I’m generally on your side of this argument but the number of non-voters is hard to quantify yet clearly had a major effect on the outcome, and a lot of the anti-Harris rhetoric from the left demotivated people into not voting at all (as opposed to voting third party). The third party vote counts are somewhat irrelevant to this line of reasoning.
It’s important to note that there are 2 possibilities:
Leftists had little influence, and therefore did not impact the election. This is further reinforced by the fact that many leftists did vote for Harris, leftists are not a monolith. Therefore, the problem is with how the Harris campaign fared compared to Biden in 2020. I believe this is more likely.
Leftists had major influence, and the Democrats knowingly gambled on moving rightward. This is still a failure of the Democrats! If Leftists actually have the power claimed, then the minimum Harris could have done is run a similar campaign to Biden, not “Republican-lite.”
I’m generally on your side of this argument but the number of non-voters is hard to quantify yet clearly had a major effect on the outcome, and a lot of the anti-Harris rhetoric from the left demotivated people into not voting at all (as opposed to voting third party). The third party vote counts are somewhat irrelevant to this line of reasoning.
It’s important to note that there are 2 possibilities:
Leftists had little influence, and therefore did not impact the election. This is further reinforced by the fact that many leftists did vote for Harris, leftists are not a monolith. Therefore, the problem is with how the Harris campaign fared compared to Biden in 2020. I believe this is more likely.
Leftists had major influence, and the Democrats knowingly gambled on moving rightward. This is still a failure of the Democrats! If Leftists actually have the power claimed, then the minimum Harris could have done is run a similar campaign to Biden, not “Republican-lite.”
I don’t disagree with that assessment.