Oh I wasn’t reluctant, there was never any doubt. I just wasn’t happy. But the thing is - the things I was unhappy about don’t matter to the folks who don’t really follow politics. Whatever their reasons were, they weren’t my reasons.
The point is that willingness to vote, dislike of Trump, the strenght of ones principle, even political awareness and other similar things are scales, not just absolutes.
Some people will always vote, some never, others can be convinced or convince themselves with different levels of inducement (be it fear or enthusiasm).
Ditto for dislike of Trump - people are all over from love him to hate him and everything in between.
As for principles, well, some people are inflexible no mater what, most are somewhere in the middle being capable of breaking certain principles in certain conditions and other have a Groucho Marx take on them (“These are my principles. If you don’t like them, well, I have others.”)
And ditto for political awareness: just because all you see and hear is the very politically aware types talking about politics because they’re loudly political, doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot people who think, for example, that “it’s all a show and my vote makes no difference so why should I care?”
Just because you, being at a specific point of those various scales, are very politically aware and could easily be cowed by fear of Trump whom (I assume) you detest to vote Democrat even if they were actively going against your principles (assuming one of them is “people shouldn’t be killed due to their race”), doesn’t mean that many others at different points of those scales ended up not voting for Harris when they could otherwise have voted Democrat if it wasn’t for her making choices that went against their strongly held principles or her campaign strategy of fear rather than hope didn’t work on them because they have mixed feelings about Trump so don’t fear him or think their “my vote makes no difference - they’re all bullshitters who don’t do what they say” so don’t see the point in voting for the other guys because Trump is Bad.
Harris’ actions and campaign strategy did capture the votes of people like you even if you had to hold your nose (which they couldn’t care less about) to vote Harris, but those choices of them stopped from voting Harris plenty of people who sit elsewhere in these scales and would otherwise vote Democrat.
Clealy had she chosen differently she would’ve captured the votes of people not quite at your end of those various scales but by all indications the positions she assumed and campaign strategy moved the peak appeal points in those various scales in such away that it dropped a lot more votes (mainly on the Left, Highly Principled and Distrusting of Politics sides) than the ones it gained from appealing to the other side (mainly Rightwing, Party fanatics and unprincipled or even supporting of the Israeli Genocide).
The Democrat loss is not the fault of voters for being who they are, it’s the fault of the Democrats for chosing a strategy of using the fear of Trump to retain votes whilst breaking some pretty strong principles of many people with their support for mass murderers of children, and not fixing certain things during the years they were in power and then last minute announcing measures for it (which is really not going to convince the people more distrusting of politicians to go out and vote).
Oh I wasn’t reluctant, there was never any doubt. I just wasn’t happy. But the thing is - the things I was unhappy about don’t matter to the folks who don’t really follow politics. Whatever their reasons were, they weren’t my reasons.
The point is that willingness to vote, dislike of Trump, the strenght of ones principle, even political awareness and other similar things are scales, not just absolutes.
Some people will always vote, some never, others can be convinced or convince themselves with different levels of inducement (be it fear or enthusiasm).
Ditto for dislike of Trump - people are all over from love him to hate him and everything in between.
As for principles, well, some people are inflexible no mater what, most are somewhere in the middle being capable of breaking certain principles in certain conditions and other have a Groucho Marx take on them (“These are my principles. If you don’t like them, well, I have others.”)
And ditto for political awareness: just because all you see and hear is the very politically aware types talking about politics because they’re loudly political, doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot people who think, for example, that “it’s all a show and my vote makes no difference so why should I care?”
Just because you, being at a specific point of those various scales, are very politically aware and could easily be cowed by fear of Trump whom (I assume) you detest to vote Democrat even if they were actively going against your principles (assuming one of them is “people shouldn’t be killed due to their race”), doesn’t mean that many others at different points of those scales ended up not voting for Harris when they could otherwise have voted Democrat if it wasn’t for her making choices that went against their strongly held principles or her campaign strategy of fear rather than hope didn’t work on them because they have mixed feelings about Trump so don’t fear him or think their “my vote makes no difference - they’re all bullshitters who don’t do what they say” so don’t see the point in voting for the other guys because Trump is Bad.
Harris’ actions and campaign strategy did capture the votes of people like you even if you had to hold your nose (which they couldn’t care less about) to vote Harris, but those choices of them stopped from voting Harris plenty of people who sit elsewhere in these scales and would otherwise vote Democrat.
Clealy had she chosen differently she would’ve captured the votes of people not quite at your end of those various scales but by all indications the positions she assumed and campaign strategy moved the peak appeal points in those various scales in such away that it dropped a lot more votes (mainly on the Left, Highly Principled and Distrusting of Politics sides) than the ones it gained from appealing to the other side (mainly Rightwing, Party fanatics and unprincipled or even supporting of the Israeli Genocide).
The Democrat loss is not the fault of voters for being who they are, it’s the fault of the Democrats for chosing a strategy of using the fear of Trump to retain votes whilst breaking some pretty strong principles of many people with their support for mass murderers of children, and not fixing certain things during the years they were in power and then last minute announcing measures for it (which is really not going to convince the people more distrusting of politicians to go out and vote).