I totally understand. Damaging a little bit of rich people's stuff is way, way, way worse than damaging a lot of poor people's stuff.

The US Capitol belongs to the people of the United States. Some of those people are rich. Most are not.

Pretending damage done to the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 is no big deal was not one of the things Democrats did wrong. Pretending that it was no big deal to injure more than 100 defenders of the US Capitol was also not one of the things Democrats did wrong.

Those are, however, two of the things you are still doing wrong.

 

[wareyin]

You have quotes around the word "forced" as if that was a word I used, but I don't see where I used it or even implied the concept. Without that your first paragraph doesn't work. The rest of your post relies on similar strawmen. I tried to be clear in my argument, but if there's something you aren't seeing sense in just ask and I'll try to elaborate.

I'm not going to pretend that you actually think "caused to need to" is significantly different from "forced". If you create a situation where someone "needs" to make a specific choice, you’re describing a lack of agency. You're still trying to blame the Democratic party for a conscious decision made by individual voters.

 

[Donal]

Yes, they should absolutely try to court bigots if that's what they need to do to win.

To what end? How many people are you comfortable selling out?

But I don't think they need to, they could have courted reasonable people who thought border enforcement is an issue.

They passed a border security bill written by a Republican Senator only to have House Republicans kill it because the Orange Pedo didn't want Biden to have a win. Biden increased spending on security at the borders and ports of entry.

They could try and figure out why some folks voted for Obama and Trump and why Trump did better among minorities after being called a racists for 8 70+ years.

Fixed that for you. A big part of that is because misogyny is cool. Also, white people aren't the only ones who can be bigots. Trump also benefitted from, the media treating every issue like a sporting event between 2 even sides and letting Republicans drive the conversation about inflation, even though they were running the guy who caused the goddamned problem in the first place.

 

[dirtywick]

The US Capitol belongs to the people of the United States. Some of those people are rich. Most are not.

Pretending damage done to the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 is no big deal was not one of the things Democrats did wrong. Pretending that it was no big deal to injure more than 100 defenders of the US Capitol was also not one of the things Democrats did wrong.

Those are, however, two of the things you are still doing wrong.

and again it was part of a broader scheme by trump and his cronies to steal the election for his personal benefit.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Please be fair to the conservatives who didn't read what he actually said. Perhaps they simply aren't able to read either? Newsom has been public about his severe dyslexia for decades; he was clearly saying he can't read a speech from a script or teleprompter, which is why he memorizes them. We wouldn't want to think they were dishonestly altering a quote about a learning disability just to sow division, now would we?

Thanks for the context. I didn't know that about Newsom and I took it just as a 'l don't read well out loud' thing, (I'm the same, I can read, I can speak, but reading out loud I always trip over my words, and that's talking to my wife on the sofa not an audience).

 

[arthwollipot]

Just popping back in to post this, which seems appropriate.


Transcript:
Skepchick: Why the Democrats Keep Leaning Right

Last week a commenter wanted me to know he was very disappointed in me, which obviously was quite upsetting for me. When a complete stranger says you’ve disappointed them, well, I probably don’t have to tell you how this affected me. I cried for a good hour before I could go back and read the rest of the comment.

Anyway, the source of the disappointment was because I talked about how the Democratic Party is very conservative, but I failed to qualify that with an explanation that they’re only conservative on immigration because “the electorate itself moved to the right on immigration since 9/11,” describing a Gallup poll that found the majority of Americans wanted to curb immigration in 2024 and a 2007 immigration reform bill that failed because of the right’s “xenophobia” and the left’s “purity-testing.”

I replied that I didn’t care why the Democrats have moved to the right over the years, because it had absolutely nothing to do with any points I made in my video, and also because it’s obviously not worth arguing with someone who makes such idiotic comments on a video where they aren’t even relevant. That said, I do want to take a little time today to talk about exactly why this comment is so stupid, because it DOES include some common misconceptions that are negatively impacting our political landscape.