I actually think it is a huge mistake that the Democrats made during 2024 and the months leading up to it that they constantly talk about Trump as though he were a distinct entity from the Republican party, in hopes of winning over a nonexistent voting block of "moderate Republicans."
Because of that strategy, every Democrats has to constantly pull their punches whenever talking about any Republican politician who isn't Trump.
Everything Trump is doing is just the logical extent of what the GOP has wanted to do for decades, but had too much of a sense of political self-preservation to truly charge after.
I used to be a Republican. I even went to conventions, meetings, etc. After I got to really know the party (it's constituents and leadership) I realized that I am definitely not politically "conservative" by USA standards, and that their platform is complete BS.
2010 was when I fully realized that they are the part of demagoguery. They were creating an alternate reality and using that as a means to manipulate people and even make policy that way. Which is very dangerous.
Trump had nothing to do with my dislike of Republicanism. However, the fact that he was a Democrat and is now a Republican only shows more evidence that he is nothing more than a demagogue. He doesn't actually have an ideology that he follows. Like the Republican party, he will go with whatever gets him power and allows him to most easily manipulate. At its core, this is where Fascism comes from. Few people remember or know that Trump actually tried to get into politics in the 2000s (as an elecred official) but failed pretty badly. He was a Republican in the later 1980s. When that didn't work out, he went Democrat. He did a brief bit in the Reform party but I sincerely think that was because there was a direct benefit to himself for doing so.
I never liked Trump. He was easily ignored prior to 2014 (for me) but recognized how dangerous he is when he started to actually be supported. How far the Republican and all of USA has fallen.
None of what you explained was relevant to the reply. And you weren't "explaining" anything, you were just enjoying talking about yourself. No one cares about what you thought a long time ago, which is why you were mocked for not realizing how obvious your self-aggrandizing lie was in the first place.
Edit: he blocked me. Some people can't handle accurate criticism. At least he feels bad about himself.
Sure. I am self aggrandizing, and you are a piece of shit person. So let just agree that we don't like each other and move on. Or is it more appropriate for me to block you? I don't really care which it is.
They should actually consider transitioning to the national socialist American workers party and just get it over with. Or KKK. They’re removing clauses in federal contracts that enforce the 1965 Civil Rights Act by prohibiting segregation while attempting to impeach independent judges. The magnitude of the erosion of the constitutional order is hard to fathom.
The masks are fully off, they might as well rebrand accordingly.
It is unfortunate that because a significant population of USA votes to with harm on their minds and in their hearts. These people give them legitimacy.
77,284,118 voted for Trump out of 245,000,000 eligible voters.
That means only about 32% voted for it. Sucks either way but no reason to be too discouraged. We just have to keep talking about it and trying to get people to pay attention.
The answer is that they fundamentally don’t believe in equal rights. But that isn’t popular—when you can push it it’s the same as recognizing the obvious:
They care about profit.
Nothing is more profitable than unpaid labor.
Put it together and the end result is always slavery or genocide
They have to win over 3% of republicans and independent-leaning republicans to win a national election. That’s the problem they have and why they are only able to win national elections when there is a crisis. See Carter/Clinton/Obama/Biden wins.
That half of the country isn’t voting for two reasons:
1) they aren’t able to vote because of the laws in place that make it difficult for them to vote
2) they actively choose not to participate in a democracy. The democratic message of the dangers of Project 2025. Or the fact that the Republican nominee who has a long history of racism, discrimination, sexual assault, and business fraud isn’t enough to motivate them to vote then they are not reachable. We shouldn’t even assume that they would vote democrat.
I don't disagree with any of this, but the fact that some people vote proves that you can appeal to non-voters to vote, if you can make the case to them that it will both matter and have a real effect on their life. The Democratic party has left all sorts of demographics behind, we could throw darts at a wall and hit a likely constituency.
I think history has shown that a proactive case can’t be made. Instead the only time is after the crisis happens and they are negatively impacted. Trump would not be president rn if those non-voters could be proactively motivated.
At some point we need to stop pretending that they can be proactively motivated. Why are issues involving equal rights, economics, and world alliances not motivating? Regardless of what ideology they have on these topics, these topics impact nearly every aspect of their personal lives. They only vote when shit hits the fan and they get covered in it.
Read my comment above about crises motivating non voters to vote. They voted for Biden because of the pandemic. Just like they voted for Obama in 2008 due to the Great Recession and then didn’t vote for him in 2012
they actively choose not to participate in a democracy. The democratic message of the dangers of Project 2025. Or the fact that the Republican nominee who has a long history of racism, discrimination, sexual assault, and business fraud isn’t enough to motivate them to vote then they are not reachable. We shouldn’t even assume that they would vote democrat.
Or maybe people are dumb and selfish and don't care about voting on any sort of moral/structural basis and instead are only motivated by what a candidate can offer to help them, personally. Demonize them for their short-sightedness and selfishness all you want, I don't care. But you can absolutely appeal to that selfishness with populist, universal social programs and/or tax cuts for as many individuals as possible and actually motivate them.
I get the immense frustration with "the other party's entire platform is fascism and bigotry, we need to vote against them" being insufficient for so many people, but we can either finally learn to meet people where they're at or we can keep letting the fascists win.
Additionally many people feel that their vote doesn’t matter, nor do they have any knowledge of what is happening politically or how it could affect them. I know plenty of well educated, normalish people who just don’t have any knowledge of politics or current events. I don’t know how this happens, but bet it has something to do with streaming entertainment and no more nightly news 🤷🏻♂️
If fascism benefits someone then the problem is that person. It is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of democracy. It is not possible for people who believe in democracy to convince the people who benefit from fascism to vote against their self-interests.
It's not about whether or not fascism benefits them, fascism benefits like 6 people at the end of the day. People have struggles and one party is selling them fascism as the cure and the other one is offering them nothing (I know Kamala had a platform, this is the broad perception of the millions of people that weren't reached by her messaging strategy, not my view). Yes of course "not fascism" should be enough, but it's not and here we are. Acting like people that didn't vote did so because they actively think they'll benefit from fascism is the most self-defeating, cynical nonsense I've seen in my life.
Yeah the Dem playbook has to find something else. These were outlined and didn’t work. I also the Dem voters weren’t given a fair chance by pushing Kamala Harris, there’s a reason so many didn’t come to vote.
The reasons are what I outlined above. We need to stop pretending that primary voters didn’t vote in the general. They do not view Harris and Trump as equals. They viewed Harris as the vice president who had policy ideas that are in line with the Democratic Party ideals. Primary voters did not sit out this election. This lack of choice thing is false. Most primary voters are more involved and cared more than the general electorate on preventing Trump from getting elected.
There’s evidence that says that less people voted in 2024 vs 2020, what am I missing?
Ezra Klein has even said the messages Kamala said definitely disenfranchised some of those voters who probably flopped over. Immigration and the Economy I think was what won everything over, the rest didn’t really matter or we wouldn’t have seen the shift in the house too.
1) Red states made it tougher to vote. Stricter mail ballot laws, removal of eligible voters from voting rolls without notification, an increase in voter ID laws, and the reduction of polling sites in minority neighborhoods.
2) the covid pandemic was over. With no crisis people who only felt motivated vote during covid no longer had that motivation
Ezra Klein used statistics to show how the Democrats aren’t with the current times. There’s been a drastic shift everywhere. There’s examples everywhere, California voted overwhelmingly for a policy about crime that the Democrats were against. There’s a shift coming.
One of the stats even showed how majority of people across different racial makeups agree in voter ID laws. Democrats are just pushing a status quo without looking into shit.
Kamala Harris was in favor of supporting illegal immigrants who were detained, gender affirming surgeries, this in itself I think hurt the Democrat party. And again gave the nod to the Republicans to show how little Democrats cared for illegal immigration.
You can add the pandemic and how unpopular Kamala Harris was. She was never popular when she ran. And I think her being Vice President hurt her for the election, because they were offering zero change, one of the issues I have with political parties. They’re all the same with how they will die for their party.
Until the Democrats establishment steps aside, we’re gonna be run by the Republican Party.
The solution is populist messaging and to be sincere which the dems haven’t done even a tiny bit. They’ve never tried, defeatism is silly tbh and the dems ain’t getting shit by pivoting to the center of whatever tf
Just because non-voters aren't reachable the way you want to reach them doesn't mean they aren't reachable. Yes Trump is awful and a criminal, but unless they believe the other candidate has something real to offer them, Trump being awful and criminal evidentally does not motivate your average non-voter. In order to persuade a neutral party to agree with you, you have to temporarily set aside what YOU care about, and instead discuss what THEY care about. Democrats don't do this enough, and that's why they lose way more often than they should.
The foundation of the democratic party is equal rights. Supporters have different economic policies and different ideas of how government functions. But that is the foundation the party stands on. So what equal right should they abandon to court these non-voters?
UBI. Public option. Any other progressive policy that can be framed as "more money for you" (a) that applies to everybody and (b) without complex economic explanation would work. Trump probably got a huge boost in 2020 just by mailing everybody $600 with his name on the check.
But Democrats back away from all of it because they can't weather the tax discussion while trying to court "undecided voters" (i.e., Republican voters that don't want to admit they are Republican voters).
Public option? Medicaid is a public option and Harris ran on raising the income limits especially in the red states that denied Medicaid expansion.
So candidate A wants to expand the number of Americans eligible for government sponsored healthcare program. Candidate A also wants to expand the benefits covered under the program. Candidate B wants to cut funding to the government sponsored healthcare program. But we’re supposed to believe that a public option is what kept the non-voters at home.
Btw Biden gave out a 1,400 stimulus to everyone making under 75K. Biden expanded the child care tax credit and changed it so that eligible Americans received a check on a monthly basis. What did he get from the non-voters for those efforts? Nothing. They stayed at home and watch the Republicans turn Congress red and end the program.
Your second point is the most worrisome. Americans will never enjoy a democracy because around 40-50% of the electorate just doesn’t vote. If, after Trump’s first term and Trump plus Project 2025 on the ballot, they still didn’t vote, nothing you ever say/do will get them to vote. Kamala literally said she’d give thousands of dollars of tax breaks to first time homebuyers and people who have kids. Literally “I’ll give you thousands of dollars just for existing” and they still said “nah, I’m good.”
America deserves this because Americans are genuinely too stupid, lazy, and entitled for democracy.
Don't ignore that many of those people had their vote suppressed. Many of them registered to vote, went to the polls, and cast a vote, and to this day have no idea their vote wasn't counted.
I mean, I think the main issue is they're going against an entire network of billionaire-backed propaganda outlets that have been trying to shape discourse for the last 45 years.
But yeah, sure, it could be performative politics too.
You're not wrong, all I'm saying is, there's a reason that propaganda was so effective in many cases. If you're living a good life, propaganda will find little purchase with you.
Ok, Im gonna take a risk and put this out there cuz I’m a bit naive: why don’t we have a third party that consists of moderate Republicans and Democrats?
Duverger's Law posits that a two party system is the natural state of a first past the post voting system. It might occasionally allow a third party in special cases, such as a strong regional pretty (see Quebec), but generally it will always return to two. If a sufficiently agreeing third party does arise, it won't create a three party system, it will just replace one of the parties or cause a realignment until the system sorts itself into two again.
It was the mildest during my adult life. Reagan's, Jr's and Trumps were way worse. Also, as I said it was over before Clinton took office. It was a recession though and the timing was horrible for Bush.
Looping back to the word crisis, I think it does matter for that discussion. I was not arguing that unemployment doesn't suck. I question the use of that term for a recession that was already over before he took office.
I think it’s pretty narrow sighted to proclaim that a presidential nominee that ran on an economic message of fixing the recession should not count because the unemployment rate (which peaked during the summer months of the election) is a lagging indicator.
The question is if there was a crisis that caused Clinton's election. Carter was after Watergate, which forced Nixon out. Obama at the beginning of the Great Recession. Bidin during Covid. A relatively mild recession after a burst of growth is not a crisis. It pales in comparison. Perot and his over 18% of the vote matter more than the "crisis". Although he did run on the "crisis" of the national debt. Which was $4 trillion in 1992 and is $34 trillion now.
A recession is a crisis. Recession means people lose their homes, social welfare programs are cut, and crime rises. Heck Perot’s presidential election was based on this crisis. He doesn’t run if there wasn’t a recession. Both Clinton and Perot ran on economic policies to fix and prevent recessions in the future
If they did a genuinely populist message with authenticity and aggression to the republicans they could easily win the # of Independents or non voters needed. They’ve never tried so we don’t actually know what the outcome would be if they ran a good campaign
This is what I don't understand about the democrat's narrative, it's not like Trump or those in his Condsiderable orbit: it's the entire Republican Party.
They aren't non-existent. They just aren't news worthy or algorithm worthy. Which also makes it so their reps care way less about what they think than the more extreme faction. They are pretty fundamentally unrepresented at the moment, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. Democrats just gave them absolutely nothing to want them to vote for. Choice for them was,
Jump on with the democrats and support a platform you philosophically disagree with and don't trust
Stay with the Republican party because even though you hate and don't trust Trump, at least you can hope some of the normal conservative stuff they say isn't a lie(it was)
They actually stopped Tim Walz and Kamala Harris from calling Republicans "weird" for this same reason. The insult was gaining traction, it was getting to them... then they stopped. They did the whole "high road" bullshit once again in order to gain favor with moderate conservatives, and then got decimated at the polls.
I read a Politico article this morning about how Democrats "are moving to the center" and it just infuriated me. They are just hellbent on losing. I've given up on Dems.
The moderate republicans who hated Trump that much were voting Harris anyway. Focusing the majority of your time and energy on the voters you already have was such a dumb strategy.
Democrats didn't make "mistakes". most of the party has been bought by the same people who bought their way into the GOP (for a while now). There was never a chance at the GOP "not winning". Of course publicly they won't say that, but every action (or inaction) they took was in support of the opposite party. The American Oligarchs were just waiting for the right technology to come by to pull this off and strip the rights of anyone who opposes them and the 1%.
They have a strong enough propaganda machine to keep everyone quiet, ignorant and silent. And they have enough data on just about everyone to easily and immediatly take out anyone who opposes them. If Americans don't fight back soon. Their future lives say 20-30 years from now would make 1984 seem like a cake-walk.
My mom ran for office (and lost) in 2022 and 2024, for a local race. Her campaign manager had worked for Jimmy Carter, Eric Swalwell, and Pete Buttigieg.
Her opponent ran an ultra-conservative platform, attacking trans girls who wanted to play sports (all 2 of them in the state. his campaign slogan was literally "Save women's sports!"), anti-abortion, pro-funding of Christian schools, the list goes on.
My mom's campaign manager guided her to have her platform be "lower property taxes by 0.25%". That's it, nothing else. Can't support green energy, that would scare people off. Can't support abortion, that's too divisive. Can't raise the $7.25 minimum wage, that'll be the end of the world. Just lower property taxes.
I managed to join one of her calls with her campaign manager. First thing I said was "Millennials and Gen Z don't own any property. Why would they vote for a candidate with nothing in their platform for them?"
Campaign manager said "If property taxes go down, rent will go down. Also, millennials and gen z don't vote."
"Bullshit!" I said
Campaign manager said 'I gotta go, let's talk later" and that's the last I ever got to talk with him.
I mean, this is the biggest problem with the Democrats. Even if they do good moderate politics, they have no strategy at all to win an election. The elections they won were just out of pure luck or because they had such a good candidate but definitely not because of their strategy (maybe with the exception of Obama campaign).
The democrats choose to run with a women of color and make LGBTQ+ their main point. Running with this in a country which is very racist and sexist was stupid as fuck. They probably would have won by just leaving Biden in place and Biden is practically dead at this point. Just run with a sympathetic white guy. I would love to see a black women as President but it's way easier to sell the US an inclusive white man who protects women, LGBTQ+ rights and minorities but doesn't talks about it (basically what Biden did, which is way he beat Trump). Fact is, most Americans just don't care about LGBTQ+. Just give them their rights but don't use pronouns or talk about it and everyone would have been happy but no, Democrats rather have Trump then running with what works. Great, this will show them /s
The actual biggest problem is that the Republicans made LBGTQ+ rights one of their biggest issues, Harris barely talked about it to the point of receiving criticism from that community for not talking about it enough, and that set of circumstances gets reported in the media before and after the election as "Democrats make LBGTQ+ rights an issue" so that's what everyone remembers happening even though it absolutely. did. not.
because GOP have experience with this and expensive software behind it, they keep accusing and talking about these matters, and making ads etc, then if Harris defends and supports these communities it proves them right, if she says nothing the ads stand uncorrected, if she pushes back and say she will not support the rights on trans etc, she loses votes on the left .
they know the left is big tent voters and they use it against them
Biden only won the first time around because people were feeling the pain of Covid and associated it with Trump. In 2024 Covid pains were associated with Biden.
But yes, I agree the biggest problem is Dems have no strategy. They come off as having no legitimate authentic convictions and basically pick their policy and talking points off what focus groups well. Pro-immigration in 2016 and then sponsoring border wall bills in 2024.
The whole identity politics thing is such a losing strategy. Even if it’s a big human rights issue, Americans don’t care who you want to fuck. They care who they want to fuck.
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u/Wonderful-Variation 19d ago edited 19d ago
I actually think it is a huge mistake that the Democrats made during 2024 and the months leading up to it that they constantly talk about Trump as though he were a distinct entity from the Republican party, in hopes of winning over a nonexistent voting block of "moderate Republicans."
Because of that strategy, every Democrats has to constantly pull their punches whenever talking about any Republican politician who isn't Trump.