Many more Black people plan to vote now that Kamala Harris is running compared to when Joe Biden was the nominee, a new poll found.
  • 2ugly2live@lemmy.world
    441·
    4 months ago

    I’m glad Kamala had gotten people interested, but this is so terrifying. So many groups are coming out saying they weren’t planning to vote or didn’t care until they heard about Kamala. Like, our country is literally at stake. It’s not just, “Oh, I don’t like their politics,” or “both sides are bad,” one side is pretty fucking insane at this point. None of that got us interested???

    • Jentu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      212·
      4 months ago

      Some people’s lives are so bad they would rather focus on personal survival than electing the good cop over the bad cop, both of whom would likely make their lives either a little or a lot worse every single year. “Our country is at stake” only really matters if you have systemic benefits from this country- otherwise, it just seems like it’s a plea for victims of this country to take your comfort into consideration above anything else. Sure, we’re on the precipice of a fascist takeover where even the white people in gated neighborhoods could start feeling even fractionally as bad as people of color currently do, but it might be worth considering this perspective isn’t just some petty or ignorant thing- it’s a rotten system created by racist white men that might not be worth participating in because even if the system is perfectly fixed, there will always be people on top and people on the bottom. At least with Kamala, there is a hope of traveling farther away from that “racist white man who begs me for votes and never delivers on promises” trope, so it doesn’t surprise me one bit.

    • vxx@lemmy.world
      71·
      4 months ago

      How would they know the country is at stake when they’re desinterested in politics or only watch TV?

    • Stupidmanager@lemmy.worldEnglish
      62·
      4 months ago

      I want you to consider the actual danger of voting for people like them, if Trump is elected. You likely live in a state where your voter record is public. Now, add that you’re not caucasian. Or not religious (lest we forget the religious nuts making maps of non-religion homes). Or in a non-traditional marriage/relationship. And nevermind the fact the meal team 6 will be standing guard at every voting station to disenfranchise these voters…

      When your voting choice is the lesser evil of two old white guys, neither whom have your interests in mind? Yeah, its safer and smarter to keep to yourself and stay home. Because Trump and Project 25 are a danger to everyone not on their list.

      Of course Kamala is the bright shining light and I’m even more excited. This will be the first election that I am so excited to vote, since Obama. And I hope we get enough to get a large enough majority to correct the damage done these last 12 years and do everything possible to undo any cheating advantage the right has remaining.

    • meliaesc@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 months ago

      A lot of people feel the everyday effects of the broken system directly. When healthcare, housing, and transportation are daily struggles, it doesn’t seem to matter which dictator is being elected in Venezula or who is allowed to wear clothes against their expected gender norms. It’s ignorance based on survival.

  • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
    347·
    4 months ago

    So when democracy was on the line and it was just an old, geriatric white guy, it wasn’t exciting enough to vote against fascism? Don’t get me wrong, if Kamala wins this and we make it out relatively unscathed, I’ll be happy, but it shouldn’t have taken just a slight change in aesthetics to get people out to vote. Democrat voters are so unreliable.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      153·
      4 months ago

      Black Americans have been on the receiving end of fascism since they were dragged to the New World in a big old boat.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
      81·
      4 months ago

      slight change in aesthetics? this take is more surface level than actually voting for the color of a candidate’s skin.

      if democracy is on the line, you better act like it. putting a corpse up as your candidate ain’t it.

      • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
        53·
        4 months ago

        You don’t vote for the candidate, you vote for the cause. The people excited to vote for Kamala Harris now were perfectly fine to let democracy die a few weeks ago, and thus far I’ve seen no substantive difference in her policies as compared to Biden, it’s basically a continuation of the status quo. She has a better “argument” to make for abortion rights because she’s a woman vs Biden being an old white guy, but he’s still done more for workers than Harris can claim to have done. Maybe she’ll scold Israel a bit more than Biden did, but she seems more in line with Hilary Clinton than anything. I’m ready to vote against the fascists no matter who the Democrats put up, corpse or not. Even if he had died in office, the presidency still would’ve gone to Harris anyways, so it shouldn’t have mattered his age.

        • Glytch@lemmy.world
          42·
          4 months ago

          When everyone is saying democracy is at stake, why would I vote for a near-corpse who doesn’t care about the result as long as he “tries his best”?

          Pressuring Biden out of the race and replacing him with someone who will actually fight shows that Democrats are finally serious about this election and the threat Trump poses.

    • andrewth09@lemmy.world
      126·
      4 months ago

      When Biden was on the ballot, voters didn’t see him as someone who could take radical steps to address the number of underlying issues plaguing the country.

      A vote for Biden was a vote for the status quo. The status quo is a slow decline into fascism.

      • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
        124·
        4 months ago

        But he was literally one of the best presidents in the past hundred years. He has done a ton of shit with no support from Congress. Dude is out of the race and is still erasing student debt.

        • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
          44·
          4 months ago

          Yeah, in my mind Joe Biden was definitely the more liberal/progressive of the two (apart from his dumb unwavering support of Israel). Kamala Harris is probably more in line with Hillary Clinton and probably closer to centrist than progressive. There’s just this perception that “old white guy” = more conservative, it’s kind of racist tbh, but I guess it’s against white people, so that’s cool. As long as it keeps Trump and the white racists/fascists from the presidency, that’s fine.

      • paddirn@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        4 months ago

        But I haven’t seen any substantive change in policy direction to assume that isn’t still the case with Harris. We’ve got a younger, prettier new face, but otherwise I’m assuming it’s going to be all the same people in the administration, maybe Harris will go with B instead of A for some Cabinet positions, but otherwise, it’s going to be all the same faces and it’s going to be the same status quo that it was before. People expecting Harris to be more progressive/radical than Joe Biden and that she’s going to shake up the status quo are going to be in for a rude awakening.

    • Kroxx@lemm.ee
      61·
      4 months ago

      I think it’s more about being sick of an absolute lack of any attempt at representation. I will avoid the topic of race and come at this at a completely different angle because it was my experience.

      I decided this would be the first election I would vote in, I have been apathetic for a long time. Cuss me or praise me it was how I exercised my right and I did it with thought. I decided to change that this year and I’ll be damned if I’ll vote uninformed, so I tuned into the first pres debate I’ve ever paid attention too.

      I fully expected to see Trump lying/ talking out his ass and I had already seen some of the points of project 2025 so I already had an expectation. I hadn’t really ever paid Biden attention and was curious, but honestly my vote was well decided. Again though I wanted to know exactly who I was voting for. I was shocked, I felt deceived, but above all I thought " this is the elected official that is supposed to represent my ideals?". Which he already wasn’t and I had made so many many small concessions, it was just the straw that broke the camels back. I felt all the anger and frustration that I had quelled resurface with vengeance. Now I recognized even in the moment this was an emotional knee jerk reaction, so I decided to watch every interview after to find genuine motivation to vote for Biden. Never did, it was just Grandpa refusing to even acknowledge giving his license up after ramming into a pharmacy with his car. Biden always spoke of the past when asked about inflation, everyday struggles, his accomplishments, his wealth, his political career, half the shit he referenced happened before the birth of my parents. The entire time I just felt so disconnected from him as a representative of my vote.

      Now I’m not trying to justify not voting because of this, you should always vote and I’m trying to be better as well. I’m just saying I can empathize with how hard it is to be motivated to vote when you already don’t feel represented whether that’s ideologically, physically, racially, gender, region, or whatever it’s all going to play into it, consciously or unconsciously. Even when you vote, you still can feel powerless. I suppose I can’t say that for sure yet but I am pretty positive I will about that because the broken things I want to see fixed wouldn’t start to mend immediately after voting because of how broken they are and how complex the solution probably will be, but I’m trying to have hope long term.

    • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
      43·
      4 months ago

      Your mistake is seeing them as Democrat voters. Maybe if the Republicans had a brown candidate they would vote for them instead.

      • itsgoodtobeawake@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 months ago

        That’s hilarious, you think Republicans would try that? It’s been mask off for the open racists since Obama, they understand their base just fine.

        • Tiresia@slrpnk.net
          1·
          4 months ago

          The fact that Republicans wouldn’t do that doesn’t change the fact that there are undecided voters that would do that. If you think non-whites aren’t capable of being as conservative as republicans, you’re going to be disappointed time and time again.

          • itsgoodtobeawake@lemmy.world
            1·
            4 months ago

            Sure, we are all capable of the whole gamut of political opinions, it’s foolish to gauge race as the only deciding factor. On that we agree. There is also a whole messaging thing that would need to shift for Republicans to appeal to a wider variety of people, which is what I was trying to point out. How many times has JD Vance spoke in narrow terms about “the white working class” , that’s probably not a message that appeals much to a diverse electorate. I don’t think the current Republican party would even tolerate Michael Steele at this point.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      Thanks to our hyperbolic media, people think voting is something they get excited for every four years; like the Olympics.

      Really it’s something you have to do every year and requires effort to do research; like your taxes.

  • VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world
    91·
    4 months ago

    Can people give it a rest already? I don’t know why Lemmy users feel this need to get upset at people for doing what they want/need them to do.

    Yeah, perhaps people should show more interest in being informed in current politics but at this point just take the W. The last thing we need right now is for blue voters to start pushing other people away from voting blue due to their attitudes.

    For those of you who already understood the stakes surely you also understand that now is not the time to be dividing Kamala’s supporters over petty feelings like this.

  • capital@lemmy.world
    72·
    4 months ago

    Noice. I was going to vote no matter what color the candidates are because it doesn’t have any bearing on if they have good policy.

    But cool.

  • jerkface@lemmy.caEnglish
    511·
    4 months ago

    So effectively, those voter’s preferences go Kamala, then Trump, then Biden. Nice.

  • Hydra_Fk@reddthat.comEnglish
    366·
    4 months ago

    Were these the same polls that said Hillary was going to win? NGL all Kamala has to do is say the magic word and she has my vote. - edit fucking auto correct.

  • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1277·
    4 months ago

    Lemmy’s pro-genocide Biden cultists didn’t want him to drop out. Said there would be chaos. Said Harris would be less popular.

    They were wrong. Listening to the electorate generates enthusiasm. Ignoring them generates apathy and resentment.