@Gramps49: Harris and Walz did bus tours of both rural Pennsylvania and rural Georgia in August. It would have been an absolute waste for Harris to spend time and money in states that were not in play, given that her opponent has virtually 100% name recognition while large portions of the electorate knew almost nothing about her when she took over in July.
And you haven't made any causal connection between Trump's visits and his win.
Voters in liberal strongholds across the country, from city centers to suburban stretches, failed to show up to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris at the levels they had for Joseph R. Biden Jr. four years earlier, contributing significantly to her defeat by Donald J. Trump, according to a New York Times analysis of preliminary election data.
...
The drop-off spanned demographics and economics. It was clear in counties with the highest job growth rates, counties with the most job losses and counties with the highest percentage of college-educated voters. Turnout was down, too, across groups that are traditionally strong for Democrats — including areas with large numbers of Black Christians and Jewish voters.
A number of possible reasons are cited for this: backsliding after the record 2020 turnout was inevitable; incumbents around the world are being turned out of office in the wake of the pandemic; Harris didn't have enough time to turn things around; the appeal to Republican crossover votes through the use of surrogates like Liz Cheney turned off progressives and the Democratic base; Harris didn't talk enough about economic issues; the Dems' turnout playbook is designed for an era that is now gone.
We'll know more when there's been more time for analysis, but I would imagine that some or all of these things worked in concert to depress Democratic turnout.
MSNBC claims Trump's visit was very important here.
Most notably:
Trump personally met with locally elected Arab American politicians and Muslim clerics, in all likelihood promising them the polar opposite of what he was telling other constituencies like his Jewish donors, bringing them onto his rally stages with him — something Harris never did — and making every appearance of being interested in forming an alliance. He crucially won over Dearborn Heights Mayor Bill Bazzi and Hamtramck’s Yemeni-American Mayor Amer Ghalib. Meanwhile, Dearborn’s Democratic Arab American Mayor Abdullah Hammoud refused to meet with Trump but also declined to endorse Harris.
I can't calculate what effect it had on the numbers, but Biden & Co. didn't do nearly enough to spread the world of what his policies did for the country. He took a crippled economy and brought it to a humming pitch. Harris should have been able to run on that but she shied away from Biden like he was leprous.
Yes, the way the handoff emerged didn't really allow for the kind of full-throated campaigning an outgoing POTUS could otherwise give. And the soft-pedaling of Biden policies that she herself was a party to didn't help, either. Dems didn't rise to 2020 numbers at the polls, and I think a gloves-off critique of the Biden Administration's shortcomings would have stifled that turnout even more. But she didn't have distinguishing answers on a few important topics, and it was costly. That's where a longer campaign, and even a primary process, could have helped a lot toward shaping those issues in ways that voters could appreciate more broadly and more enthusiastically.
Not that I'm condoning any of Tr*mp's approaches, but his Administration did endure a worldwide pandemic that did its own independent number on a lot of countries' economies. I think it's unfair to lay 100% of the Tr*mp economy at Tr*mp's own feet. I think any President would have had to absorb the economic horrors of Covid, and at least in some small way, suffer some criticism as a result. Now, I don't think Tr*mp helped himself in that regard at all, but still, when Dems say how bad the economy was when Biden took over, very few give Covid its due. I just think that in a number of sectors, there wasn't much other economy could do but go upward.
I can't calculate what effect it had on the numbers, but Biden & Co. didn't do nearly enough to spread the world of what his policies did for the country. He took a crippled economy and brought it to a humming pitch. Harris should have been able to run on that but she shied away from Biden like he was leprous.
Well, yes and no. I think she got kind of stuck in the middle. When asked what she would have done differently from Biden, she said she couldn't think of a thing, but people didn't immediately think of the Biden administration giving the US a good post-pandemic recovery; they thought of the inflation. And it was a mistake not to take that opportunity to differentiate herself from Biden.
But up against a former president who's been famous for decades, after the Biden administration kneecapped her again and again, and given just over 100 days to campaign -- it's amazing she did as well as she did.
In any case, the Democrats' usual post-loss circular firing squad is blasting away. Do Republicans do this? I remember the 2012 post-mortem when there was a report that said Republicans needed to figure out how to appeal to Latinos or else lose elections forever (okay, not a great summary, but I don't feel like looking it up), but then or in 2020, did they play the blame game?
2020 was The Big Lie. MAGA/GOP/Tr*mp blamed everyone and everything but themselves. Some of the Old Guard GOP has come around since, but MAGA and Tr*mp still pretty much maintain they actually won in 2020.
They never looked around and thought they needed another candidate? People did run against him in the primaries this year. They knuckled under in the end, of course. I just wonder if there were any Republican political consultants sitting around trying to figure out where they went wrong in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin last time.
The U.S. House of Representatives has an updated tally of Republicans 215 -- Democrats 210.
218 seats are needed for control. 14 races remain undecided. CBS News is characterizing the race for the House as "leaning" Republican. Doesn't look good for a chance for a divided government.
The U.S. House of Representatives has an updated tally of Republicans 215 -- Democrats 210.
218 seats are needed for control. 14 races remain undecided. CBS News is characterizing the race for the House as "leaning" Republican. Doesn't look good for a chance for a divided government.
In the United States, there is always a divided government. During the last congressional term, the Republicans held (what?) a four-seat majority, but Johnson could not get a number of things pass without the help of the Democrats. The Republicans were so divided. There are a few who voted for Trump's impeachment who are still in office. If Trump keeps pulling people out of Congress, his majority will be so thin.
Last night, Lawrance O'Connell pointed out, if anything Trump will have an 18-month window to get his agenda passed. After that, we go into the midterm election and Congress will not want to do anything that puts their people at risk.
18 months of hell, then bingo. New people, new chances, new hope.
The numbers are pointing increasingly to both a high turnout (though less than the 66% in 2020) and a close race on the popular vote. Sure, some democrats will have stayed at home. But I’m not clear yet whether the evidence shows that this was as important as switching against a woman of colour. Personally I still believe the prejudiced switching was most important.
PBS reported this evening how the Latino community moved from Biden to Trump
In 2020 around 35% of the Latino voters went for Trump. In 2024, 43% went for Trump. The percentage of male Latino voters for Trump was 48% My hypothesis is that large male Latino voters moved the overall Latino voter for Trump the most. Many are saying males in the United States are not ready to be ruled by a woman.
I find that odd because we have so many females in executive roles as it is. It is not that unusual for female officers to be leaders of men in the military, though the proposed Secretary of State has said he wants to eliminate that.
Fascinating and disturbing interview, Gramps49. It also brings into focus the issue of what has been characterised as the “woke” agenda and the reaction against it.
“Woke” has become a polarising term. Personally I think it has always been about an emerging understanding of what is fair, equitable. It’s more about improved understanding, particularly of issues affecting minorities.
I wish it had not become both politicised and polarised. It is essentially rooted in moral and educational arguments.
The numbers are pointing increasingly to both a high turnout (though less than the 66% in 2020) and a close race on the popular vote. Sure, some democrats will have stayed at home. But I’m not clear yet whether the evidence shows that this was as important as switching against a woman of colour. Personally I still believe the prejudiced switching was most important.
I think it was a combination of things. Anti-incumbent sentiment, economic fears, misogynoir, right-wing media disinformation (people may not be stupid but they're certainly not well-informed), a truncated campaign, no real primaries ... maybe change just one or two of these and things go the other direction.
I’m sure you’re right, Ruth. The vote switch from 2020 now looks to have been about 5 in 100 nationally. And different people will have different reasons.
Gramps’ link gives some possible reasons for the significant Latino switch. Apparently there are about 36 million Hispanic voters, 4 million more than in 2020. Their switches are bound to have made a significant difference.
Crude arithmetic tells me that an 8 to 10 point move in the Hispanic vote might amount to as much as 2 votes per 100 in the overall vote. My sums need to be checked (!) but they seem to be the right kind of ballpark.
You’re spot on about the effect of disinformation. I’d add the increasing role of social media in that. I don’t mean to be at all elitist but the ability to think critically, or even want to, seems to be in decline.
This discussion forum is well blessed with a high proportion of critical thinkers, that’s one of its features that I’ve always enjoyed. It’s a shame, but I think we are moving into more significant minority in the population as a whole
It’s worth noting that if polls are to be believed Harris did considerably better than Biden would have done if he had stated in the race, but also considerably worse than Biden did in 2020.
People were switching their vote to Trump deciding not to vote, etc, because they were voting against the incumbent party because of inflation, immigration, a sense of rising public disorder post pandemic in major cities, and a growing list of crises and wars in the world that the US is spending considerable sums of money on without any end in sight. Add to this a very effective stoking of culture war wedge issues by Republicans to sway voters who either had not voted before (immigrants and young men) or had voted Democrat in the past despite identifying as conservative because of in-group social pressure.
Harris’ late entry into the campaign brought some demoralized Democratic voters back who were dismayed that Biden was running again despite an obvious decline in his ability to communicate effectively and understandably to voters. But because she was Biden’s VP, she still was operating from a starting place amid a climate of anti incumbency that meant she was behind where Biden was in 2020, and, whether it is her fault or not, her campaign did not manage to close that gap. But in the Blue Wall swing states as well as the popular vote it was still a very close election and if just a few things had happened differently she might have won.
I’m pretty clear that the Democratic Party needs a strategy to regain Hispanic support. That might make all the difference.
If it isn’t to be Harris I suppose the Democrats might look to Newsom? On the other hand I doubt whether the MAGA movement has an obvious successor to Trump. He’s seen to it that they are all diminished compared with himself. Leaders with huge egos are never any good at succession planning.
Whoever the contenders are, 4 more years of almost guaranteed Trump chaos suggest that 2028 might be good for the Democrats. The trick will be to avoid dropping the ball.
I know Newsom has what might be called a “colourful background”. He was previously married to Kimberly Guifoil who later became both a Fox presenter and a senior advisor to Trump. I guess he might be vulnerable on a personal level. But California is about 40% Hispanic and Newsom seems very pro Hispanic.
Beshear seems more squeaky clean. As Governor of Kentucky he has Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to deal with annd I bet that’s not fun. And Kentucky is not very demographically diverse, unlike California.
Personally I think Harris is better than either of them but I guess she has an uphill battle to get nominated in 2028. After Trump I think the USA might benefit a lot from having a woman of colour in the White House but I’m not sure the realpolitik arguments will see it that way.
I listened to a short interview this morning that I'm curious about. The gist of it was that this election was more or less a reaction against what was called "credentialed condescension." That, and an increasing lack of a sense of "nation," because we have fewer and fewer common spaces and public places where Democracy 'happens' because different kinds of Americans rub elbows with each other. The interviewee acknowledged that economic issues were the outward sign of why the election went the direction it did, but that the larger subtexts were forgotteness, disrespect, and disenfranchisement, but not purely economic disenfranchisement -- a social disenfranchisement of being left behind -- a decreasing ability for upward mobility in society.
Moreover, we are now at least a couple of decades into the mantra "Education is the Path to Success" being combined with the longstanding maxim that in America anything is possible and that people can do whatever they want and get wherever they want via hard work. The Global Economy initiated a number of changes, chief among them was that manufacturing was going to be moved to the cheapest production locations possible (because: capitalism), and that workers would retrain and reeducate themselves into more management and service economy opportunities to facilitate the new reality. But Education was commodified, and priced beyond where a lot of Americans could access it. So, a new vicious cycle ensued, furthering the gaps, exploited by the Internet, and maximized by Social Media.
What this guy said was that despite everyone stratifying, what citizens susceptible to MAGA actually want is a more shared sense of country. And since it hasn't happened as the pro-Global Economy camp predicted and assured them of for decades, they're turning to the side that says that if nothing else, they'll enforce that sense back into society.
Credentialed condescension is a nice term. There’s certainly a reaction against that in the democracies. We saw it in the UK re Brexit. And MAGA strikes me as a similar kind of reaction. “We don’t need you to tell us what to think”. Whoever “you” may be.
The win goes to those who can best manipulate the distrust to their own advantage.
Well, it's one of those arguments that resonates as long as you don't ask too much of it.
The Right has been discrediting and demonizing higher education for decades. It was Richard Nixon who said, "the professors are the enemy," as quoted by the VP+Elect here. So it's not new, but it's been reinvigorated, and additional facets have been added to it. All of those things are readily apparent, but what I hadn't thought about before was a more tragic undercurrent of desire for a shared sense of country/community/identity. It's manifesting in a terrible way, but the interviewee I mentioned seemed to think it was not, at its root, terrible.
I think anti-intellectualism runs rabid in the US.
There is a small community to the north of us which had a good education program for the community kids. But then a few years ago, a charismatic preacher moved into town. He gained a wide following because he told the people what they wanted to hear. Part of that had to do with the local schools. They were being run by non-Christians and had to kowtow to the demands of a "socialist" state. All of the sudden, parents started pulling their kids out of the school and started homeschooling them using materials that come from a fundamentalist provider (Those large bones--they are not dinosaurs, they were planted by the Devil to confuse Christians).
Multiply this community's experience with simitar communities throughout the US and you have a large group of uneducated people who resist science, question climate change, think women should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen and the like.
Well, they voted for someone who fed their biases. Will they wake up in the next couple of years?
Pride gets in the way for a long time before admitting that we've been conned. Trump is I suppose the classic idol with feet of clay. I'm not hoping that everyone sees that. But four or five in a hundred would be good.
If, on the other hand, they wanted strong action against illegal immigration and the promotion of traditional social structures rather than woke liberal progressivism then they probably will get them.
If, on the other hand, they wanted strong action against illegal immigration and the promotion of traditional social structures rather than woke liberal progressivism then they probably will get them.
They might or might not, but if they do I anticipate a fair chunk will discover they like the idea of those things rather more than the reality.
Undocumented immigrants to the US paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Ostensibly the loss of this revenue would be accounted for via cuts to social safety net programs. Yet again, Medicaid and Medicare are in the crosshairs (with the appointment of Dr. Mehmet Oz as head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services). Since he became a candidate in 2015 the 45th POTUS has promised revolutionary changes and improvements to American Healthcare. This far along he is still *nowhere* with that pledge. When asked during the debate with VP Harris about it (replacing the ACA, he merely said he had the “concepts of a plan.” So, exactly the same BS about a nonexistent policy he's only ever said was 'a couple of weeks away.' Something-something block grants to then states... whatever.
Hitchens was right when he said “I think deep down [MAGA] Americans don’t really want health care. They certainly don’t want it if they have to pay for someone else to have it. They think life should be risky. They think you should be taking your chances. They look down on countries where the government tries to ensure that everyone’s life works out.”
I think it’s all about grievances, myself. They want someone in the White House who will champion their grievances, and make them feel like at last they’re getting what they deserve. The fact that what they want is often ill defined and self contradictory gets overlooked in all the emotion—also the fact that Trump is highly unlikely to deliver on most of it, not having the first clue how to make things happen without creating a series of clusterfucks that end up in the court system for years.
I think it’s all about grievances, myself. They want someone in the White House who will champion their grievances, and make them feel like at last they’re getting what they deserve.
That's the outward manifestation, yes, which is an itch that is easily scratched. How Democrats are going to communicate more effectively re: the root causes of those grievances, instead of merely amplify and pacify them remains to be seen.
Personally, I think the citizens of the United States do not want a national health care system is that the whites do not want to pay for the "coloreds"--all other races--to be healthier.
I know I used an objectionable word in that statement, but I think it boils down to that word.
It is the same reason why our overall welfare system stinks. Remember Ronald Reagan's description of a "welfare queen".
Since voting whites will be in the minority shortly, I wonder is some of the roadblocks may melt away.
That's the outward manifestation, yes, which is an itch that is easily scratched. How Democrats are going to communicate more effectively re: the root causes of those grievances, instead of merely amplify and pacify them remains to be seen.
I think it’s more than an outward manifestation or that it’s an itch that’s easily scratched, though I agree that the task is figuring out how to get to the root causes of those grievances.
That’s why I’ve pushed back against the idea that MAGA can’t exist without Trump. Trump didn’t create that grievance culture; he tapped into it, fed it, emboldened it and empowered it. It will still be there when he’s no longer there, and there well may be someone else ready to fill the void he leaves. If Democrats just focus on how to convince enough of the fringe to win elections, then we could well be in for the back and forth of 2016-2020-2024. Meanwhile, the roots of the grievance culture will continue to eat away at the national fabric.
Personally, I think the citizens of the United States do not want a national health care system is that the whites do not want to pay for the "coloreds"--all other races--to be healthier.
I know I used an objectionable word in that statement, but I think it boils down to that word.
It is the same reason why our overall welfare system stinks. Remember Ronald Reagan's description of a "welfare queen".
Since voting whites will be in the minority shortly, I wonder is some of the roadblocks may melt away.
The 2024 election data re: Hispanic Americans, especially males, seem to indicate otherwise.
That's the outward manifestation, yes, which is an itch that is easily scratched. How Democrats are going to communicate more effectively re: the root causes of those grievances, instead of merely amplify and pacify them remains to be seen.
I think it’s more than an outward manifestation or that it’s an itch that’s easily scratched, though I agree that the task is figuring out how to get to the root causes of those grievances.
Grievance for grievance's sake is now its own thing, yes -- knit to a nostalgic patriotism of the past: a small town, 8mm silent film version of a VFW-led parade down a bunting adorned, tree-lined Main Street.
One election does not change my prognostication. I was talking about eventual changes to our welfare and health care changes. It will take some time, but, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, the arc is long but it bends to change.
I think it’s all about grievances, myself. They want someone in the White House who will champion their grievances, and make them feel like at last they’re getting what they deserve.
I think this is spot on.
And that is where they have been most deceived. Trump was very good at exploiting grievances. He will only address them if the means do not affect the very wealthy.
He’s an international wealthy capitalist. He won’t do anything which damages his own interests.
NBC news anchor Brian Williams dropping some massive truth bombs on the Democrats.
Here's the same thing on YouTube for those not wishing to give Fox any clicks. The things Williams says seem right to me, but not revelatory; I've read any number of analyses talking about how the Dems have lost touch with the working class. Seth Meyers pushed back some on the narrative of failure, pointing out that the Dems did fine in 2018, 2020, and 2022; he could have added that they've won the popular vote in presidential elections all but twice since 2000 and that Trump is below 50% in the 2024 election. But yes, the Democrats need to figure out how to talk with and represent the people they claim to care about.
I think it’s all about grievances, myself. They want someone in the White House who will champion their grievances, and make them feel like at last they’re getting what they deserve.
Coming back to this -- some of the grievance is justified. The middle class has been squeezed hard for the last couple of decades, and a lot of people have been pushed out of it. There's also the peevish bullshit of the sort we were hearing from @Moyessa over the summer.
I think to some degree grievance explains Tulsi Gabbard's journey; she wasn't making headway in the Democratic party anymore, she had argued with other bigwigs, so she eventually jumped ship, and that's working out well for her. She was successful as a Democrat in very blue Hawaii. She was vice chair of the DNC in the mid teens, but squabbled with Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the debate process, objected to the existence of superdelegates, and eventually stepped down and endorsed Sanders in 2016. When she ran for president in 2019, she again argued about the Democrats' debate process and said it was rigged. She supported a whistleblower in Hawaii who revealed the Hawaii Department of Health's not having contact tracers during the pandemic; it's not like she's a complete nutcase. She then starts going on Fox, leaves the Democratic party, and heads toward Trump, and now she's the nominee for director of national intelligence.
NBC news anchor Brian Williams dropping some massive truth bombs on the Democrats.
Here's the same thing on YouTube for those not wishing to give Fox any clicks. The things Williams says seem right to me, but not revelatory; I've read any number of analyses talking about how the Dems have lost touch with the working class. Seth Meyers pushed back some on the narrative of failure, pointing out that the Dems did fine in 2018, 2020, and 2022; he could have added that they've won the popular vote in presidential elections all but twice since 2000 and that Trump is below 50% in the 2024 election. But yes, the Democrats need to figure out how to talk with and represent the people they claim to care about.
I think it’s all about grievances, myself. They want someone in the White House who will champion their grievances, and make them feel like at last they’re getting what they deserve.
Coming back to this -- some of the grievance is justified. The middle class has been squeezed hard for the last couple of decades, and a lot of people have been pushed out of it.
Right. This is part of why I think that thinking in terms simply of how we communicate with those with grievances isn’t the answer. We have to try to understand why they have grievances, be willing to acknowledge when the sense of grievance is justified and be ready to respond with actions as well as words.
I think to some degree grievance explains Tulsi Gabbard's journey; she wasn't making headway in the Democratic party anymore, she had argued with other bigwigs, so she eventually jumped ship, and that's working out well for her. She was successful as a Democrat in very blue Hawaii. She was vice chair of the DNC in the mid teens, but squabbled with Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the debate process, objected to the existence of superdelegates, and eventually stepped down and endorsed Sanders in 2016. When she ran for president in 2019, she again argued about the Democrats' debate process and said it was rigged. She supported a whistleblower in Hawaii who revealed the Hawaii Department of Health's not having contact tracers during the pandemic; it's not like she's a complete nutcase. She then starts going on Fox, leaves the Democratic party, and heads toward Trump, and now she's the nominee for director of national intelligence.
Tulsi Gabbard was a politician from Hawaii with a 'D' after her name. Given the partisan lean of Hawaii this tells you nothing about her politics other than "I want power". You might want to take into consideration that a Putin-loving, pro-Assad, anti-gay politician is just a better fit with today's Republican party than the Democrats and whatever "journey" she took was a combination of opportunism and finding her natural home. I'm not sure the solution to whatever problems the Democratic party might have is to be more welcoming to anti-gay apologists for dictators.
One of the problems that left-wing parties have to deal with is that if they put forward policies that actually improve people's lives they're attacked for being socialists.
For too many Americans the act of taking any kind of help is viewed as weakness, and they can't do that, or allow anyone else to do that, because America is strong. And if it's the Federal Government facilitating that help -- even if in reality it's Americans helping each other -- well, that's redistributive socialism.
I'm not sure the solution to whatever problems the Democratic party might have is to be more welcoming to anti-gay apologists for dictators.
Not what I was suggesting, and you know that. Why you periodically put this kind of twisted interpretation on things I say I don't know, but it's a shitty thing to do. (You're right, though, about "journey" -- I hesitated over that as I hate the word in that usage, but I couldn't think of a better option before I lost patience with trying.)
As someone who votes in Long Beach, Los Angeles County, and California, I'm well aware of how the "D" partisan lean works. Of course she had to be a Democrat in Hawaii, but was she Putin-loving 20 years ago, or when she was on the Honolulu City Council? When she was vice chair of the DNC? Or is that something she's come to more recently? That she fits better with today's Republican party is obvious; what's less obvious is why it took her so long to figure that out, why she stuck it out with the Democratic party given that she was pissed off at them almost a decade ago.
We have to try to understand why they have grievances, be willing to acknowledge when the sense of grievance is justified and be ready to respond with actions as well as words.
We need to do things that actually make people's lives better, but messaging is still important. Red states are getting the lion's share of the money from the major economic legislation passed in 2022, and the Democrats are getting no credit for that. I can't find the photo now, but there was a picture of a big new computer chip manufacturing plant going up in Ohio as a result of the Chips Act where the workers put up a big Trump sign.
Edited to add: the more I think about it, the more it resonates for me that many of the leaders of the groups Democrats rely on are leaders of interest groups, not leaders of large movements.
We have to try to understand why they have grievances, be willing to acknowledge when the sense of grievance is justified and be ready to respond with actions as well as words.
We need to do things that actually make people's lives better, but messaging is still important.
Agree completely. What I’m pushing back against is a suggestion that it’s only about messaging.
And even if it is was just about messaging, good messaging can’t happen without first listening.
Comments
And you haven't made any causal connection between Trump's visits and his win.
A number of possible reasons are cited for this: backsliding after the record 2020 turnout was inevitable; incumbents around the world are being turned out of office in the wake of the pandemic; Harris didn't have enough time to turn things around; the appeal to Republican crossover votes through the use of surrogates like Liz Cheney turned off progressives and the Democratic base; Harris didn't talk enough about economic issues; the Dems' turnout playbook is designed for an era that is now gone.
We'll know more when there's been more time for analysis, but I would imagine that some or all of these things worked in concert to depress Democratic turnout.
Most notably:
He also courted the Latino community. That is way he went to New Mexico https://www.kunm.org/local-news/2024-10-30/trump-comes-to-new-mexico-where-republicans-are-courting-hispanic-voters-hard
Likewise Arizona and Nevada.
In particular he appealed to the young male Latino voters; see https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-broke-a-record-with-latino-voters-history-can-tell-us-why/ar-AA1tLmAk?ocid=BingNewsSerp
The Harris campaign made the mistake of assuming she had the Latino community in her pocket. No longer the case.
Then there is Bernie Sanders criticism of the Democratic abandoning the working class https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/bernie-sanders-democrats-working-class/
Not that I'm condoning any of Tr*mp's approaches, but his Administration did endure a worldwide pandemic that did its own independent number on a lot of countries' economies. I think it's unfair to lay 100% of the Tr*mp economy at Tr*mp's own feet. I think any President would have had to absorb the economic horrors of Covid, and at least in some small way, suffer some criticism as a result. Now, I don't think Tr*mp helped himself in that regard at all, but still, when Dems say how bad the economy was when Biden took over, very few give Covid its due. I just think that in a number of sectors, there wasn't much other economy could do but go upward.
Well, yes and no. I think she got kind of stuck in the middle. When asked what she would have done differently from Biden, she said she couldn't think of a thing, but people didn't immediately think of the Biden administration giving the US a good post-pandemic recovery; they thought of the inflation. And it was a mistake not to take that opportunity to differentiate herself from Biden.
But up against a former president who's been famous for decades, after the Biden administration kneecapped her again and again, and given just over 100 days to campaign -- it's amazing she did as well as she did.
In any case, the Democrats' usual post-loss circular firing squad is blasting away. Do Republicans do this? I remember the 2012 post-mortem when there was a report that said Republicans needed to figure out how to appeal to Latinos or else lose elections forever (okay, not a great summary, but I don't feel like looking it up), but then or in 2020, did they play the blame game?
218 seats are needed for control. 14 races remain undecided. CBS News is characterizing the race for the House as "leaning" Republican. Doesn't look good for a chance for a divided government.
In the United States, there is always a divided government. During the last congressional term, the Republicans held (what?) a four-seat majority, but Johnson could not get a number of things pass without the help of the Democrats. The Republicans were so divided. There are a few who voted for Trump's impeachment who are still in office. If Trump keeps pulling people out of Congress, his majority will be so thin.
Last night, Lawrance O'Connell pointed out, if anything Trump will have an 18-month window to get his agenda passed. After that, we go into the midterm election and Congress will not want to do anything that puts their people at risk.
18 months of hell, then bingo. New people, new chances, new hope.
In 2020 around 35% of the Latino voters went for Trump. In 2024, 43% went for Trump. The percentage of male Latino voters for Trump was 48% My hypothesis is that large male Latino voters moved the overall Latino voter for Trump the most. Many are saying males in the United States are not ready to be ruled by a woman.
I find that odd because we have so many females in executive roles as it is. It is not that unusual for female officers to be leaders of men in the military, though the proposed Secretary of State has said he wants to eliminate that.
“Woke” has become a polarising term. Personally I think it has always been about an emerging understanding of what is fair, equitable. It’s more about improved understanding, particularly of issues affecting minorities.
I wish it had not become both politicised and polarised. It is essentially rooted in moral and educational arguments.
I think it was a combination of things. Anti-incumbent sentiment, economic fears, misogynoir, right-wing media disinformation (people may not be stupid but they're certainly not well-informed), a truncated campaign, no real primaries ... maybe change just one or two of these and things go the other direction.
Gramps’ link gives some possible reasons for the significant Latino switch. Apparently there are about 36 million Hispanic voters, 4 million more than in 2020. Their switches are bound to have made a significant difference.
Crude arithmetic tells me that an 8 to 10 point move in the Hispanic vote might amount to as much as 2 votes per 100 in the overall vote. My sums need to be checked (!) but they seem to be the right kind of ballpark.
You’re spot on about the effect of disinformation. I’d add the increasing role of social media in that. I don’t mean to be at all elitist but the ability to think critically, or even want to, seems to be in decline.
This discussion forum is well blessed with a high proportion of critical thinkers, that’s one of its features that I’ve always enjoyed. It’s a shame, but I think we are moving into more significant minority in the population as a whole
People were switching their vote to Trump deciding not to vote, etc, because they were voting against the incumbent party because of inflation, immigration, a sense of rising public disorder post pandemic in major cities, and a growing list of crises and wars in the world that the US is spending considerable sums of money on without any end in sight. Add to this a very effective stoking of culture war wedge issues by Republicans to sway voters who either had not voted before (immigrants and young men) or had voted Democrat in the past despite identifying as conservative because of in-group social pressure.
Harris’ late entry into the campaign brought some demoralized Democratic voters back who were dismayed that Biden was running again despite an obvious decline in his ability to communicate effectively and understandably to voters. But because she was Biden’s VP, she still was operating from a starting place amid a climate of anti incumbency that meant she was behind where Biden was in 2020, and, whether it is her fault or not, her campaign did not manage to close that gap. But in the Blue Wall swing states as well as the popular vote it was still a very close election and if just a few things had happened differently she might have won.
If it isn’t to be Harris I suppose the Democrats might look to Newsom? On the other hand I doubt whether the MAGA movement has an obvious successor to Trump. He’s seen to it that they are all diminished compared with himself. Leaders with huge egos are never any good at succession planning.
Whoever the contenders are, 4 more years of almost guaranteed Trump chaos suggest that 2028 might be good for the Democrats. The trick will be to avoid dropping the ball.
Beshear seems more squeaky clean. As Governor of Kentucky he has Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul to deal with annd I bet that’s not fun. And Kentucky is not very demographically diverse, unlike California.
Personally I think Harris is better than either of them but I guess she has an uphill battle to get nominated in 2028. After Trump I think the USA might benefit a lot from having a woman of colour in the White House but I’m not sure the realpolitik arguments will see it that way.
Moreover, we are now at least a couple of decades into the mantra "Education is the Path to Success" being combined with the longstanding maxim that in America anything is possible and that people can do whatever they want and get wherever they want via hard work. The Global Economy initiated a number of changes, chief among them was that manufacturing was going to be moved to the cheapest production locations possible (because: capitalism), and that workers would retrain and reeducate themselves into more management and service economy opportunities to facilitate the new reality. But Education was commodified, and priced beyond where a lot of Americans could access it. So, a new vicious cycle ensued, furthering the gaps, exploited by the Internet, and maximized by Social Media.
What this guy said was that despite everyone stratifying, what citizens susceptible to MAGA actually want is a more shared sense of country. And since it hasn't happened as the pro-Global Economy camp predicted and assured them of for decades, they're turning to the side that says that if nothing else, they'll enforce that sense back into society.
The win goes to those who can best manipulate the distrust to their own advantage.
The Right has been discrediting and demonizing higher education for decades. It was Richard Nixon who said, "the professors are the enemy," as quoted by the VP+Elect here. So it's not new, but it's been reinvigorated, and additional facets have been added to it. All of those things are readily apparent, but what I hadn't thought about before was a more tragic undercurrent of desire for a shared sense of country/community/identity. It's manifesting in a terrible way, but the interviewee I mentioned seemed to think it was not, at its root, terrible.
There is a small community to the north of us which had a good education program for the community kids. But then a few years ago, a charismatic preacher moved into town. He gained a wide following because he told the people what they wanted to hear. Part of that had to do with the local schools. They were being run by non-Christians and had to kowtow to the demands of a "socialist" state. All of the sudden, parents started pulling their kids out of the school and started homeschooling them using materials that come from a fundamentalist provider (Those large bones--they are not dinosaurs, they were planted by the Devil to confuse Christians).
Multiply this community's experience with simitar communities throughout the US and you have a large group of uneducated people who resist science, question climate change, think women should be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen and the like.
Well, they voted for someone who fed their biases. Will they wake up in the next couple of years?
If they wanted lower inflation and well paid employment they won't, not with Trump's tariffs.
They might or might not, but if they do I anticipate a fair chunk will discover they like the idea of those things rather more than the reality.
Hitchens was right when he said “I think deep down [MAGA] Americans don’t really want health care. They certainly don’t want it if they have to pay for someone else to have it. They think life should be risky. They think you should be taking your chances. They look down on countries where the government tries to ensure that everyone’s life works out.”
I know I used an objectionable word in that statement, but I think it boils down to that word.
It is the same reason why our overall welfare system stinks. Remember Ronald Reagan's description of a "welfare queen".
Since voting whites will be in the minority shortly, I wonder is some of the roadblocks may melt away.
That’s why I’ve pushed back against the idea that MAGA can’t exist without Trump. Trump didn’t create that grievance culture; he tapped into it, fed it, emboldened it and empowered it. It will still be there when he’s no longer there, and there well may be someone else ready to fill the void he leaves. If Democrats just focus on how to convince enough of the fringe to win elections, then we could well be in for the back and forth of 2016-2020-2024. Meanwhile, the roots of the grievance culture will continue to eat away at the national fabric.
The 2024 election data re: Hispanic Americans, especially males, seem to indicate otherwise. Grievance for grievance's sake is now its own thing, yes -- knit to a nostalgic patriotism of the past: a small town, 8mm silent film version of a VFW-led parade down a bunting adorned, tree-lined Main Street.
One election does not change my prognostication. I was talking about eventual changes to our welfare and health care changes. It will take some time, but, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, the arc is long but it bends to change.
Maybe the Senate may act as a moderating force over his more extreme selections? We’ll see. I don’t think Gaetz was the only one under a shadow.
He’s an international wealthy capitalist. He won’t do anything which damages his own interests.
Coming back to this -- some of the grievance is justified. The middle class has been squeezed hard for the last couple of decades, and a lot of people have been pushed out of it. There's also the peevish bullshit of the sort we were hearing from @Moyessa over the summer.
I think to some degree grievance explains Tulsi Gabbard's journey; she wasn't making headway in the Democratic party anymore, she had argued with other bigwigs, so she eventually jumped ship, and that's working out well for her. She was successful as a Democrat in very blue Hawaii. She was vice chair of the DNC in the mid teens, but squabbled with Debbie Wasserman Schultz about the debate process, objected to the existence of superdelegates, and eventually stepped down and endorsed Sanders in 2016. When she ran for president in 2019, she again argued about the Democrats' debate process and said it was rigged. She supported a whistleblower in Hawaii who revealed the Hawaii Department of Health's not having contact tracers during the pandemic; it's not like she's a complete nutcase. She then starts going on Fox, leaves the Democratic party, and heads toward Trump, and now she's the nominee for director of national intelligence.
Tulsi Gabbard was a politician from Hawaii with a 'D' after her name. Given the partisan lean of Hawaii this tells you nothing about her politics other than "I want power". You might want to take into consideration that a Putin-loving, pro-Assad, anti-gay politician is just a better fit with today's Republican party than the Democrats and whatever "journey" she took was a combination of opportunism and finding her natural home. I'm not sure the solution to whatever problems the Democratic party might have is to be more welcoming to anti-gay apologists for dictators.
As someone who votes in Long Beach, Los Angeles County, and California, I'm well aware of how the "D" partisan lean works. Of course she had to be a Democrat in Hawaii, but was she Putin-loving 20 years ago, or when she was on the Honolulu City Council? When she was vice chair of the DNC? Or is that something she's come to more recently? That she fits better with today's Republican party is obvious; what's less obvious is why it took her so long to figure that out, why she stuck it out with the Democratic party given that she was pissed off at them almost a decade ago.
We need to do things that actually make people's lives better, but messaging is still important. Red states are getting the lion's share of the money from the major economic legislation passed in 2022, and the Democrats are getting no credit for that. I can't find the photo now, but there was a picture of a big new computer chip manufacturing plant going up in Ohio as a result of the Chips Act where the workers put up a big Trump sign.
Edited to add: the more I think about it, the more it resonates for me that many of the leaders of the groups Democrats rely on are leaders of interest groups, not leaders of large movements.
And even if it is was just about messaging, good messaging can’t happen without first listening.