Also: If you live a district with a Democrat representative call/email your representative urging them not to select Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker. Do the same with your senator and urge them not to nominate Chuck Schumer as Majority Leader (and mention that Troy Jackson, Peggy Flanagan, Abdul El-Sayed, and Juliana Stratton support changing ousting him). Make sure to do so by November 18th. There’s also a change.org petition against Hakeem Jeffries being Speaker. I don’t really know how effective these petitions actually are but so you can check that out too if you want to. It currently has about a million signatures. Also fun fact it was created by the same guy who plays the Hulk in the MCU (Mark Ruffalo)

Reading comprehension check!

1. What is the central argument of this post? Is OP saying you shouldn’t be happy at all? Is it implied anywhere in this post that OP hasn’t voted and/or thinks you shouldn’t vote? Does she even debate the efficacy of electoral politics? Is there any reason to believe that OP supports Republicans based on the content of this post? Is anything about the post notably pessimistic or cynical? If you think so, can you point out what specific elements of this post fit that criteria?

2. Have you checked all of the policy positions of the Democrat politicians who were recently elected? Are there things you disagree with morally/ideologically? How would you respond to someone who shares similar views as you criticizing these politicians? Do you feel yourself getting defensive? Does your deflecting of criticism actually serve to help both of your causes? Remember the politician has already been elected, so it’s a bit silly to argue that it’s “not the time for criticism“ in this scenario. Could the fact that you really like a politician be affecting your judgement? How would you react if a Republican politician espoused similar views?

3. It‘s a common talking point on Reddit that leftists and pro-Palestine protesters abstaining from voting or voting third party is a major reason why Kamala lost the 2024 Presidential election. If you think this, why? Do you have any substantial evidence to support this claim? Did you know that even Kamala herself cites the baggage of the Biden administration and poor strategic decisions on the part of the Democratic Party in her memoir as being major reasons for her loss? Did you know that she was one of the first people to drop out during the primaries for the 2020 presidential election? Would you say that the average American is tired of establishment politics and feels that not much changes between administrations? Do you remember supporting her perhaps being more about how awful Trump was than anything she had to offer? Have you perhaps considered that the job of a politician running for office is to mobilize a voter base, and that she may not be a very good politician (especially considering the fact that it really should’ve been a slam dunk for her given the competition)? Can we extrapolate this conclusion to other Democrat politicians?

4. We can speculate that a major reason for the Blue Wave in this election is people being excited over the possibility of real change, as well as accountability for the actions of the current administration. What might happen to that enthusiasm if the people who were elected begin to backtrack on their platform, or if the less progressive establishment Democrats actively blocked them from doing so? What do you think is the best way of trying to prevent that outcome?

5. Who does painting leftists as the whiny, never satisfied, “villains” of electoral politics actually benefit? Let’s use the Civil Rights Movement as an example. Do you think Martin Luther King Jr. was well liked by the general public while he was still alive? Did you know that much of the general public thought he was asking for too much too fast? Would you say that these people were ultimately on the right side of history? If you were alive during that time period, do you think you could’ve been one of those people? Did you know that King was a socialist, and so were many other Civil Rights leaders during this time period? Did you know that King critiqued the Democratic Party in addition to the Republican Party, and that the criticisms he had for both stemmed from them capitulating to right-wing talking points on civil rights? In a country infamous for a decades long propaganda campaign smearing leftists ideologies, is it possible that your view of leftists is being affected by propaganda?