The other piece though is they sent an unintentional message to the rest of the world that American political system is hijackable in a way they ought to be concerned about.
Trump is an accurate representation of the median American voter. Progressive anericans refuse to accept that.
Why they won’t accept that is anyone’s guess.
On foreign policy? Probably not.
Like, Biden wasn’t an accurate representation of the median American voter on e.g. transgender kids in school sports. That wasn’t just right-wing delusion.
Why? You haven’t actually argued that point.
In this case it’s “American Voter” as the category. This is what messes most people up, because they read “American Citizen” but I’m describing only the subset of citizens who successfully vote.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte...
Using that number you’ll see what the demographics demonstrate: there are not as many progressive voters as there are “conservative” voters and only 2/3 of eligible voters even cared to vote.
If you zoom out even further and you evaluate which candidates run, then it really does not matter who is voting or not because ultimately who is on the ballot is dictated by a small group of party leaders, who in turn are dictated by whomever has the most money for ad spending.
Basically, the median American voter does not have a coherent position. It's futile trying to build a narrative around them.
In each of those other elections, most Americans (by millions) voted for democrats.
Donald Trump is an irrational randomly reactive, incoherent person who doesn’t know what he wants other than to just be in charge and to do whatever he wants all the time
If that doesn’t describe the median American voter I don’t know what does
I think the problem is that if you read what people say about why they voted for Trump, it becomes clear that an echo chamber is at least as salient to these voters as traditional Republican motivations.
I am unsurprised about the 2024 election and it's exactly what you'd imagine from a purely economic perspective.
The 2016 election, however, has been studied extensively, and it's clear that several aberrations (large contingent of Republican candidates, the first black president, Facebook, Comey) tipped things in a way that you wouldn't expect if voters are acting rationally.
So as someone who genuinely wishes to understand how people think about things, I don't know what's going on here. I can't tell what new lie will be pushed next week to distract us from the recently-disproven lie of last week. Were I outside all of this, I would have very little hope.
(edit: re sibling poster, Trump is not a representative of the median voter but instead a representative of the median electoral college elector. We can't have it both ways, rejecting the popular vote and then failing to acknowledge that our politics represent the electors and not the man on the street)
same can be said about people on the opposite side.
This is not true - the things that traditional Democrats supported in 1992 are largely the same things supported now.
The point is not the echo chamber. The point is that the echo chamber has changed the party orthodoxy.
No. See Bernie Sanders in 2015 talking about how America needs strong borders and illegal immigrants are used by big business to rip American workers off. See Obama’s speech on the same. See positions on trans identifying males in women’s sports. See open support for hiring based on sex and race. Many democrat positions from 20 years ago are now considered right wing.
You misinterpret my statement when you select hot-button issues of today that were not in the public discourse at that time- and almost none of the things you mention were in ANY public platform at that time.
My point is that the core political planks from then (healthcare for example, jobs for coal workers) are maintained in one political tradition and not another.
I live in a different western country but was old enough to watch the US news (Tom Brokaw) then. People did actually discuss these things. The consensus was: the border should exist. Tomboys were tomboys. Effeminate boys were effeminate boys. You can’t just have a policy of hiring someone based on their race because that’s silly and illegal.
I'm very curious about this if you're able to find records on this sort of thing.
From the top:
- I don't think the words we use on news these days were even allowed back then (rapists, Small Hands Rubio), so I don't think "these things" were discussed.
- "You can’t just have a policy of hiring someone based on their race because that’s silly and illegal." You said you're not American, so you may not understand that the current ethos of 'reverse racism' was not how this question was viewed in the 90's
- "the border should exist" This hasn't changed. I'm not sure why people are so ready to parrot this point, when Obama deported more people than any previous president, and Biden continued that. If anything, there has been a monotonic increase in this (but nevermind that many large businesses rely on undocumented labor)
- "Effeminate boys" I am sure that was never on the news in the 90s, and definitely not in a party platform. Gay people have always existed and it's a credit to our current era that we have finally started acknowledging that this isn't a 'wrong' way of living
Anyone with enough exposure to American culture to realise the reasons given for stopping anti black racism are now thrown out, and left wing activists are openly discriminating against Asians, Europeans and Jewish people.
“the border should exist” is now controversial. People think “defending migrants” (which I am) means defending illegal migration. There are suburban mom vigilantes taking on LEOs.
I am talking about sterilising and giving cosmetic surgery to effeminate boys and tomboy girls. We used to acknowledge they existed. Now we tell them their bodies are wrong. Which is not a credit to our current era.
All these positions are remarkably different from the 1990s. Asides from present day politicians having different views in older recordings, Bill Maher also talks about this very frequently.
I hate to bring up all the actions taken against American citizens and legal migrants.
> Bill Maher also talks about this very frequently.
I would not take his talking points to reflect Democratic Party orthodoxy. However, I would challenge you to compare his 1990s recordings to the more recent ones to see how things have changed.
Yes, for example this guy. He was indeed an american citizen, and anti-ICE activists framed it has him being kidnapped and driven around for two hours. The wider story is much more interesting: https://x.com/TriciaOhio/status/2013317071342317918
> I would not take his talking points to reflect Democratic Party orthodoxy.
Yes, agreed. That's the point. Bill Maher's views haven't changed much compared to 15 years ago, the Democratic Party's views have.
Also 'talking points' is a silly word for things people say. I write things, you write things. You don't have 'talking points' and I don't have 'talking points'.
Here we go again. The "You aren't rational" or "You should vote for my cause if you know what is good for you"
This does not work, it never will. I don't get why people think this is a good way to get people to see your viewpoint.
No human is 100% rational, doesn't matter if you are Progressive or Conservative, you don't get to claim to be rational and others not (relatively speaking).
Okay
> you don't get to claim to be rational and others not (relatively speaking).
Agreed. However, if someone presents a rubric to explain her actions, any person can assess that rubric and the actions for congruence. This is what I am doing.
This is perhaps true to an extent. But what is also true to an unprecedented extent for Americans is that this 'stance' is almost pure demagoguery. For many, there is no 'stance', their 'stance' is Trump, whether he hews close to a principle or completely contradicts it.