Obviously, I don't think 50% of the population is stupid, but every time I try to "understand" it's becoming increasingly clear it's about his "charisma" and "our team" and less about hard policies.
People out here voting against their own interests or blaming things on ignorance (inflation, etc.).
What is that? Supply chains have improved. The labor force has expanded, partly due to increased immigration, and that's helped to take some of the edge off of the supply-and-demand imbalances that we had when inflation was very high two years ago." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/examining-how-economic-pla...
Immigration: "After hitting a record high in December 2023, the numbers of migrants crossing the border has plummeted since then. Harris and the administration have credited their tough anti-asylum measures for stemming the flow, although increased enforcement on the Mexican side has also played a key role." https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/elections/2024/where-trum...
Abortion rights: "At one of her first campaign events, she stated that if Congress “passes a law to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the United States I will sign it into law.”" https://www.aclu.org/news/reproductive-freedom/how-kamala-ha...
If you don't like what her positions are that's your prerogative but it's just not true that she did not have answers to these questions.
I think this is one of the disconnects: inflation has been decreasing. What I think people hear, which is wrong: the prices of things are coming down.
They're not coming down, they're increasing _slower_ than before, and before was bad. Prices for lots of things are much more expensive than before covid.
The reason that "inflation is better now" didn't stick is because half the country was telling the emperor they were clothed, and half the country saw a naked person.
What is your point?
There was a massive international financial crisis that outed the Labour government and brought in a Tory/Lib Dem coalition government based on promises of government austerity.
There was an independence referendum in Scotland where the main campaign point for staying with England was to ensure they stayed in the EU etc.
Then the Tories managed to pin the blame for the failings of the coalition on the minor partner and drew a line under that for the next election.
Then there's brexit, which was really a vote to put an end to bickering inside the Tory party. But the population, narrowly voted to leave the EU! This was very much a protest vote.
Then there's a utter crazy story of quick rotation of prime ministers and scandal and sleeze and very very poorly-received budgets and things.
So then this year Labour are back, and their main strategy was 'at least we're not the Tories'. They are not popular, but they are not the incumbents.
... yeah, fuck it.
in reality this was maybe priority #10
the main campaign point was currency
And then there's Nigel.
That would be the charitable interpretation, the alternate is that they are knowingly misogynistic, deeply racist and have strong fascist leanings to follow a flawed corrupt politician with cult-like devotion.
Shitting on your voter base is no way to win sympathy.
If you talk to the median voter their thinking will be like "something happened three years ago I was mad about" or "my husband wants us to vote this way because he saw it on TV" or "the Democrats want to legalize incest" or "I like voting for whoever I think is going to win" (and yes these are all real.) They especially do not have coherent opinions on economic policy.
Mainly the problem is the US doesn't have a coherent media ecosystem anymore and Republicans were better aligned with newer media, ie Facebook posts and bro-y podcasts like Rogan. So TV ads and "ground game" don't work.
Part of the reason why political media has seen such a decline in quality is because of that fundamental lack of understanding by the people. Neutral nuanced analysis doesn’t resonate because that’s some combination of too incomprehensible and not entertaining enough, which has led to the media landscape we have now where it’s turned to the televised version of junk food: hyper-processed with lots of salt and sugar and practically zero nutritional value.
That said, to some degree I don’t place fault on the people for this. A lot of it comes down to inadequacies in the education system when it comes to civics, wherein young people are not well equipped to become highly functional, fully conscious voting adults.
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Economic vibes with simplistic immediate effects if truly were a major factor then 2020 Biden would have won with bigger margins than Reagan did .
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Countries with far poorer literacy and school attendance rates and patchy education systems vote quite well informed.
In India for example every candidate (party or independent) must have a simple symbol because many voters cannot read, yet nobody is saying Modi wins because of lack of awareness or good understanding of his Hindu nationalist agenda or extreme right wing policies.
It is the third election for both, voters have had a decade to see the effect of the policies have had first hand no matter what they have been told
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Body electorates aren’t as dumb as we like to explain away.
Education, economics, even disinformation (foreign and local) all play marginal role, but can’t explain the core
At some point we have to accept that this is a deeply racist(who come in all colors) misogynist society with facist Christo white nationalism deeply ingrained.
There are aspects where we can compromise, or empathize and learn to live together on such as economy or immigration, basic human decency and healthcare are not it.
Also bit rich that we have to listen to their grievances, they haven't afforded anyone that courtesy, or respected the process of democracy.
If the results were other way round, we would be hearing conspiracy theories about election interference non stop. You can only compromise with people acting in good faith, it is clear that majority of Americans don't want to do that.
Echo chambers like HN or typical workplace of typical HN user give skewed image how much rational folks out there generally are. Most people that I ever met are trivially susceptible to smart manipulation via emotions, even to the point of shooting their own foot.
However we don’t get to use manipulation foreign, partisan or otherwise as crutch or excuse, post 2016 was full of that: oh there was Russian influence, he didn’t get popular vote or we didn’t know what MAGA stood for, as am sure there will be blame now on Biden not stepping down, Harris not having a primary, Gaza and inflation and dozen other things, and the platform would shift even more to right chasing the non existent center, instead of resetting to the left. The right has figured it out there is no centre and it is pointless to try to aim for it.
Bottom line is this is who Americans are , maybe the country can change and be better maybe not , but denying reality of is not the place to start.
Misogynistic was my first qualifier, it is not an coincidence that Trump has won only against women twice, and it is not an oversight that in 250 years America is nowhere close to electing a woman president.
misogyny is hardly the only factor but if there was woman on the top of the ticket than it absolutely seem to be number one factor .
You have to keep in mind it just wasn’t symbolic like in 2016. There are real tangible immediate threats to reproductive healthcare that this election also represented.
You're going to need to show your working here. How'd you get to this conclusion?
Women account for 51.1% population .
There are 25(15D:9R) female senators (25%)
There are 126(92D:34R) congresswomen (29%)
There are 2424 (1583D:815R) female state legislators (32.3%).
In addition to be poorly represented they are mostly democrats with 2-3:1 split from republicans.
It is important to note that ratio grows poorer higher the office , beyond senate it is 45:1 for VPs historically and 46:0 for presidency .
Given the higher life expectancy for women and fact that political office comes late in life they should be if anything more than 50% if gender does not play a significant role.
if not misogyny then it is on you to show why either women are specifically unqualified(!) or unwilling or uninterested in public office and why republican women in office are disproportionately missing in what is already low numbers
I can't see how anyone else in her position would have done much better. I don't blame Harris much.
I liked this podcast from Zachary Elwood:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DYBm6we1WcTtktFpqHj7K?si=A...
They reelected the DA that's prosecuting Trump on one of the populous counties, on the same election where the state swung further towards Trump.
Outside of the urban areas even "blue" states are red, or "purple."
The reality is that America voted for this guy. It's not nearly as regionally divided as liberals in America want to think.
For me, it means not going there anymore. I just won't cross the border for any reason.
Canada is next. There’s no escape from this kind of madness.
Not with a bang but a whimper, etc. etc.
But they can feed themselves.
And yet they hold democratic counties hostage. Somewhat like parasites.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/...
Alberta outright banned renewables development for 6 months and then slapped a huge set of restrictions on them after that "moratorium" was lifted. A tax on electric car owners added. The conservative parties nationally are on a constant drum beat about the national carbon tax and it's doomed. Weak emissions caps we have are also doomed. Any little things that have been done for the last 10 years will be undone.
At a recent party convention in Alberta, the ruling party passed a climate denial resolution as official party policy.
Amazingly lots of people on this forum trying to sanitize what these people are about.
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/11/06/UCP-Members-More-CO2-H...
Sigh. It's always a minority of humanity that has to save the rest from themselves, as they kick and scream and resist every step of the way.
Democratic counties produce goods that generally require an education and are significantly more valuable. Think big tech, big pharma, engineering, etc.
Democratic counties would be just fine without conservative counties. The inverse is not true.
If Conservative counties stopped sending food to Democratic counties, the Democratic counties would collapse into chaos LONG before they are able to secure alternative food supplies. It's a Hell of a lot easier to go 90 days without "Big Tech & Big Pharma" than it is to go 90 days without grains and chicken from flyover country.
1. The Blue States having their farming largely in Red Counties.
2. The Blue Counties, aka the cities, do NOT have enough food to last until they can negotiate. New York City has a ~5-day food supply: ( https://www.nyc.gov/assets/foodpolicy/downloads/pdf/2016_foo... ). In 2017, 20% of New Orleans was considered food insecure: ( https://icic.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ROCK_Resilient_F... )
Let's just assume you can secure beef and other foodstuffs, from, say Argentina, on DAY ONE of a Red-County food blockade. A ship from Buenos Ares to Los Angeles takes 20+ days. So even if you acted immediately foodstuffs would arrive in LA two weeks after the supermarkets would be empty.
No, I was aware of this, I just didn't think it mattered as much, and I still think it's not that big a deal if there are a few months to adjust.
> The Blue Counties, aka the cities, do NOT have enough food to last until they can negotiate. New York City has a ~5-day food supply: ( https://www.nyc.gov/assets/foodpolicy/downloads/pdf/2016_foo... ). In 2017, 20% of New Orleans was considered food insecure: ( https://icic.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ROCK_Resilient_F... )
On this I stand corrected. I was thinking of all the food in the state though, and I mean all food period. Everything in warehouses, everything in every supermarket, etc.
In an emergency situation, all the food in NY state would surely last more than 5 days? Besides, I don't think it would take that long to negotiate food trade for a short term emergency period, maybe from Canada.
If the red states really could hold blue states hostage over food, then, well, that sucks. I guess ideally trade could be stopped gradually in a more civil way instead of blockades where people would suffer, I'm sure a ton of shit red state people buy on Amazon and Walmart has to come from blue states, so there would certainly be something to leverage.
My point was inaccurate, but I think the larger point I was trying to make still stands - eventually, blue states would not need red states if they could move farming to blue states, there is enough land to do so especially looking at the latest map with how few blue states there are. Red states really have little to offer that blue states can't replace in a few months. The inverse is not true.
I'm having trouble finding detailed sources on food warehousing, but what I've seen so far suggests that because of Just-in-Time logistics, there is actually very little food warehousing away from the "last mile" distribution locations. Keeping large quantities of food stored is expensive (climate control, other methods to avoid contamination) and laborious (government-mandated inspections, etc.), so I'm not surprised if there aren't many places sitting on a 30 or 60-day supply of chicken breasts or something unless some government agency forces them to do it. Businesses see every type of unused inventory as a cost center.
> I guess ideally trade could be stopped gradually in a more civil way instead of blockades where people would suffer,
Well the whole point is to communicate the "nuclear option" of non-gradual blockade that risks immense suffering.
> I'm sure a ton of shit red state people buy on Amazon and Walmart has to come from blue states, so there would certainly be something to leverage.
It has to come through Blue ports, but something like 70% of Amazon products are made in China: ( https://www.statista.com/chart/33376/share-of-items-sold-on-... ) ( https://notochina.org/how-to-tell-if-a-product-is-made-in-ch... ). Sourcing stuff from China is about to become massively more expensive for everyone if Trump goes through with his tariff plan. The other problem for Red States is shifting overall logistics chains away from West Coast container ports (such as Long Beach) to Red Texas and Florida ports. Even if the capacity requirement drops because Red Counties have lower populations than Blue Counties, it's still a logistical headache, and expensive.
> eventually, blue states would not need red states if they could move farming to blue states, there is enough land to do so especially looking at the latest map with how few blue states there are
If it was reasonably profitable for that land to be used for agriculture, you better believe these massive agri-businesses would already be raping, uh, I mean "cultivating" those areas.
> Red states really have little to offer that blue states can't replace in a few months. The inverse is not true.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs would suggest otherwise: people can absolutely live without Apple Vision Pro and Hollywood movies.
Also consider that law & order in cities is already tenuous (partially thanks to Defund the Police and the Summer 2020 riot fallout). Do the cities have the law enforcement manpower or WILLPOWER to suppress even a week's worth of absolute chaos from supply disruptions before they devolve into Haiti-level anarchy? They can barely maintain order even now. ( https://www.foxnews.com/us/fallout-from-weekend-chaos-philly... )
Give them the show they want, promise them something and they happily make you their king.
They don't ask you to fulfill the promises. They just want to hear them.
That's it.
I envision actual politicians and journalists calling trump what he is more rather then less.
Well, the US Supreme Court decided more or less exactly that presidents can break the law and get away with it: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrrv8yg3nvo
And "calling him what he is" has so far failed to sway his supporters, I don't see how it will do it now. OTOH, he (probably?) won't stand for election again, so the point is probably moot...
I stand by "politician should not mean being lawless". US Supreme Court being pro lawless when it comes to GOP is just politics of US Supreme Court. It does not mean law should not matter or that trying to apply law is fighting dirty.
no, they did not. The court pointed out that the remedy (specified in the Constitution) for a president who breaks the law is impeachment and conviction by the house and senate. After which, that former president could be subject to prosecution.
It is funny how these things turn out and who actually does what in the end and how differently it is treated.
I agree, but I call it "dirty fight" because that's what it's perceived as by the Trump supporters.
It is not dirty fight, full stop. Dirty fight would be to act like Trump and his supporters do or approaching it.
I suggest Democratic party to become more aggressive rather then forever trying to paint themselves as "the adult ones" and forever put themselves into center. It just does not work and serves only to allow overtone window to move toward radical conservativism.
I suggest we stop demanding that "both sides" are described in the same terms. I suggest we stop following nonsense:
> We need to talk to them, we need to understand where they're coming from, we need to help clear the air between "us and them" so that there won't be an "us and them" and so we can _together_ avoid people that tell us what we want to hear.
For example, conservative Christians are coming from the point of view of someone who thinks women should be submissive to men, should have less legal rights, abortion and contraception are wrong because they allow for safer sex.
For example, quite a lot of people in GOP are coming to it with idea that being gay is disgrace, being trans deserve severe punishment and that being criminal is cool as long as you are rich white guy.
Actually engage with these rather then euphemism them away.
The economy might be what swung this vote, but long-term it's hard to understate how much ground the D's have lost among religious voters for "embracing sexual immorality". Believe it or not, bringing up hypocrisy does work on many of them (at least it might make them stay home) and mere apologies won't erase it. Latinos are where this jumps out in statistics, but it's far from limited to them.
Possibly the reason D's didn't do that (much) was because it would have little down-ballot effect, and no effect on future candidates?
(on another angle, we could've seen "we have reined in Trump's inflation so at least it won't get worse", "Trump gave unconditional handouts without the Democrat-recommended constraints", etc.)
Trump is currently leading by over 5,000,000 votes and there does not appear to be momentum to change that lead in the remaining precincts.