Donald! Trump!

@boomerlives

Oh god, no. Let’s not do that again.

Sorry.

It’s a ridiculous statement that I made really, as given the particular average you choose, it is simply a statement of fact.

But it’s real in this debate, because people are making the “surely people thought about…” or “clearly this was never going to happen…” class of statement.

And the reality is that most people don’t think long and hard in sophisticated ways.

They go with one or two factors that resonate with them.

And most often that’s cash in pocket today, direction of travel of their standard of living.

As the saying goes – “It’s the economy, stupid.” – Jim Carville strategist in Bill Clinton’s 1992 U.S. presidential election.  (Stupid referring to election workers / pundits not voters)

Sure Remainers indulged in a lot of insulting of Leavers but, however gratuitous the delivery and associated decoration, one main thing stood out.

Whilst a lot of stereotyping and insulting was simply gratuitous, I don’t ever recall seeing a Remain voter resort to threats of physical/sexual violence against someone or their family. I recall several social media interactions with Leave voters escalating to actual threats within about three posts.

A quick dig into many Leave voters’ profiles revealed some pretty disturbing racism, misogyny, and general hate – on open display.

Then, of course, there was the spelling, punctuation, and resorting to block capitals.

In any case – it’s been done a million times already, so “meh”.

I presume this has also been done on here, but Jonathan Pie gets it pretty much spot on. I watched supertanski’s assessment too – a bit too hysterical for me, but not far off either.

It is a sad time for decency, joy and outward-looking optimism.

Pff – for once, couldn’t watch Pie. 🙁

it is not a reliable way of winning them over to reconsider their lived experience influencing their vote in the future.

I don’t want this to be lost in the noise, as I think it’s a very pertinent point for the US and UK.

Quite how we get people to see the bigger picture and what has been delivered for society rather than simply believe the same old slogans, I don’t know.

And to add some caveats – it’s really hard to see a bigger picture when inflation is crippling your living standards, no one cares that inflation is a global issue as much as a government issue, and it seems a significant chunk of Americans,  however much we don’t understand or agree,  really don’t want their government to get involved in doing  things to improve society as a whole, merely to get rid of the perceived problems of the society, so “stop immigration” but not “provide affordable healthcare”.

It’s very odd.

I think that’s balls – the Dem campaign didn’t do that, and were I an American citizen, my vote would not have been swayed by one set of voters thinking me a “libtard”

Biden was caught on camera referring to Trump supporters as garbage. That won’t change anybody’s mind, but is an enormously effective way to motivate casual Trump supporters to bother to get out and vote for Trump and so stick it to that nasty Dem who insulted them.

You are right it doesn’t sway anyone, but it definitely motivates them to bother voting!

One of the things that has become evident from the more detailed polling is people want change, society is not happy with the status quo, and the democrats didn’t offer that.

IMO any government that is serious about protecting democracy has to change political funding to remove the billionaires and lobbyists from the system, The populists will continue to win if policy offerings from mainstream politicians are already decided by their backers before the public even get to vote. In the UK we need to realise that reforming the HOL or bringing in proportional representation will only be windows dressing if we don’t remove the back end money that is directing politics.

@fueled Was that not in response to Trump’s campaign rally referring to Puerto Rico as garbage?

Agreed though, allowing yourself to be baited by Trump et al is probably not a good move.

change political funding

The democrats spent about 3 times what the republicans did on this campaign.

In any case, what’s the point of 4 years of navel-gazing now?

This has (again) knocked my faith in people to be fundamentally decent. I simply don’t think that is true for a majority of folk anymore.

There is a meme of Dr Suess’s The Cat In The Hat that sums things up for me pretty well. It’s a good job I can’t figure out how to embed it as it would get me a ban.

How? Why? We scream in incredulity at Brexit, Trump, Johnson, Farage, Braverman, Orban, Meloni, Le Pen, Wilders etc.

At the very top level. Right at the end when you step back from it all…

Most People Are…

If you call Dems marxist, communist, low IQ, stupid, nasty radicals – the Trumpists all cheer and lap it up.

There is a significant difference between insulting politicians, which every one loves doing, and insulting their voters.

That, and they cannot bear the thought of a woman in charge.

That was once the perceived wisdom with regards to Tory Party members and Tory voters. We have had 4 female Tory Party leaders and 3  female Tory prime ministers, whilst not one single female Labour leader/PM

Kamala Harris lost the presidential election first and foremost because she was the Democrat candidate and a leading figure in the current administration, trying to deny that and looking for other excuses won’t help to learn the lessons that need to be learnt.

And those lessons are also relevant to the UK if it is to avoid a far-right government after the next general election.

is people want change, society is not happy with the status quo, and the democrats didn’t offer that

But there are two very different ideas of “change”… one is about deportations, tax breaks for the rich, cutting off from other countries, ostracising minorities, reducing state support for the needy, putting fossil fuel profits ahead of climate change issues etc… the other is about redistributing wealth, cooperation across borders, human rights, public health, and slowing and preparing for more climate change… and the USA, like elsewhere, is split pretty much down the middle about which changes we need… with the majority this time around choosing the changing tide that Trump is travelling on.

The democrats spent about 3 times what the republicans did on this campaign.

Wrong – they raised about twice what the Republicans did over the same period (August-Nov) but didn’t spend all of it.  The numbers I saw were $1.1bn combined split £440m Rep and $760m Dem.  BUT, Republican Superpacs raised the same if not more than the Dems and spent more.  That’s Presidential.  The Republicans spent more than the Democrats on the House and Senate races.  I don’t know about the Gubernatorial races.

In Georgia’s Baldwin County 40% of voters are African American, it voted Republican for the first time in 20 years.

Obvious maths is obvious.

What is the obvious maths? It is obvious that 100% of non African Americans voted Republican for the first time in 20 years?

Quite how we get people to see the bigger picture

I refer you to my previous post. When Corbyn lost in 2019 everyone was shouting that labour needed to listen to voters rather than lecture them. Yet now it’s the opposite and we should be teaching them how to vote properly?

it seems a significant chunk of Americans,  however much we don’t understand or agree,  really don’t want their government to get involved in doing  things to improve society as a whole

Nope. They voted for Trump because he was offering to do exactly that. We may not like the things he is promising to do, but he is promising to do a lot. It was the Democrats who were pedalling the non-interventionist state approach.

The democrats spent about 3 times what the republicans did on this campaign.

Exactly, the democrats were unable to offer the change the voters wanted because their billionaire backers won’t allow it. Democracy fails when an elite group are allowed to control politics through finance.

Although the current dems seem at least as wedded too neoliberalism as the GOP, that will never change when they are reliant on the super wealthy to finance them.

unable to offer the change the voters wanted

Which is…?

I can’t be sure of the validity of the claim but I have heard it suggested that Kamala Harris’s celebrity endorsements are likely to have backfired. The suggestion is that ordinary voters don’t like to be lectured on how to vote by a wealthy privileged elite who have no real understanding of their lives, even if they enjoy their singing and acting skills.

Which if true is rather ironic considering that the wealthiest man in the world was urging them to vote for Trump.

And a similar level of hypocrisy applies in the UK with regards to the claim that Nigel Farage is some sort of a ‘man of the people’ politician.

I think the takeaway is that patronising and lecturing voters isn’t quite a straightforward as some might imagine.

Trump won the election because the majority of white Americans are racist to some degree or other.

ordinary voters don’t like to be lectured on how to vote by a wealthy privileged elite who have no real understanding of their lives

That photo made me think Musk had taken a bullet for the Tangerine Palpatine.

Trump won the election because the majority of white Americans are racist to some degree or other.

That doesn’t explain why he lost in 2020.

It was the Democrats who were pedalling the non-interventionist state approach.

Musk supposedly is going to be in charge of cutting Federal spending by a third. Proper austerity. Most definitely a promise of a smaller state doing less…

https://fortune.com/2024/10/28/elon-musk-cut-2-trillion-federal-budget-trump-rally/

“We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocket book.”

The suggestion is that ordinary voters don’t like to be lectured on how to vote by a wealthy privileged elite

We’ll need to think of a collective term for

Elon Musk

Hulk Hogan

Dana White

Bryson DeChambeau

Joe Rogan

Russell Brand

Jake Paul

Mel Gibson

We’ll need to think of a collective term for

Elon Musk

Hulk Hogan

Dana White

Bryson DeChambeau

Joe Rogan

Russell Brand

Jake Paul

I’m pretty sure there are a couple already in use.

Mel Gibson

@igm

It’s a ridiculous statement that I made really, as given the particular average you choose, it is simply a statement of fact.

I’m on the Carlin side with you, I think – but don’t set off the stats nerds.

is people want change, society is not happy with the status quo, and the democrats didn’t offer that

You will have to explain to me, using simple words, how getting the same guy back again, is ‘change’

The only lesson the Dems can take is – don’t run a woman against Trump.

The rest is all chaff

This has (again) knocked my faith in people to be fundamentally decent.

I’m afraid this, along with Brexit and the immigrant hysteria I hear from all sides has done the same for me.

The suggestion is that ordinary voters don’t like to be lectured on how to vote by a wealthy privileged elite

It’s more a case of voters don’t like to be lectured on how to vote by people who think differently to them.

Musk supposedly is going to be in charge of cutting Federal spending by a third

He could start that now by stopping taking all the various subsidies for his companies. I suspect though thats going to be a growth area in federal spending.

The only lesson the Dems can take is – don’t run a woman against Trump.

I’d say the message is more like: don’t run a technocrat against a celebrity. I remember reading (way back then) that a lot of people voted for Bush over Gore, simply because they knew they’d be seeing them on the news everyday for the next 4 years, and the thought of that being Al Gore was enough to make them vote Bush…

You will have to explain to me, using simple words, how getting the same guy back again, is ‘change’

In simple words the “change” is replacing a  Democrat President, who is considered to have failed, with someone who has no connections with the current administration.

A Democrat politician unconnected to the current Biden administration, and who offered something substantially different, might have energised voters to vote for them, Kamala Harris apparently didn’t.

Some of it was just simply bad luck on the part of the Democrats, as this comment by Arjun Sengupta in the Indian Express points out, although a vision of change could still have been offered by a Democrat candidate.

Kamala Harris becoming the Democratic nominee did not change the fundamental dynamic of the race. As an article in The Telegraph put it: “incumbents don’t win when voters are miserable”. And the past four years under Joe Biden did make many Americans miserable — inflation ran rampant, unemployment was rife, and the economy witnessed a steep downturn. 

Not that Biden could have prevented a global pandemic or stopped Russia from invading Ukraine, prime drivers of the United States’ economic downturn, he still copped the voters’ blame for their dwindling fortunes. Even though things are much better now — by some accounts, the Biden administration has actually been very successful in leading the US out of an economic crisis — this seems to not have registered in the average voter’s calculus, who still vividly remembers the difficulties faced during the pandemic and after.

Contrast this with the Trump presidency, during which the stock markets soared, unemployment fell to historically low levels, and inflation was manageable, it is not all too surprising why most voters favoured Trump over the incumbent vice president on economy. And pre-election polling had suggested that this was the single most important issue in this election.

Harris simply did not promise the transformative agenda that voters yearned for, and although Trump’s propositions have been far from definitive, positive, or even deliverable, his promise to bring change that voters so desperately want has propelled him to an unprecedented victory.

A Democrat politician unconnected to the current Biden administration, and who offered something substantially different, might have energised voters to vote for them, Kamala Harris apparently didn’t.

She was asked what she would do differently to Biden in a recent interview and replied that she wouldn’t change a thing while Trump’s last rally ended with him asking the crowd ‘ are you better off now than you were four years ago? I reckon that would’ve swayed a lot of undecided voters

We’ll need to think of a collective term for

Elon Musk

Hulk Hogan

Dana White

Bryson DeChambeau

Joe Rogan

Russell Brand

Jake Paul

Mel Gibson

Trumpets?

It is obvious that 100% of non African Americans voted Republican for the first time in 20 years

WtF 😀

supernova
Full Member
This has (again) knocked my faith in people to be fundamentally decent.

I’m afraid this, along with Brexit and the immigrant hysteria I hear from all sides has done the same for me.

A lot of my friends are a bit Brexity, ive always been fundamentally opposed to it and always will. Some of these friends I’ve known for decades. Some of them have been through some pretty rough times one way or another, they’ve also been there for me when I’ve been through similar.

I don’t care one iota about some of their politics, we dont chat about it other than the occasional, genuinely friendly jibe over a beer or whatever.

Anyway, I’m just trying to say that I count them as really good friends, they’d drop everything to help me if they could and id do the same for them.

Most people really are pretty decent but you can’t expect them to be carbon copies of our own morality or politics. 

Trump will be a memory one day and we’ll all be worried about someone or something else.

This too shall pass and all that. 🙂

She was asked what she would do differently to Biden in a recent interview and replied that she wouldn’t change a thing while Trump’s last rally ended with him asking the crowd ‘ are you better off now than you were four years ago? I reckon that would’ve swayed a lot of undecided voters

And that’s not even a difficult question to answer, even if she didn’t plan to change much, she could have still talked about the future and how their policies will affect and improve peoples lives.

That doesn’t explain why he lost in 2020.

Trump lost in 2020 as more people simply showed up to get him out.  Trumps vote numbers for 2024 are near identical to 2020.  Harris’ are almost 20% lower than Biden.  13m votes.  It seems that either people didn’t want her specifically, the democrats more generally or were more ambivalent about Trump.

I don’t think the Democrats did themselves any favours by continually trying to target Trump, they just made him a martyr and less objectionable, so much so that people didn’t show up to vote against him.

It seems that either people didn’t want her specifically, the democrats more generally or were more ambivalent about Trump.

I totally agree. I think the Democrats had a poor candidate with a poor campaign which didn’t energise voters sufficiently. I don’t think the primary reason is that American voters are racist.

The really telling stat for me from the election was a question in exit polls about import issues.  Less than 10% of Republicans believed that being trusted to keep your word was important…So, as long as Trump says he’s going to do something, they happy whether he does it or not…erm, okay?

the number 1 priority given in exit polls was the economy, all incumbent governments have been hammered at the elections post  inflation bomb

the Dems couldve put the original JFK up and still lost and I suspect any other republican wouldve likely won too

Elon Musk

Hulk Hogan

Dana White

Bryson DeChambeau

Joe Rogan

Russell Brand

Jake Paul

Mel Gibson

In Mountaineering there is a word that rhymes which is described as: a fixed object (such as a tree or a piton) to which a climber’s rope is secured