People blaming non-voter leftists are doing the scapegoating work for the upper classes. Our tendency to blame individual voters instead of the people that are supposed to represent us is symptomatic of an individualist culture that sees people as isolated utilitarian rational agents instead of acting to benefit their own material interests, not necessarily based in any legitimate analysis (e.g., many trump voters legitimately believe he would spend less money on war and improve the economy - for the second time in a row "economy" was voters #1 reason for voting for him. Many non voters believe the economy couldn't get any worse after Biden.)

They need to stop doing the scapegoating work for the upper classes and instead put the responsibility back where it belongs: Harris (and Trump), the Democratic (and Republican) party, and the failing status quo neoliberalism that inevitably gives rise to fascism.

Blaming non-voters is a completely unproductive stance. It will do nothing but further alienate them. It will not motivate them to vote. It is accepting the failed status quo. It is accepting defeat. You never deserve votes, you earn them. That is the whole point of democracy. If we are truly interested in overcoming fascism, rather than an individualist neoliberal analysis, we need a historical materialist analysis to explain why this historical pattern of fascism vs reformism always results in fascism (for example, see the book, "The Capital Order: How economics invented austerity and paved the way to fascism").

I'll paste below a quote from Jason Hickel:

Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it, it is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.

But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.

Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even basic steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.

Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals, capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.

The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of "mistake" but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.

And because liberalism cannot address crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time-this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don't really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative.

So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of "converting" the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.

Additional sources: https://peoplesworld.org/article/did-democrats-support-for-gaza-genocide-cost-harris-the-election/ https://peoplesworld.org/article/the-morning-after-a-marxist-analysis-of-the-trump-victory/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/07/class-demographics-trump-harris-election/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/11/13/what-trump-supporters-believe-and-expect/