I wasn’t arguing a position, just pointing out that Michigan is really the only one of those states from the graphic that the numbers might suggest the possibility of Gaza playing a role in changing the outcome of the state election. I personally don’t think it changed the outcome anywhere.
In Michigan Harris lost by 80K votes (netting 70K fewer votes than Biden in 2020), anti-genocide candidates got 50K (37K more than 2020)
In Wisconsin Harris lost by 29K votes (netting 30K more votes than Biden in 2020), anti-genocide candidates got 17K (16K more than in 2020)
In Pennsylvania Harris lost by 130K votes (netting 66K fewer than Biden in 2020), anti-genocide candidates got 34K (Greens were not on the ballot in 2020)
In North Carolina Harris lost by 190K votes (netting 4K more than Biden in 2020), anti-genocide candidates got 35K votes (23K more than 2020)
I’m not a statician by any means but my reading of the numbers is that Michigan seems to be the only of these states that you could argue that abstentions from 2020 plus the growth of anti-genocide parties could have actually cost Harris the state.
Edit: if every single voter in these states that the Dems lost between 2020 and 2024 voted for Harris, and every vote for anti-genocide candidates was a whole seperate vote for Harris (which is an absurd assumption), then the only one of these states that would flip to her would be Michigan. If Palestine was what drove all of these votes away from Harris (also an absurd assumption) then we can fairly conclusively say that the Democrats’ position on Palestine did not cost them WI, PA, and NC.
Somewhere between a third and half of Americans read at or below a sixth grade level so these books are at the reading level of the median American.
Unions will continue to be regulated by the US government but would hopefully figure out that without the NLRB pressuring companies to negotiate the workers would have to do it themselves.
Most likely though the courts will say it’s up to the states and then each blue state will have a labor relations board like many already do for workers not covered under the NLRA and zero new organizing will happen or be supported in red and purple states as industries are slowly shipped out of areas with union presence and the unions reach their eventual demise.
At most Kamala only “lost” 2.1 million voters to other candidates this election (realistically it’s probably around a million). If that’s the case then 5.9 million voters voted for Biden in 2020 and nobody in 2024 but still casted a ballot. Now maybe that’s because of Gaza but from my experiences with the American electorate I highly doubt that the majority of those people are refusing to vote for Harris because of Gaza, refusing to vote third party, and yet still voting. I think if Americans had coherent anti-genocide politics then the anti-genocide candidates would have seen more growth than 5% of Harris’ losses. I don’t believe Americans have coherent politics though so I doubt most of those voters were taking a principled anti-genocide stance when they didn’t vote for anybody.
This isn’t to say that abstentions or votes for other candidates because of the genocide could not have played a significant role in the fucked up math of the American electoral system, merely that it didn’t drive her huge loss in the popular vote from Biden’s victory in 2020.
I honestly don’t think any more than 10% of the voters Kamala “lost” were because of Gaza. Otherwise there would be millions more votes for the third parties that ran almost exclusively on ending the genocide. The vast majority of these voters abstained from the presidential election and voted down ballot either because they did not like Harris or Trump, or more likely they didn’t know anything about either of them and did not feel confident casting a ballot for them.
As much of a farce as 2020 was, the political divide was quite clear. Trump represented COVID and racist cops murdering people. Biden seemed to represent something else. The mass mobilisations and the initial response to the pandemic taught people that and many more of them voted accordingly. The Democrats didn’t even try to reach the masses this time around though and so the masses were left confused and aimless and did not vote.
A 2020 Gallup poll found that 46% of American adults read below a 6th grade (11 or 12 year old) level. Many surveys have found slightly better but still worrisome reading levels in the adult population. This is not a matter of Americans being able to read what is on a page, but rather that they do not know how to take in and process information.
Any political analysis that does not start with this fact is fundamentally flawed.
143000 votes for a guy with literal brain worms who isn’t even running for president anymore
This is why any talk of democracy in this country is pointless without systematic mass education.
Essentially capitalism had progressed to a point sometime in the late 19th century where industrial monopolies had formed in the major European powers. The industrial monopolies had been purchased by finance capital, and the finance capital became monopolized as well. In search of cheaper profits, these monopolies began exporting capital overseas to other countries and colonies. The secret treaties were a product of this. France for instance was heavily invested in Russia (I think Lenin said France owned half of all foreign capital in Russia at the start of the war) so France signed a defense pact with Russia to protect their investments there.
The treaties also carved up the world outside of the major European powers so the Balkans, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific were all legally divided between the imperialist powers so that they could be more securely be exploited.
The German, French, British, and American finance capitalists ability to carve up the world (as they did with Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire, Africa, Asia, and they intended to do to Russia had the Bolsheviks not won) and exploit the people in these imperial holdings was why the war was fought and they were happy to liquidate the proletariat of all nations to do so. It had nothing to do with fighting autocracy or the right to self determination which only served as ideological cover for the postwar settlement and were quickly done away with especially in the British and French colonies. Therefore the British and French were not the “good guys”. Tens of millions of people were slaughtered just so the British and French could pillage and enslave most of the world.
This might get at your question somewhat but I’d strongly suggest reading the whole of State and Revolution if you haven’t already.
Essentially, liberal democracy is a sham because of capitalism. Even if there’s some aspects of a democracy like elections or a parliament the capitalist class still rules and democracy will be subordinated or ignored if the capitalists deem it necessary. Marxists recognize that democracy is an important tool in teaching the proletariat how to govern itself and that capitalism must be overthrown therefore it is an important stage of historical development. As communists we also recognize that the democratic state must one day wither away and therefore democracy will wither away. In that way we are not mere democrats with some idealistic belief in majoritarian rule or the perfect democracy or whatever the way liberals are. If democracy becomes impractical or unnecessary in the pursuit of communism than it can be done away with.
I had some CPUSA members tell me Trump was a fascist threat that needed to be defeated even if it meant voting for genocidal Democrats and I desperately want to ask them why they aren’t organizing a new Abraham Lincoln brigade now that the fascist threat is here.
The purpose of this is to spread it as “educational content”, to arm people online with talking points. The goal is to create thousands of people with this information in their heads so that everywhere an org name comes up (PSL for example) immediately gets dozens of comments dropping these talking points.
There was a small workers group in my area that had existed for years and hadn’t really done anything until myself and my partner joined and got regular meetings going and set up a plan to do some public facing work. Suddenly one of the prominent members pulled out and shared a post detailing these exact points on Instagram the next day and the group quickly fell apart shortly after. My partner and I were the only two in the group that would even identify ourselves as Marxists and while I like PSL and Workers World neither of us are members of it or any other “vanguardist” organization.
Don’t forget that a small army of lawyers need to be paid for to fight the government when it finds out that the dyes in that underwear cause cancer. OP also has to pay for the settlement fund for that class action lawsuit and the fines that accompany it.
The fascism has been here since at least 1946. Probably more like 1776. Libs are just scared it might hurt them now unlike before.
Only two of the seven Democratic presidential campaigns in this century have lost the popular vote.
I have to flesh it out but I keep being struck by the contradictory nature of American elections and how frankly nonsensical it all is and it returned me to this (from Wikipedia)
If this and similar studies are accurate it means a significant number of Americans can read what’s on a page and repeat it back to you, but couldn’t tell you what it means or draw anything from it. If it is the case that people can read but not understand than no wonder Americans are so clueless - they’re thinking at the level of twelve year old children.
I think coming out of this election one of the things we should be doing is organizing for the collective education, both political and general. It’s no wonder that communists of yore prioritized workers schools, study groups, newspapers, etc. Illiteracy is a tool of the imperialist because it allows people to wallow in ignorance and uncritical thought. We should be organizing study groups (and schools where possible) for the people in our lives to study, appreciate, and create not just theory but also art, music, literature, etc. of both the expressly political and seemingly apolitical varieties. As long as we are engaging with people and challenging them to think for themselves they will come closer to socialism.
These groups can also serve as the basis for actual organizing which is the second thing that we as a society need to learn. We must make change if we want it, politicians and bureaucrats will not do it for us. This is especially true in the workplace where workers have come to rely on government intervention or legal contracts for far too long into a time when capitalists do not care and will only respond to actual labor action.
Somewhere between forty and seventy percent of American adults do not demonstrate comprehensive English literacy meaning they can technically read and write but the ability to recall, analyze, reference, or think critically about text is at or below the level we expect twelve year olds to read at. This is not a matter of them being able to read words on a page, it’s a matter of them being able to think. America makes a lot more sense when you realize this.
Final tallies aren’t in but it seems like significantly over half the population also did not participate in this election.
A 2020 Gallup survey found that around half of American adults read at or below a sixth grade (11 or 12 year old) level.
America makes a lot more sense once you realize it’s average adult is about as intelligent as an early teenager and much less receptive to learning.
If they didn’t vote in 2020 then yes they are not included in these numbers because they’re unlikely to be Democrats that got pushed away from the party because of events in Palestine. Those voters that voted for Biden in 2020 and abstained voting this time around are included in these numbers however.
In two of these states Harris actually got more votes than Biden did four years ago. The gain in North Carolina is small enough that maybe it could be explained by changes in population or demographics and if adjusted for that she would have received fewer votes than Biden in 2020. Otherwise it seems fairly safe to say for all of these states except maybe Michigan that recent events in Palestine did not drive voters away from the Democrats between 2020 and 2024 because the Democrat’s losses from 2020 and third party voters don’t amount to more than Trump’s margin of victory.