Remember, Republicans get out and vote. They would rather suffer and destroy America just so the democrats don’t win.
This is true.
Which raises the question: could Democrats use this reality (whatever they touch is poisoned, in eyes of the other side) to steer the result a bit?
Look at what that party collectively stands for now, who they kick out and who they keep. They all stand behind trump.
Presumably democratic reforms could help change the dynamic if they changed the incentives. Right now, it's a politically viable strategy to just obstruct the other party when out of power, and politically unviable strategy for Congress to oppose a president from the same party. Both of which lead to a lot of dysfunction.
As an example, if Congress had multimember districts with an appropriate voting system (e.g. ranked choice voting for all members at the same time), then you can effectively nullify the power of gerrymandered voting districts (the current system, where effectively politicians choose voters rather than the other way around). Doing so would elevate the influence of general elections over party primaries. Then representatives would be less afraid of challenges in those primaries, which is currently one of the major disincentives in opposing the president of the same political party (fear of being "primaried").
So conservatives win when progressives push for too many changes, not changing things is the default. So saying that the democrats lost the election by pushing too fast is not weird, that is just how humans works.
I'd argue that the asymmetry has less to do with change vs. no change and more to do with the Republican party currently being an "anti government" party (pivoting to that post New Deal). So less is expected of them in terms of functional governance.
With respect to change: I've heard a lot of commentary that the Republican party today is more of an instigator of change than the Democratic party (being seen as a defender of the status quo), despite the traditional alignment of Republican/conservative/no change. Democrats are seen as pro-institution and Republicans anti-institution.
In case it matters, I personally don't identify with a political party. I just want functional government and politics and I see a lot of dysfunction. I'm an engineer so naturally I gravitate towards systemic solutions to systemic problems.
Conserving distraction == wars, progressive distraction == LG, then B, then T, there are still letters in the alphabet to progress to - mandatory for school children to study in detail.
Conserving inflation same as progressive inflation, the small group benefiting form it - the same too.
Changing presidential candidates a few months before election and doing everything to let the other side win? Very progressive.
Promising no-more-wars and delivering more-wars? Very conservative.
Moral of the story - while 'progressive' and 'conservative' are used haphazardly, lacking precise and concrete definitions in terms of specific, measurable goals and commitments, using them for political analysis is just mud in the eyes.
Thanks so much for voting in Trump and his enablers.
Sometimes democrats do push too far left. Far left is not that much different than far right.
Who staffs your stores when everyone moves away? Who mows the lawn? Who builds the houses?
I don’t really give a rats ass who runs the internals of your country, and what goes on in San Francisco seems like a you problem. Due to voters like this, Trump is now my problem many thousands of miles away.
Don’t underestimate just how much ill will he is generating around the world, especially in allied nations, by insulting leaders and pushing up all of our energy prices.
One party or other mismanaging San Francisco or Seattle has zero effect on me here in Australia. A madman waving his dick around overseas and insulting everyone does though, and is costing me hundreds of dollars a month.
And you voted for it. Thanks.
The only way to win against Trump voters like you is to ignore them, because people like you will choose nazi until nazi are the only game in town.
Again, one sided. People are tired of it. More importantly, people are growing tired of the tolerance for the people who support the current happenings. Look around about what people who stayed out of the 2024 election said and it's that Dems were milquetoast and tried to be friendly and play both sides. Look around and see why republicans were fired up to vote. It's because they loved the demonization of Dems.
The funny thing is you can criticize the supporters. It's no problem. You can criticize Bush voters and everyone will agree with you. Why? Because nobody voted for Bush. Yet he won two elections. Meaning those people regretted their vote and now completely hide that they voted for him. They also retroactively hate the Iraq War, despite supporting it in 2003 and saying anyone who opposes it is unamerican. But those people will now say Dems started the war.
Trying to pull those people over is like trying to wrestle with a greased pig. No kind words will ever be enough to grab them. They're incredibly loyal to their side no matter what, and will deny ever supporting it the moment social pressure builds up too much. But interestingly, they also respect anger and vitriol against those they feel betrayed them. Republicans loved voting for Trump because he said he was against neocons and the Iraq War and all those people who voted for them. If Trump ever falls out of favor, those people who once supported him won't be begging for leniency. They'll put on a new hat and demand revenge against him and his supporters. They don't want a both aisles softy. They'll just pretend they were always against him.
Are you saying democrats didn't vote for Kamala since Kamala didn't call Trump voters evil? What are you on about? I see no reason why you should call Trump voters evil.
As I said its fine to call Trump evil, but why call the voters evil? What purpose does that serve?
Dems were disillusioned by the Biden administration's lack of meaningful effort to nail the previous administration's criminals to the wall. Merrick Garland was an absolute failure.
Add in things like cozying up to the Cheneys, and the incorrect assumption Trump II would be similar to Trump I.
I get that there are real asymmetries here, but I really don't think there are substantial blocs of swing voters who use "who has insulted them less" as a real factor. If that were the case, Trump would not have made the gains he did in 2024.
The important thing is to make people feel welcome in your coalition. It is clearly possible to do that either with or without being nice. It's just a different skillset.
One third voted Republican.
One third did not vote.
I hold the last group most responsible.
Third one didn't want to vote for zillionaires.
Perhaps next time there'll be someone to vote not representing the zillionaire-class?
The primaries were the worst, at least the generals you get conservatives voting party lines, the primaries are where "conservatives" decided that trump was their guy. just go back and read up on republicans descriptions of trump before they had to get in line in the wake of the trump victories. I exclusively hold the trump voters in the primaries responsible. We're the sort of country of laws that traditionally says any loser can run for office, its our job as a society to keep at least a plausible set of standards for who we want in office. "Conservatives" who went trump either failed to do their due dilligence, or they are aligned with trumps value system which common decency prevents me from describing in any detail.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/8/8/1786532/-Cartoon-Y...
Why are all the Democrats Fox News (and the actual President of the United States himself) does a "constant drum beat of disdain and hate towards" not doing the same thing? Why is this only a concern on one side?
If your thesis is true, you'd expect Trump's ratings to go up.
As far as I can see, partisan hatred doesn't matter, because pretty much everybody speaking and listening to such rhetorics have already made up their minds. The battle is fought in the middle, and these people don't care about latest Truth Social posts. They care about the price of gas.
Trump fucked with the one thing people will not forget about, because their livelihood depends on it. It's going to be... interesting.