American politics

[Rorschach]

It's a problem that they have to cater to so many different groups and struggle to find any common ground while the grifters and nutjobs in the other party back each other in everything as long as they get some of what they want for themselves.

Yes it is a big tent but there are a lot more that agree with dem policies than do not.

The lesson dems should take (but won't) is you need to lock in your own base first and foremost. fudge the reactionaries. They are ungetable. Bernie voters sat this one out and that was critical.

The left then need to build a comparable information ecosphere to counteract the lies from the other side. It is a war against disinformation and they are losing it. And once twitler destroyed that platform the dems were left with MSM to try and get their message out, and they are like cats chasing a GOP laser most of the time.

 

[Lost Mango]

Read one take the other day that suggested it was, as always, "the economy, stupid."

At the tail end of the pandemic half the country (the less fortunate half) were basically on welfare, with pandemic pay-outs. These were allowed to die in Congress through their sunset clauses.

Despite the economy being better than it was four years ago the average American felt worse off than they did 4 years before because of the removal of benefits and therefore voted against the incumbent party for the bloke who could vocalise that feeling of being better off when he was in charge (even though that betterness had very little to do with him or his policies).

 

[Bullet]

On one side we have a bunch of grey nobodies quietly discussing policies and rights. Imagine Douglas Hurd talking to John Major about a very boring subject.

On the other side we have Hulk Hogan downing beers and shouting and dancing on a gold piano. All eyes are on him. Especially when he exclaims that they're eating the dogs. Or that he will buy each and every person a spaceship with a space laser. That is AWESOME.

 

[thfcsteff]

These posts quite succinctly sum up the problem(s) the Democrats have, but not in the way you think they do.

Democrats still think the issue is that people were tricked into voting Republican, or that it was a matter of the Republicans being better at messaging and advertising.

What they can't seem to fathom is that most of the US simply disagrees with them. It's reminiscent of the remainders after Brexit - they just couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that people disagreed with them. Voters must have been tricked, it must have been bots or Russian interference, etc, etc.

The Democrats are on the leftward fringe of the Overton window in the US and they'll have to take up space in the centre of that window if they're to have a hope in 4 years time.

You're late as always.
I wrote this earlier too.

"It's a scary thing to consider...but sadly there are few other conclusions. For all the hope that the majority of people in the US care about inclusivity, social support and a balanced society, it seems as if Mike Judge's Idiocracy really WAS some sort of documentary."

Take that as you wish.

 

[scaramanga]

Tacking right is what lost them the progressive vote. Playing footsie with Cheney and the never-trumpers in an effort to peel off wavering Trump voters lost them too much of their own base. Trump didn't get many more votes than previous elections. It was the drop off in dem votes that swung it.
And most Americans agree with dem policies on the whole. When they go left they win, not the other way around.

See? You're all in that same echo chamber where you've all convinced yourselves everyone agrees with you.

They don't. Americans (rightly or wrongly) don't want what you're selling. They voted for Trump in huge numbers, despite everything everyone knows is wrong with him. An electable candidate would have been even further ahead.

Take a look at the graphs earlier in this thread. Those people telling you the Democrats need to swing to the left are that minority made of white, university lecturers who are way to the left of the rest of the rest of the population.

 

[scaramanga]

You're late as always.
I wrote this earlier too.

"It's a scary thing to consider...but sadly there are few other conclusions. For all the hope that the majority of people in the US care about inclusivity, social support and a balanced society, it seems as if Mike Judge's Idiocracy really WAS some sort of documentary."

Take that as you wish.

Still the same issue.

I don't think the American population is all that bright on the whole. Voting for someone like Trump is certainly not a sign of coherent thought processes (although in a two party system there often isn't a good choice).

But to dismiss everyone voting the other way as dumb is precisely the kind of sneery, self-congratulating snobbery that has turned much of the US away from the Democrats.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

You see, this is still the same problem.

Was there misinformation? Of course. Blatant lies? Definitely. This is how election campaigns have been run since the dawn of democracy - it's one of the main reasons people tend not to trust politicians.

But that's not why the Democrats lost. It's not because their message was smothered or hidden or blatantly lied about. It's not because people failed to call out lies when they saw them. It's because their message is not what the majority wants to hear.

Yes, telling people what they want to hear is always a top tactic.

But when much of what you're saying is from the 'WTF' envelope and is still swallowed/lapped up/worshipped (delete as appropriate)....there's something a miss.

There's a new form of communication that's being leveraged (weaponised) that interfaces with humans like nothing before.

 

[Grays_1890]

There's a new form of communication that's being leveraged (weaponised) that interfaces with humans like nothing before.

Its also a case where the popularity contest is more important than anything that anyone says or does. Just being someone seems to be enough of an excuse to ignore whats being said or actions. I find we are in scary times where someone like McGregor has people believing he is a victim because he was aiming for a political career, that kind of voting for someone and ignoring they are a rapist because they have popularity credit is something I find really fckuing scary.

Yeh historically politicians lied and the who thing is murky at times, but allowing free passes for the proven criminal because you think they are fun or they are a personality, its a worry.

 

[thfcsteff]

Still the same issue.

I don't think the American population is all that bright on the whole. Voting for someone like Trump is certainly not a sign of coherent thought processes (although in a two party system there often isn't a good choice).

But to dismiss everyone voting the other way as dumb is precisely the kind of sneery, self-congratulating snobbery that has turned much of the US away from the Democrats.

I don't do that.
Didn't in 2016 either.
If you don't understand what I mean by the Idiocracy comment, it's best you ask rather than assume.
When implying that people take positions you'd be wise to find out if they actually do.

If you ever want a discussion on American politics/American society from someone who knows what they're talking about -me- then feel free to ask. Otherwise avoid the cliches and inaccurate assumptions.

 

[Rorschach]

See? You're all in that same echo chamber where you've all convinced yourselves everyone agrees with you.

They don't. Americans (rightly or wrongly) don't want what you're selling. They voted for Trump in huge numbers, despite everything everyone knows is wrong with him. An electable candidate would have been even further ahead.

Take a look at the graphs earlier in this thread. Those people telling you the Democrats need to swing to the left are that minority made of white, university lecturers who are way to the left of the rest of the rest of the population.

Which echo chamber would that be? Twitter? The NYT? There is no space on the internet that hasn't been infected with the malice of the right.
They got to get in there to own the libs, dontya know!! This goes to my main point that the information war has been lost by the left (and infowars by the right ). The right in America operate in an alternative reality built from alternative facts. To quote Maria Ressa - "without facts, you can't have truth; without truth, you can't have trust. Without these, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with the existential problems”

What great policies do the right have that are enticing voters anyway? Project 2025? The GOP lost the battle of ideas decades ago. Gingrich saw the writing on the wall that if they proceeded with politics as normal they would forever become a minority party out of government. He decided to take a full confrontational approach. America wants exactly what the Dems are selling - their policies poll consistently high across the board even among Republicans - but like turkeys voting for Christmas they pull the GOP lever anyway. Mind fudged by the massive outrage-and-hallucination engine that we’ve hooked our society up to. When it dawns on people that opting for authoritarianism because eggs were expensive their buyer's remorse will eclipse that of the brexiters.

 

[scaramanga]

Which echo chamber would that be? Twitter? The NYT? There is no space on the internet that hasn't been infected with the malice of the right.
They got to get in there to own the libs, dontya know!! This goes to my main point that the information war has been lost by the left (and infowars by the right ). The right in America operate in an alternative reality built from alternative facts. To quote Maria Ressa - "without facts, you can't have truth; without truth, you can't have trust. Without these, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with the existential problems”

What great policies do the right have that are enticing voters anyway? Project 2025? The GOP lost the battle of ideas decades ago. Gingrich saw the writing on the wall that if they proceeded with politics as normal they would forever become a minority party out of government. He decided to take a full confrontational approach. America wants exactly what the Dems are selling - their policies poll consistently high across the board even among Republicans - but like turkeys voting for Christmas they pull the GOP lever anyway. Mind fudged by the massive outrage-and-hallucination engine that we’ve hooked our society up to. When it dawns on people that opting for authoritarianism because eggs were expensive their buyer's remorse will eclipse that of the brexiters.

The four most highly ranked points in terms of priority across the board were border security, crime, the economy and cost of living. Trump was well ahead in most polls on those four issues.

Harris was strongly ahead on two issues - abortion and climate change. The problem is, both topics are way down the priority list for the vast majority of Americans.

When asked to rank the candidates on a scale of left to right, Harris was rated as far left of centre as Trump was to the right. In a centre right country like the US, lurching leftwards is political suicide.

 

[thfcsteff]

America has long been a personality-driven country when it comes to politics. Trump is an entertainer. He rides that wave and shakes that booty. Between him and the misinformation bureau he has deployed, they hornswoggled everyone again by simply saying the stuff they want to hear - 'the others will pay for taking the tinkle out of America, I'll lower your taxes, I'll get rid of all illegals, things will be cheaper' - no substance, just 'tell 'em what they wanna hear'. I've said for a long time that the dems should've engaged in personality politics after 2016, seeking someone who could deliver 'a' message and deal with the details once across the line. People don't give a fudge about details sadly; they want to hear what they want to hear. Honestly, as macaronic as this will sound, if Duane 'The Rock' Johnson ever wanted to get into it and declared Dem, he'd stand a fighting chance in the current idiocracy.

One other thing that @scaramanga and some others have missed. The whole 'woke' thing. It is a manipulated tag phrase. The amount of people who are 'extreme' in the 'woke-sense' are no more than the amount of MAGAs who are actually facists. May, many people in the middle get polarised by believing that there are nazis and commies running ramapant. Division politics has been rampant for a decade now. Trump and his mob did a great job convincing people that anyone with a remotely non-Trumpian thought is a 'woke a r s ehole' which is of course not true.
Again the whole idea of 'woke' is a tidy construct designed to give the right a great little tool to bludgeon people with. In fact, their use of language - from MAGA to WOKE- is, err, no joke.

 

[Rorschach]

America has long been a personality-driven country when it comes to politics. Trump is an entertainer. He rides that wave and shakes that booty. Between him and the misinformation bureau he has deployed, they hornswoggled everyone again by simply saying the stuff they want to hear - 'the others will pay for taking the tinkle out of America, I'll lower your taxes, I'll get rid of all illegals, things will be cheaper' - no substance, just 'tell 'em what they wanna hear'. I've said for a long time that the dems should've engaged in personality politics after 2016, seeking someone who could deliver 'a' message and deal with the details once across the line. People don't give a fudge about details sadly; they want to hear what they want to hear. Honestly, as macaronic as this will sound, if Duane 'The Rock' Johnson ever wanted to get into it and declared Dem, he'd stand a fighting chance in the current idiocracy.

One other thing that @scaramanga and some others have missed. The whole 'woke' thing. It is a manipulated tag phrase. The amount of people who are 'extreme' in the 'woke-sense' are no more than the amount of MAGAs who are actually facists. May, many people in the middle get polarised by believing that there are nazis and commies running ramapant. Division politics has been rampant for a decade now. Trump and his mob did a great job convincing people that anyone with a remotely non-Trumpian thought is a 'woke a r s ehole' which is of course not true.
Again the whole idea of 'woke' is a tidy construct designed to give the right a great little tool to bludgeon people with. In fact, their use of language - from MAGA to WOKE- is, err, no joke.

Hornswoggled is a much underused word. I'm going to use it in the supermarket this weekend. I'll report back.

 

[thfcsteff]

Hornswoggled is a much underused word. I'm going to use it in the supermarket this weekend. I'll report back.

Excellent. I look forward to the reports. Try to apply when buying eggs, loudly declaring, "The price of these oeuffs? Pah! I've been hornswoggled!"

 

[Rorschach]

Excellent. I look forward to the reports. Try to apply when buying eggs, loudly declaring, "The price of these oeuffs? Pah! I've been hornswoggled!"

I better bring my monocle in case they think I'm a weirdo.

 

[Rorschach]

The four most highly ranked points in terms of priority across the board were border security, crime, the economy and cost of living. Trump was well ahead in most polls on those four issues.

Harris was strongly ahead on two issues - abortion and climate change. The problem is, both topics are way down the priority list for the vast majority of Americans.

When asked to rank the candidates on a scale of left to right, Harris was rated as far left of centre as Trump was to the right. In a centre right country like the US, lurching leftwards is political suicide.

You are more or less confirming my point that control of media narrative was more important than reality.

Trump claimed crime was on the rise but this of course was a lie. Crime had dropped under the Biden presidency. That a convicted felon, rapist, and insurrectionist who crimed his way through his first term was seen as better on crime than a prosecutor tells a story.

Similarly, on the economy, it was doing well by all the usual hellscape capitalist metrics you use to measure these things. Unemployment dropping month on month and inflation way down. Why didn't this help Harris instead of Trump? It is because folks were told the economy was never worse by the right-wing megaphone and that message stuck. This is helped of course by the misconception that conservatives are actually good at running an economy which is pure fiction.

On immigration, it was Trump that killed the border bill. Did he pay any price for that (or any of the million bricky things he did as president last time)? Latino men voted for Trump in big numbers and he is going to put them in camps and deport them ffs.

The current administration was one of the most successful legislatively ever, but none of that made one jot of difference. Nobody knew about those accomplishments. As I say, if you control the message you can convince enough people to vote against their own interests. The left need to learn this lesson (narrator - they won't).

As for climate, my thing as you know, that more or less didn't factor in this election at all. It barely came up and the climate community were not happy with this. I know this as fact as I spend a lot of time in this space. To give the most important issue of our time so little attention was a big mistake and cost Harris a lot of progressive votes. She needed those badly.

I completely disagree with you that moving right is the way to win in America. It just hands the field to the GOP. Moving right to try win mostly unwinnable votes just sheds more votes from your own base, as this election shows. To win back Obama and Bernie voters you need to give them something to vote for and that is not being a slightly less brick version of your opposition (as Labour will soon find out!).

 

[thfcsteff]

You are more or less confirming my point that control of media narrative was more important than reality.

Trump claimed crime was on the rise but this of course was a lie. Crime had dropped under the Biden presidency. So a convicted felon, rapist, and insurrectionist who crimed his way through his first term was seen as better on crime than a prosecutor tells a story.

Similarly, on the economy, it was doing well by all the usual hellscape capitalist metrics you use to measure these things. Unemployment dropping month on month and inflation way down. Why didn't this help Harris instead of Trump? It is because folks were told the economy was never worse by the right-wing megaphone and that message stuck. This is helped of course by the misconception that conservatives are actually good at running an economy which is pure fiction.

On immigration, it was Trump that killed the border bill. Did he pay any price for that (or any of the million bricky things he did as president last time)? Latino men voted for Trump in big numbers and he is going to put them in camps and deport them ffs.

The current administration was one of the most successful legislatively ever, but none of that made one jot of difference. Nobody knew about those accomplishments. As I say, if you control the message you can convince enough people to vote against their own interests. The left need to learn this lesson (narrator - they won't).

As for climate, my thing as you know, that more or less didn't factor in this election at all. It barely came up and the climate community were not happy with this. I know this as fact as I spend a lot of time in this space. To give the most important issue of our time so little attention was a big mistake and cost Harris a lot of progressive votes. She needed those badly.

I completely disagree with you that moving right is the way to win in America. It just hands the field to the GOP. Moving right to try win mostly unwinnable votes just sheds more votes from your own base, as this election shows. To win back Obama and Bernie voters you need to give them something to vote for and that is not being a slightly less brick version of your opposition (as Labour will soon find out!).

Trump aligning with Musk was the X (pardon the pun) factor. Had that union not happened I think he would've run out of puff and peddle. With X in his pocket he has the perfect propaganda vehicle. All it cost him was promising Musk a role in government/advisory should he win. For Musk it was a win/win. Now he gets to direct policy which will directly benefit him. Despicably predictable.

 

[Rorschach]

Trump aligning with Musk was the X (pardon the pun) factor. Had that union not happened I think he would've run out of puff and peddle. With X in his pocket he has the perfect propaganda vehicle. All it cost him was promising Musk a role in government/advisory should he win. For Musk it was a win/win. Now he gets to direct policy which will directly benefit him. Despicably predictable.

This was a huge factor, no doubt. I often see comments belittling the impact twitter has because of its relatively small user base but this is wrong. It has an outsized impact on public discourse and having both the owner and the algorithms shilling for Trump will move the needle. It was not the only social media platform putting its thumb on the scales either.

edit: this from Thomas Zimmer (who is sharp as a tack) is spot on IMHO

Thomas Zimmer (@thomaszimmer.bsky.social)

Musk is yet another example of how short the path from a certain kind of libertarianism to the far-right is, a reminder that this type of libertarianism is driven by a desire for freedom from regulation and criticism of any kind, a freedom to exploit and dominate.

bsky.app

 

[scaramanga]

You are more or less confirming my point that control of media narrative was more important than reality.

Trump claimed crime was on the rise but this of course was a lie. Crime had dropped under the Biden presidency. That a convicted felon, rapist, and insurrectionist who crimed his way through his first term was seen as better on crime than a prosecutor tells a story.

Similarly, on the economy, it was doing well by all the usual hellscape capitalist metrics you use to measure these things. Unemployment dropping month on month and inflation way down. Why didn't this help Harris instead of Trump? It is because folks were told the economy was never worse by the right-wing megaphone and that message stuck. This is helped of course by the misconception that conservatives are actually good at running an economy which is pure fiction.

On immigration, it was Trump that killed the border bill. Did he pay any price for that (or any of the million bricky things he did as president last time)? Latino men voted for Trump in big numbers and he is going to put them in camps and deport them ffs.

The current administration was one of the most successful legislatively ever, but none of that made one jot of difference. Nobody knew about those accomplishments. As I say, if you control the message you can convince enough people to vote against their own interests. The left need to learn this lesson (narrator - they won't).

As for climate, my thing as you know, that more or less didn't factor in this election at all. It barely came up and the climate community were not happy with this. I know this as fact as I spend a lot of time in this space. To give the most important issue of our time so little attention was a big mistake and cost Harris a lot of progressive votes. She needed those badly.

I completely disagree with you that moving right is the way to win in America. It just hands the field to the GOP. Moving right to try win mostly unwinnable votes just sheds more votes from your own base, as this election shows. To win back Obama and Bernie voters you need to give them something to vote for and that is not being a slightly less brick version of your opposition (as Labour will soon find out!).

I'm not suggesting they move to the right to take unwinnable votes from the Republicans, I'm suggesting they move rightwards to win back moderates from the centre ground.

 

[Rorschach]

I'm not suggesting they move to the right to take unwinnable votes from the Republicans, I'm suggesting they move rightwards to win back moderates from the centre ground.

Those votes would be won if they actually knew what they were voting for is my point. Anyway, no matter what Democrats do they will still be labelled as the radical left/Marxist/socialist/eco-zealot enemy. The left need to build a counter balance to the rightwing media machine first and foremost.

One interesting development is the rise of Bluesky. The climate community effectively abandoned twitter (and threads) and moved en masse there since the election. The platform shows a lot of potential but it is too early to say if it will kill the bird off.