The bigger factor was people staying home because they refused any compromise on the issue. For races that swing depending on turnout, this was enough to tip those races red. Hard to say whether this impacted the Presidential election, but it probably did affect some House and Senate races.

Ah, that's a good point. Indeed, I voted Stein over Harris, which is basically the same as staying home (much to my chagrin).

Voting third party isn't the same as staying home. If a third party candidate gets just 5% of the vote, the party gets federal election funds in the next election. This isn't some pipe dream, third parties were crossing that threshold in the 90s. It encourages the major parties to alter their positions to avoid splitting the vote, and if they fail to do so then the third party can gain traction over the long run. Further, if you go to the polls for a third party, you are presumably also voting in down ballot races, where you have significantly more impact whether you vote third party or major party.

Staying home does nothing to combat the two party system, gives no direction to politicians as to which way they ought to move to get your vote in the future, and doesn't allow you to participate in local politics.

Yes agreed, that's why I voted instead of actually staying home. I wish other people would understand the nuance you just mentioned. I don't think either the democratic party nor the republican party actually care about anything more than keeping their seat at the table. They don't care about the working class, the disenfranchised, or the underprivileged, even if they claim to to get votes.

This is shocking to me tbh. Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster and that Stein or whoever had 0 chance of winning...

> Everyone I know who wants peace in Palestine also knew Trump would be a disaster

So the Democrats, who presumably wanted peace in the middle east, knew that Trump would be a disaster, and yet they still ignored voters concerns?

If you live in a safe blue/safe red state, then there's no harm in voting third party.

Yes, we did know Trump is a disaster. Perhaps Democrats should have met their voterbase somewhere in the middle to reduce the risk of losing to Trump? Of course, they didn’t, so to me the Harris campaign is to blame more than the third-party voters.

Frankly, my reading was that Democrats preferred risking losing the presidency to making any concessions whatsoever on the Palestine issue.

Democrats are constantly trying to please whatever portion of their voter base they think they need to win the election. In this case they were trying harder to court the maybe-Trumpers than the never-Trumpers because the never-Trumpers don't need as much convincing. Unfortunately, when these two groups become at odds over a single-issue vote, it fucks the Democrats no matter what they do. In the end, people who refused to vote for Harris over Palestine fucked everyone, especially Palestine.

And yes, a large contingent of Democratic lawmakers inexplicably believe staying on Israel's good side is the most important issue facing our country. That doesn't make letting Trump win the smart move.

I don’t see it as “letting Trump win”. I see it as “not supporting the Democrats because they don’t want my vote”. If you want to blame someone for Trump winning, blame the Democrats.

Of course, on paper, yes, if these were automatons with no feelings, they would use their vote against Trump.

It is easy to claim objectivity in the face of a moral quandary that doesn’t impact you or your loved ones personally. But it is not easy to make a decision to not give your vote away when the alternative is also terrible.

I explained how Democrats were going to alienate one part of their voter base no matter what they did. Do you have an alternate pathway for how the Democrats could have magically chosen both options at once?

And there was no alternative. It was "no explicit political support for Palestine" regardless, the only choice being made was "fucked by Trump" or "not fucked by Trump". Anyone with any sense of political strategy would have seen this. I have no sympathy for people who feel the need to vote for "their feelings" instead of the reality we actually live in, because they fucked me. I can't understand how someone would have more emotional connection to the fantasy their vote on paper represents than to the reality their actions will create.

Okay, so you have rationalized to yourself why there was “no alternative” by essentially saying that Democrats were absolutely helpless to do anything - an act of God was in their way, so to speak.

Now, you ask what could Democrats have done differently? How about holding a Democratic primary? Or maybe acknowledging the Gaza genocide instead of ignoring it even exists (no need to even use the g-word since it angers some of their base)? Perhaps offering a fig leaf to internal dissenters within the party? Maybe inviting Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices to speak at rallies? Heck, maybe not explicitly vetting and banning any suspected pro-Palestine attendees at said rallies? Or how about making a strong, unambiguous campaign promise to do something (however vague) about a ceasefire in Gaza?

This is all the bare fucking minimum, mind you, but it may have likely pushed the needle.

I also don’t see how any of this would have significantly alienated their pro-Israel base enough to shift votes away. But if it did, I think siding ever so slightly with those calling for a ceasefire over warmongers might be the moral thing to do, don’t you think?

Next time around, when the Democrats ignore your issue, I would love to hear how you “objectively” rationalize your vote then.

You're just ignoring reality in a couple of paragraphs. Condemning Israel or extending a fig leaf to Palestine alienates the moderates. Not doing it alienates the single-issue-on-Palenstine voters. I don't understand why I have to keep saying that, or why you haven't addressed this fundamental fact of their voting base. They had to tiptoe around everyone's big feelings because not electing a dictator wasn't important enough.

My main issues are actually vote reform, climate change, and single payer healthcare (voted for Bernie in the primary) so I'm no stranger to being ignored politically; my issues are not even remotely on offer.

And FWIW I would strongly support sanctions against Israel for its disgusting treatment of Palestinians, and support aid for Palestine. I just knew that wasn't on offer.

What happened was complex, multi-factoral, and impossible to cleanly draw pithy conclusions from. It’s like the drawing of the rabbit that turns into a duck when you look at it a different way except there are fifty animals instead of just two. Everyone wants you to think it’s just their preferred animal because it fits their agenda.

This makes me curious about how many other historical events have presented the animal that happened to fit the ruling class at the time. I'm not talking about history being written by the winners, but more nuanced things.