Leaders of 'Uncommitted' and 'Abandon Harris' movements reflect on Trump's victory and early moves
A combination of worry and cautious optimism about Trump — and deep anger at the Democratic Party — pervade the groups.
Misner said it was a difficult decision to vote for Trump. He said the point of the Abandon Harris campaign was to punish the Democrats for supporting Israel during its war in Gaza, which the campaigners view as a genocide, and he hopes the Trump campaign will be more willing to negotiate with group leaders.
Vindication feels awful here, honestly.
“I think the biggest problem is that your messaging to Arab Americans can’t just be ‘Trump’s a fascist, Trump is Hitler. Big, scary orange man, vote for me.’ Part of being a part of the American political system is being able to separate yourself from your opponent and lay out a better vision. And she did not do that,” Abdelrahman said.
“She could have at least called for a ceasefire,” Khan said. (Harris repeatedly called for a ceasefire during her campaign, including during her Democratic convention speech.)
Ah, it's just like being on Lemmy!
“Even in politics, humanity should be the first and the foremost thing to to be respected, to be valued, right? And [the] Democratic Party clearly, clearly, for an entire year showed us they do not care about human life,” Khan said. “They do not care about their constituents, how they feel about the massacre.”
Ah, yes, humanity is the first and foremost thing to be respected, which is why LGBT Americans have been served to fascists on a silver platter as a protest vote. Peak humanity.
Their idiocy knows no bounds.
"To punish the democrats for supporting Israel..."
Which Trump has approved of for years and provided the same support. They named a settlement Trump Heights in occupied territory to honor him for God's sake!
The rest....
I'm so sick of people not doing their own research. The complete failure even just to member as far back as 4 years. That and the single minded focus of these morons. The sheer ignorance of people and the pig headed stubbornness to actually change their mindset when presented with irrefutable fact. All of that is what's truly killing our country.
"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on," his campaign said in a statement.
Jfc, she did lay out a plan with details, she did call for ceasefire and a two state solution, god I can’t take this shit.
Whose job was it to get that message out?
Most people didn't believe the fascism stuff. Democrats have used that in literally every election in my lifetime. They got played by being the little boy who calls wolf.
Then Harris told the working class that nothing would change and Trump promised lower grocery prices. It doesn't matter that he was lying his ass off. Most people are not politically engaged enough to know there was zero chance of him keeping that promise.
And unfortunately this isn't an election where only the politically educated get to vote. All of those points are bangers in your local university bar with political science students and professors. But all the common person sees is the guy who was president the last time they could afford stuff saying he'll bring that back.
So yeah, Harris needed to actually do some campaigning, not just fear monger.
Is it the dems fault for calling reps what they are (and, news flash, have been for a long time)? Or is it your fault for allowing the reps to normalize fascism in your mind to the point it’s no longer a valid point?
For the record she did a fuck ton of campaigning and spent more time speaking with actual voters than the media and whatnot, she laid out detailed plans but no, it was because she spoke reality that Donny is a bad man and wants to do bad things. Was she not supposed to say anything about him at all? Not allowed to speak on the greatest threat to American democracy ever?
You the voter hold responsibility here as well. Oh but you got bored of being scared of fascism and now full-on fascism is here.
Negative messaging works, as much as people like to pretend it doesn't.
At least in this case it definitely didn't.
This is amazing. Kamala didn't do enough so we are going with the guy who has literally said he will fuck up everything we stand for.
I actually think this is a very important lesson for Democrats: if you expect voters to vote rationally, you will lose. You can't win by trying to appeal to people's intellect and reason, you have to try and appeal to emotions and passions. If that sounds potentially dangerous, that's because it is, but unless they're willing to abandon democracy, I don't see any other option.
I was an Elizabeth Warren supporter, but watching her give speeches I knew she was doomed when I realized that she was trying really hard to get people to think things. Every single one of her policies was fantastic, but her delivery was more about thoughts than feelings, and I'm convinced that little distinction of stagecraft, more than anything else, is what sunk her campaign.
It's the same thing with Biden trying, legitimately trying I believe, to provide student loan relief and getting cock blocked by the Supreme Court, but then just asking people to think about the hard work he'd done, rather than picking a loud emotional fight on behalf of the students who'd just got the rug pulled out from under their feet.
You can apply this same lesson to a lot of Democratic messaging failures lately. Getting people to feel things is always going to win over getting them to think things.
It's not even just logic versus emotion. It's what was on offer. People are hurting. Harris said that was an economic victory and it wouldn't change. Trump acknowledged they were hurting and promised change.
The post election and exit polling made that extremely clear. Running a stock corporate campaign that claimed Biden was doing everything great was never going to work.
Using this logic, how exactly did Trump not win in 2020??? It’s almost like absolutes don’t work in reality.
I actually think this is a very important lesson for Democrats
I think it's going to be a very important lesson for dumbasses that voted against continuing some semblance of democracy.
enjoy that pretentious win for now shitbags. I hope it keeps you warm at night when we're in work camps.
If it doesn't, don't worry, the piles of burning bodies will.
Doesn't matter - dems lost because people are constantly hearing the right's narrative over and over and over again, reinforcing the idea that it's reality.
It reminds me of how the majority of Americans thought the ACA was actually called Obamacare by Obama because he must be so vain, but now it's on a massive scale.
We live in a world where people get to choose what is real and what is fake, and that choice is largely based on which idea is more entertaining, more emotionally satisfying to them. The right is capitalizing on this and the left is being left devastated.
The popular quote used to be 'reality has a well-known liberal bias'. Well, now reality is whatever makes me feel angriest or scaredest and that has a well known conservative bias.
“President Trump, he continuously came and he was in the community. While I don’t believe that he’s going to enact policies that will benefit the community, he at least showed that he was willing to show up for the community,” Misner said.
Not only will his policies not benefit the Arab-American communities in the US, they will end up actively harming them, as well as any chance of Palestinians even having a tiny slice of their own in the Middle East.
Congrats, Misner, you played yourself.
Did they forget about his travel ban for Muslims? Trump made it clear he hate their kind and is a racist. Why are they surprised? For fucks sake he told Israel that he hopes they finish the job and that gaza make great real estate for them. So they deserve what they get.
It's hard to feel bad for the people that Voted for Trump, and are now going to be hurt by him. All the information was there, and they refused to accept it in favor of an alternate , counterfactual reality.
I have said time and time again that it's not the voters fault, it's the campaigns fault, but my gosh are people upsetting. I'd prefer someone not know my community exists than show up just to tout harmful policies. Like, how is stepping foot in a building just to burn it down showing you care about the people there? I'm so saddened by the whole situation.
Here's a clip of an undecided voter talking about their politics and it makes me feel completely helpless (it's a crowd work clip, but it's just depressing): https://youtu.be/KTlhX0BkzGY
Look I get it, the Dems didn't do enough to win over their base and instead went to the center.
But these Dearborn folks in the article get what they deserve and should really shut the fuck up. They voted for a man who said he would extend his Muslim country travel ban to gaza and still thought somehow he was on their side.
You are a complete a total dumbass if you thought he was on your side. He has years and years of lying out of his ass and you believed him and it's the Democrats fault? No I reject that. He literally stated in 2023 that he would extend his travel ban to Gaza. I feel like I need to take crazy pills or something, these people are insufferable.
The article states that some of them just wanted a candidate to acknowledge them, which trump did. Regardless of how he's actually going to implement policies, he did a bare minimum for them, which reflects in the results.
No other real editorializing needed, unfortunately.
How completely pathetic some people can be. I don't understand.
"He had a rally in my town and told me what I wanted to hear, it's no wonder I voted for him" just makes me laugh.
You are a complete a total dumbass if you thought he was on your side.
No one in the dem party thinks trump was on their side in any way. But they also thought Biden/Harris was a rabid dog that it was important for the parties future to put down (rhetorically). Nobody owes fascism or fascism-lite a vote, and I demand better from dems if they want to continue to exist as a party at all. Centrist leaders are not kings who get to make choices like aiding terrorism and murder, and then walk away without accountability.
Not only was no one in the centrist camp doing anything for the peace vote (the anti genocide side), by shipping weapons the centrists were actively and violently acting against the human rights side and the law. Did you think you were siding with neutrality? The DNC has not been neutral in this at all. They are abetting genocide and terrorism, and violating numerous US laws and the geneva convention.
Besides the muslim vote, the youth and progressive votes were heavily influenced by this issue, and their votes were right there for the taking. The Republicans were always going to be violent and corrupt, but people had higher expectations for Dems, so Dems taking those AIPAC bribes had consequences. This seems obvious to so many but you just refuse to see that you're siding with the baddies, not some sort of neutral crowd you could make better someday.
And do you somehow feel powerful calling people dumbasses? Its against the TOS here and you lost along with the rest of us. Its pathetic that even in utter failure you are all mouth and contrived nonsense that your side has clean hands and was trying to do the right thing.
It’s hilarious how you talk about how simple and easy it all is when you quite clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.
Everything you listed, the Republicans are guilty of by a far larger margin. The difference is that dems were talking about two state solutions while Trump quite literally was telling Bibi to turn Gaza into a goddamn parking lot. (And that’s just the most obvious clue you’re saying nothing of value lol)
I especially enjoyed you attempting to mount your high horse after this piss-poor attack by mentioning the break in TOS when the OP is talking in general and is not attacking a single person. It’s okay to say “people who think x, or do y are dumb”.
If anything, you’re the one breaking TOS:
- Do not engage in name calling, ad hominem attacks, or any other uncivil behaviour. Criticize ideas, never people.
You using the threat of TOS can be seen as ad hominem as a way to delegitimize the comment you replied to.
They didn't vote Trump, they just didn't vote for your racist, sexist, corporate shitbag of a candidate. Sorry, you dont deserve the votes of minorities by promising to genocide them less than the other guy.
Actually yes they did vote trump, studies show that only 20% voted harris. Not to mention the article quite literally is quoting these folks' justification for voting trump. The remainder was split between the green party (you know that party that doesn't do ANY down ballot initiatives and only shows up in swing states in presidential elections) and trump.
This is ignoring the fact that not voting in a swing state is pretty much the same thing as voting for the other person because the race is so close.
It didn't help trump directly but it did help him win.
What do they have to worry about? Their guy won!
I kept saying since last year Biden was throwing away his campaign but noooooooo, its the voters who are wrong.
Yeah people still don't get it. It's sad.
Wahhh, they didn't cater directly to me for literally no reason as I'm not part of any significant voting bloc. Why would they personally attack me like that?
Anything to absolve yourself of the consequences for your stupid decision, right? Pathetic.
If they're too insignificant to listen to, they're too insignificant to blame.
... what makes you think they didn't vote for Kamala? I rolled through their last posts, nothing screams Trump.
... do you assume that because they criticized the democrats, they must be some form of evil? Why are you so gung-ho on defending the campaign. It really could've been a vastly better campaign, in so many ways.
Why are people not allowed to criticize the democratic party for botching this so badly?
Wahhh, they didn't cater directly to me for literally no reason as I'm not part of any significant voting bloc. Why would they personally attack me like that?
That's a lot of interesting ways to avoid saying the Democratic party, through the mechanisms of the US government, directly funded, gave intelligence to, aided and supported a terrorist government committing the first live steamed genocide.
Maybe you didn't pay attention. Maybe you weren't aware that was happening.
But it was.
And others were paying attention.
You don't get to fake quote someone like that and not mention the word Genocide without everyone knowing you are intentionally avoiding the word, and why.
significant voting bloc
loses every single swing state
Yeah no I'm sure we were a pissant minority made up of 5 people. There's just no possible way the uncommitted movement actually contained a significant amount of Democrat constituents.
And those ignored core voter issues were?
Maybe the Democrats shouldn't have pretended Biden was still functioning for 3+ years instead of waiting until he died on the debate stage. Kamala running a dogshit 3 month campaign where she ran to the right of Biden didn't help.
Materially maybe they shouldn't have kicked 14+ million people off Medicaid by 'ending' COVID. That's 3x their margin of loss and things like losing health coverage piss people off.
She lost by more than the margin of every third party vote combined.
Hard to muster a lot of sympathy for this mindset. SMH.
You of all people posting this without comment. The only thing funnier (and sadder) is "cautious optimism about Trump".
Hi, it's me. Was I not correct in the Dems replacing Biden? Did I not say Harris would lose? Even if the uncommitted 100% voted for Harris, she still would have lost.
Wrong? Certainly not. But do you think spending the entire election demoralizing closest-to-the-left had no effect? (note: the iceberg of non-voters who aren't directly counted in the uncommitted movement)
This is not to say that the DNC strategy was great, but I am not sure by what metric your own was much better. Particularly as even from the beginning it seemed like a gamble, requiring Harris to win while also having notably high 3rd-candidate turnout.
EDIT: Newer headlines make this even more obvious:
'Very troubling': Leader of 'Abandon Harris' movement now anxious about Trump appointees
Key leaders of the “Abandon Harris” movement, which encouraged voters to oppose Kamala Harris due to U.S. support for Israel during the Gaza war, are now expressing unease about Trump’s incoming administration.
concerns are growing over his Cabinet picks, such as Mike Huckabee and Tulsi Gabbard, which some see as troubling for Muslim communities.
What do you mean trump won?! We spent all our time fighting against Harris?! How did she lose?!
Had she condemned the genocide and promised to cut off military aid to Israel, I think a lot of young people who didn't vote might have acted differently.
What about the braindead fascists who nominated loser kamalacaust?
What do they think? Have they changed their minds? Will they do it yet again in 2028?
Why not ask the people who are actually responsible for this pathetic showing?
What do they think?
Lesser evil. Least-worst choice. We've been over this. Keep up.
Nobody nominated her.
That was part of the problem. They cheated on the primary (look at the number of States that didn't have other Democratic candidates other than Joe Biden, even though candidates meet all the requirements.)
And then, Biden resigns and instead of having any form of Democratic process over who the DNC would chose, Biden just says it would be Harris.
This from the same guy that the DNC knew, and covered up, wasn't there mentally since 2021:
https://www.wsj.com/politics/biden-white-house-age-function-diminished-3906a839
But yeah, no one nominated Harris.
Now please remember both sides bad and its akshually a uniparty, so all voters are innocent uwu
It's not just that both "parties" are bad. It's that the whole slaver master system has always been genocidal and evil.
Joe Biden, personally and purposefully, aided and participated in an ongoing genocide, and Harris promised to not deviate from Bidens foreign policy.
You don't get the votes of the people you're genocide because maybe the other guy might also effect white people.
You don’t get the votes of the people you’re genocide because maybe the other guy might also effect white people.
Oh, cool, that was the issue with Trump, he'll be affecting white people in the US. Good thing Muslim and Arab Americans, along with other minorities, haven't explicitly been a target of his past attacks and promised future attacks.
Yeah, and they still didn't find him more of a threat that then person actually committing genocide.
Correct that he did that. I don't think you are wrong. Now take the next step and understand what Trump has also done and pledges to do for Isreal. They named an occupied area of Gaza after Trump, that might give you a hint.
You should stop thinking of your vote of a vote of support of the person's policies, and instead a vote for you, who is the person you think you will have the most success in getting to do what you want to happen in the next four years? Who do you want to struggle against for the next four years? Set yourself up to win.
Yeah, lesser evil voting has resulted in the greatest wealth inequality in world history, has regressed nearly all progress, and has had us have three dem candidates in a row be tougher on immigrants than any Republican in history.
To answer your little questions, the less competent more obviously evil one, clearly. You people aren't smart enough to join in a struggle against Biden or the Dems, so maybe now you people will protest for Gaza. Maybe now you people will protest for immigrant rights. Maybe now you'll protest for your own rights, for women's rights. Because you people did none of that under Biden, despite Biden being trump 2.0.
Joe Biden, personally and purposefully, aided and ....
let me stop you right there. I don't care.
I just can't give a single goddamned fuck about you, your people, or your problems. it's not me, it's you.
given the opportunity to continue a dialogue in a conducive environment you and your ilk decided to push against it. you won! we don't get Harris! Now, we get Trump! no more discussions, now it's full on genocide 24/7.
I don't have the luxury to pander to you, so do us all a favor and take the win you desperately needed and shut up.
Maybe the Democrats should have replaced the guy with a broken brain when they realized it instead of lying for years and only making the switch when it was undeniable.
The Harris campaign was such hot garbage that they lost by more of a margin than all 3rd party votes, but yeah keep blaming voters instead of learning anything.
It was 'full on genocide', as you put it, already.
That's the fucking problem.
Acquiescing to someone saying 'please don't wipe out my entire extended family' is not a luxury. It's the minimum required standard to not be a fucking Nazi.
This poem about Nazi Germany? It's about you.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.
let me stop you right there. I don’t care.
right back at you pal. Go ahead and throw your temper tantrum, but know that come 2028 without a united party neither progressives or centrists (you) can win an election without the other. The dem brand in general has never been weaker because of logic like yours that enabled a genocide and hubris about voters needs that too many voters wouldnt stand for.. So buck the eff up, or take your own advice and:
shut up.
either way, start acting like you're in a coalition, because thats reality whether you like it or not.
